Law practice management (LPM) is the

management Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities o ...

of a

law practice In its most general sense, the practice of law involves giving legal advice to clients, drafting legal documents for clients, and representing clients in legal negotiations and court proceedings such as lawsuits, and is applied to the professi ...

. In the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

law firm A law firm is a business entity formed by one or more lawyers to engage in the practice of law. The primary service rendered by a law firm is to advise clients (individuals or corporations) about their legal rights and responsibilities, and to r ...

s may be composed of a single attorney, of several attorneys, or of many attorneys, plus support staff such as paralegals/legal assistants,

secretaries A secretary, administrative professional, administrative assistant, executive assistant, administrative officer, administrative support specialist, clerk, military assistant, management assistant, office secretary, or personal assistant is a w ...

(including legal secretaries), and other personnel. Debate over law as a

profession A profession is a field of work that has been successfully ''professionalized''. It can be defined as a disciplined group of individuals, '' professionals'', who adhere to ethical standards and who hold themselves out as, and are accepted by ...

versus a

business Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or Trade, buying and selling Product (business), products (such as goods and Service (economics), services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for pr ...

has occurred for over a century; a number of observers believe that it is both. Law practice management is the study and practice of

business administration Business administration, also known as business management, is the administration of a commercial enterprise. It includes all aspects of overseeing and supervising the business operations of an organization. From the point of view of management ...

in the legal context, including such topics as

workload The term workload can refer to a number of different yet related entities. An amount of labor Workload is the amount of work an individual has to do.Jex, S. M. (1998). Stress and job performance: Theory, research, and implications for managerial ...

and

staff management Staff management is the management of subordinates in an organization. Often, large organizations have many of these functions performed by a specialist department, such as personnel or human resources, but all line managers are still required to s ...

;

financial management Financial management is the business function concerned with profitability, expenses, cash and credit, so that the "organization may have the means to carry out its objective as satisfactorily as possible;" the latter often defined as maximizin ...

;

office management Office management is a profession involving the design, implementation, evaluation, and maintenance of the process of work within an office or other organization, in order to sustain and improve efficiency and productivity. Office management is ...

; and

marketing Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emph ...

, including

legal advertising Legal advertising is advertising by lawyers ( attorneys), solicitors and law firms. Legal marketing is a broader term referring to advertising and other practices, including client relations, social media, and public relations. It's a type of ma ...

. Many lawyers have commented on the difficulty of balancing the management functions of a law firm with client matters.

History

Lawyers started practicing centuries ago. Law firms as an institution date back to the 19th century, and in the United States began appearing in the period before the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

. predating the development of modern

management theory Management science (or managerial science) is a wide and interdisciplinary study of solving complex problems and making strategic decisions as it pertains to institutions, corporations, governments and other types of organizational entities. It is ...

. Today, the

George Washington University , mottoeng = "God is Our Trust" , established = , type = Private federally chartered research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $2.8 billion (2022) , preside ...

College of Professional Studies (CPS) offers a

Master of Professional Studies Master or masters may refer to: Ranks or titles * Ascended master, a term used in the Theosophical religious tradition to refer to spiritually enlightened beings who in past incarnations were ordinary humans *Grandmaster (chess), National Master ...

and Graduate Certificate in Law Firm Management.

ABA Law Practice Division

The leading organization focused on law practice management in the United States is the Law Practice Division of the

American Bar Association The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. Founded in 1878, the ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of acad ...

which traces its history back to the creation of the ABA Special Committee on Economics of Law Practice by the ABA Board of Governors on July 30, 1957. In August 1957, when Charles S. Rhyne became President of the ABA, he made one of his major objectives the institution of a “comprehensive program to aid members of the ABA in the field of economics of law practice”. He appointed the first Committee which consisted of five members and was increased in May of the following year to seven by action of the Board. The first Chair of the Special Committee was John C. Satterfield of Yazoo City, Mississippi. The Committee was charged with the duty of laying the groundwork for the development of practical suggestions to lawyers, designed to improve their economic status. Combined with this, there was to be an increase in coordination of assistance to lawyers in the business phase of the practice of law, achieved by ABA through its staff, committees and sections and by the state and local bar associations. An early publication from the Committee was ''The 1958 Lawyer and His 1938 Dollar''. Satterfield was elected President of the

in 1961 during which ''The Lawyers Handbook'' was first published and distributed to all attorneys who joined the ABA that year. By action of the Board of Governors at the ABA Annual Meeting in August 1961, the Special Committee was made a standing committee of the Association and

