According to FIFA the main purpose of VAR is to ensure that no clearly wrong decisions are made. So with Russia 2018 in full flow how can law firms use VAR to prevent poor decision making and consequently improve their financial performance.

I’m not suggesting videoing board meetings and re-watching them as often sitting through the meeting the first time was tough enough. I would suggest using it as a prompt to drive improved performance. Here’s how…

• Visibility

Do you know how your firm is performing and not just headline sales and profit but what is really driving them?  As an illustration do you know how your business is performing in terms of

Instruction numbers
Profile of work
Profitability of each work stream from both a client and product perspective
Current level of capacity

Taking that a step further how does this compare to how you need to perform to achieve your goals.

Ultimately you need visibility through accurate, relevant and timely information to drive behaviours.

As one of my clients said recently “you have given us greater visibility of our performance which in turn gives us confidence in our decision making “

• Accountability

Once you’ve set targets and started to measure them do you do anything with the results?

Any good analyst can create a pack of information with pretty graphs but unless you do something with it is worthless.  It’s vital to spend time on a regular basis to review your performance, set clear actions and follow up on them.  If your team know that actions will be followed up then you can be sure they will be done.

No accountability for failed actions will lead to ignorance of any actions set.

• Results

If you set clear targets, measure yourself against them and then take actions both to rectify the problems and promote the positives you will achieve the desired results. As a couple of examples in my experience this has led to

-Improved profitability on fixed fee work
-Better informed pricing decisions
-Timely recruitment meaning you get the right people and not just the people available right now
-Income growth due to innovative pricing offerings

Visibility                                         Accountability                                            Results

Having spent the last eight years in the legal profession I know many of the issues you face and the key drivers to target improved financial performance. I currently work with a number of law firms to achieve this and if you want a chat about how I can help you then please drop me a line at helen@176.32.230.27 or give me a call on 07960 564 203.