Lewis F. Powell Lewis Franklin Powell Jr. (September 19, 1907 – August 25, 1998) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1972 to 1987. Born in Suffolk, Virginia, he gradua ...

of Richmond, Virginia, was appointed as the first Chair of the ABA Standing Committee on Economics of Law Practice. Shortly after the completion of his term as Chair in 1962, he was elected President of the American Bar Association and subsequently became an Associate Justice of the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

in 1972. The Standing Committee on Economics of Law Practice published a bimonthly newsletter, Legal Economics News, and more than 30 books and pamphlets, three educational films, and an audio cassette program. The Committee continued to publish The Lawyer's Handbook. The Committee's staff answered over one hundred inquiries a month from attorneys regarding the application of sound management principles to the law office operation. In addition, a small group of attorneys led by J. Harris Morgan of Greenville, Texas, Kline Strong of Salt Lake City, Utah, Lee Turner of Great Bend, Kansas and Jimmy Brill of Houston, Texas, traveled throughout the US, presenting programs on law firm management. Their efforts created the need for the Section. Commencing in 1965 when John D. Connor served as Chair, the Committee presented the first of six National Conferences of Law Office Economics and Management in Chicago, which attracted approximately 500 lawyers throughout the country and several foreign countries. As activities expanded and lawyer interest in law office management increased, it became apparent that the committee structure could not meet the demonstrated need of American lawyers for assistance in law practice issues and limited the participation and contribution of interested and informed lawyers in the vital economics and efficiency programs of the Association. Accordingly, two members of the Committee, Robert S. Mucklestone of Seattle, Washington, the former Chair of the Young Lawyers Section, and Richard A. Williams of Little Rock, Arkansas were joined by William J. Fuchs of Haverford, Pennsylvania; John “Buddy” Thomason of Memphis, Tennessee; and Robert P. Wilkins of Columbia, South Carolina, and commenced efforts to form a section to address the subject of law office economics and management. Proponents for a new Section originally proposed that the Board of Governors recommend to the House the creation of a Section of Law Office Practice and Efficiency, but after deliberation it was determined that the new Section should be called by the Standing Committee name. At the ABA Midyear Meeting in Houston, Texas in February 1974, the House of Delegates approved establishing the Section of Economics of Law Practice. This action culminated a two-year effort to expand the Committee's work to a much wider lawyer population. The organizational meeting of the Section was held in April 1974 at the close of the Sixth National Conference of Law Office Economics and Management. Robert S. Mucklestone of Seattle Washington, who had served as the Chair of the ABA Committee on Economics of Law Practice was elected the new Section chair with 1074 charter members. Those chosen to serve on the initial Section Council were selected from the members of the ABA Committee on Economics of Law Practice and the Committee on Legal Assistants, other ABA contacts, speakers from the National Conferences and attorneys active at the state level. The current chair of the American Bar Association Law Practice Division is Tom Bolt, a St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands lawyer with BoltNagi PC.

Other organizations and consultants

The Association of Legal Administrators (ALA)

professional association A professional association (also called a professional body, professional organization, or professional society) usually seeks to advocacy, further a particular profession, the interests of individuals and organisations engaged in that professio ...

, which was founded in 1971 is another organization that is concerned with law practice management. A large number of law practice

consulting firm A consulting firm or simply consultancy is a professional service firm that provides expertise and specialised labour for a fee, through the use of consultants. Consulting firms may have one employee or thousands; they may consult in a broad range ...

s also exist. Many

bar association A bar association is a professional association of lawyers as generally organized in countries following the Anglo-American types of jurisprudence. The word bar is derived from the old English/European custom of using a physical railing to separ ...

s have a law practice section or division which they allow non-attorney members due to the technical, non-legal basis of law office management.

Elements of law-practice management

Law practice management includes management of people (clients, staff, vendors), workplace facilities and equipment, internal processes and policies, and financial matters such as collection,

budgeting A budget is a calculation play, usually but not always financial, for a defined period, often one year or a month. A budget may include anticipated sales volumes and revenues, resource quantities including time, costs and expenses, environmen ...

, financial controls,

payroll A payroll is the list of employees of some company that is entitled to receive payments as well as other work benefits and the amounts that each should receive. Along with the amounts that each employee should receive for time worked or tasks pe ...

, and client trust accounts.

Software and legal research

Software applications have become increasingly important in modern law practice. Picking the best software for a law office depends on many variables. Practice management software, a form of

customer relationship management Customer relationship management (CRM) is a process in which a business or other organization administers its interactions with customers, typically using data analysis to study large amounts of information. CRM systems compile data from a ra ...

software, is among the most important, and features and functions of such management software often include case management (

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases sp ...

conflict of interest A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple interests, financial or otherwise, and serving one interest could involve working against another. Typically, this relates to situations i ...

checking,

statute of limitations A statute of limitations, known in civil law systems as a prescriptive period, is a law passed by a legislative body to set the maximum time after an event within which legal proceedings may be initiated. ("Time for commencing proceedings") In m ...

checking), time tracking, billing, document storage,

document assembly Document automation (also known as document assembly or document management) is the design of systems and workflows that assist in the creation of electronic documents. These include logic-based systems that use segments of pre-existing text and/or ...

, task management,

contact management A contact manager is a software program that enables users to easily store and find contact information, such as names, addresses, and telephone numbers. They are contact-centric databases that provide a fully integrated approach to tracking all in ...

, and calendaring and

docket Docket may refer to: *Docket (court), the official schedule of proceedings in lawsuits pending in a court of law. *Agenda (meeting) or docket, a list of meeting activities in the order in which they are to be taken up *Receipt or tax invoice, a pr ...

. Other software used includes

password A password, sometimes called a passcode (for example in Apple devices), is secret data, typically a string of characters, usually used to confirm a user's identity. Traditionally, passwords were expected to be memorized, but the large number of ...

security,

disk encryption Disk encryption is a technology which protects information by converting it into unreadable code that cannot be deciphered easily by unauthorized people. Disk encryption uses disk encryption software or hardware to encrypt every bit of data that g ...

, mindmapping, desktop notes,

word processing A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consen ...

, and

email management Email management is a specific field of communications management for managing high volumes of inbound electronic mail received by organizations. Today, email management is an essential component of customer service management. Customer service cal ...

. Some firms use modified versions of

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

software. Most law firms also subscribe to a

computer-assisted legal research Computer-assisted legal research (CALR) or computer-based legal research is a mode of legal research that uses databases of court opinions, statutes, court documents, and secondary material. Electronic databases make large bodies of case law easily ...

database for

legal research Legal research is "the process of identifying and retrieving information necessary to support legal decision-making. In its broadest sense, legal research includes each step of a course of action that begins with an analysis of the facts of a probl ...

. Such databases provide

case law Case law, also used interchangeably with common law, is law that is based on precedents, that is the judicial decisions from previous cases, rather than law based on constitutions, statutes, or regulations. Case law uses the detailed facts of a l ...

from case reporters, and often other legal resources. The two largest legal databases are

Westlaw Westlaw is an online legal research service and proprietary database for lawyers and legal professionals available in over 60 countries. Information resources on Westlaw include more than 40,000 databases of case law, state and federal statute ...

(part of

West West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sunset, Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic languages, German ...

, which is owned by

Thomson Reuters Thomson Reuters Corporation ( ) is a Canadian multinational media conglomerate. The company was founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where it is headquartered at the Bay Adelaide Centre. Thomson Reuters was created by the Thomson Corpora ...

) and

LexisNexis LexisNexis is a part of the RELX corporation that sells data analytics products and various databases that are accessed through online portals, including portals for computer-assisted legal research (CALR), newspaper search, and consumer informa ...

, but other databases also exist, such the free

Google Scholar Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in beta in November 2004, the Google Scholar index includes p ...

, and the newer

Bloomberg Law Bloomberg Law is a subscription-based service that uses data analytics and artificial intelligence for online legal research. The service, which Bloomberg L.P. introduced in 2009, provides legal content, proprietary company information and news ...

, as well as Loislaw (operated by

Wolters Kluwer Wolters Kluwer N.V. () is a Dutch information services company. The company is headquartered in Alphen aan den Rijn, Netherlands (Global) and Philadelphia, United States (corporate). Wolters Kluwer in its current form was founded in 1987 with a ...

) and several smaller databases. These document automation tools allow any lawyer to create their own workflows, in the same way that companies like LegalZoom and RocketLawyer offer standardized automated document production for individuals and small businesses. Some

s and lawyers' organizations have their own software; for example, the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys' CounselPro program is designed for

estate planning Estate planning is the process of anticipating and arranging, during a person's life, for the management and disposal of that person's estate during the person's life, in the event the person becomes incapacitated and after death. The planning inc ...

lawyers and assists in producing

wills Wills may refer to: * Will (law) A will or testament is a legal document that expresses a person's (testator) wishes as to how their property ( estate) is to be distributed after their death and as to which person (executor) is to manage the pr ...

trusts A trust is a legal relationship in which the holder of a right gives it to another person or entity who must keep and use it solely for another's benefit. In the Anglo-American common law, the party who entrusts the right is known as the "settl ...

, and other

legal document Legal instrument is a law, legal term of art that is used for any formally executed written document that can be formally attributed to its author, records and formally expresses a legally enforceable act, process, or contractual duty, obligation ...

s, as well as other documents such as thank-you letters.

Firm personnel

Human resource management Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, ...

(managing personnel) is an important aspect of law practice management, and many books and other resources offer advice to firms on this topic. Law firms often employ a number of non-legal personnel or support staff; according to one figure, the average attorney to non-attorney ratio is 1 to 1.3. Many firms and other organizations employ a professional non-attorney legal administrator, or law firm administrator, to manage non-attorney personnel and the administrative aspects of the firm. The

for legal administrators is the Association of Legal Administrators (ALA), founded in 1971. Over the past two decades, the role of legal administrator has changes as duties have expanded and become more complex, and as more firms hired administrators; the ALA grew from less than a thousand members in 1976 to over 8,000 in 1995. According to the ALA, in 2007 some 76 percent of legal administrators were women in their 40s and 50s. The main duties of legal administrators are the financial, operation, and human resource management of the firm. A legal administrator is similar to an

office manager Office management is a profession involving the design, implementation, evaluation, and maintenance of the process of work within an office or other organization, in order to sustain and improve efficiency and productivity. Office management i ...

executive director Executive director is commonly the title of the chief executive officer of a non-profit organization, government agency or international organization. The title is widely used in North American and European not-for-profit organizations, though ...

, but often with some expanded duties. Depending on the size, needs, and type of law firm, the firm may employ a separate

database manager In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases spa ...

network administrator A network administrator is a person designated in an organization whose responsibility includes maintaining computer infrastructures with emphasis on local area networks (LANs) up to wide area networks (WANs). Responsibilities may vary between org ...

marketing director A chief marketing officer (CMO), also called a global marketing officer or marketing director, or chief brand officer, is a corporate executive responsible for managing marketing activities in an organization. Whilst historically these titles may ...

computer systems A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as C ...

or information technology manager, bookkeeper,

accounts payable Accounts payable (AP) is money owed by a business to its suppliers shown as a liability on a company's balance sheet. It is distinct from notes payable liabilities, which are debts created by formal legal instrument documents. An accounts payable ...

and

accounts receivable Accounts receivable, abbreviated as AR or A/R, are legally enforceable claims for payment held by a business for goods supplied or services rendered that customers have ordered but not paid for. These are generally in the form of invoices raised b ...

clerk, and others.Ellen Freedman, How Many Non-Lawyers Does It Take to Run a Law Firm? (2005). Freedman Consulting, Inc. (version of article originally appearing in the ''Pennsylvania Lawyer'' March/April 2001 issue).

References

External links

Law Practice Management Section
of the

- includes article from the section's publications: ''Law Practice'' bimonthly magazine, ''Law Practice Today'' monthly webzine, ''LawPractice.news'' bimonthly newsletter, and ''ABA Women Rainmakers'' monthly newsletter Practice of law Management by type