Practice Group Management & Business Plans

A theme I want to develop, and which I've alluded to before, is the impact that "Practice Group Management" can have on a firm's strategy, cohesiveness, and profitability.  What is "practice group management," in a nutshell?  It's creating a dedicated position—which may be filled by a former lawyer or a non-lawyer—as a quasi-chief operating officer of each of the firm's primary practice groups, in a "matrix" reporting relationship both "vertically" to the senior partners who actually run the practice and "horizontally" to the firm's CFO, CIO, CMO, etc., in order to obtain the tactical resources the practice group needs.

Hildebrandt has a new article out about this, focusing on do's and don't's for generating and executing a practice group's business plan.  Why a business plan at all? Without one, how do you know:

• if your strategy is evolving rationally and effectively;
• if the proper resources are—and are not!—being devoted to the practice group; and
• if the group's overall performance is meeting plans and expectations.

How does one develop a business plan, and, equally importantly, where can one go wrong?  First, both the practice group itself and firm management must take the plan seriously.  This means, at the very least, making sure the firm's strategy and that of the practice group are in alignment.  How obvious is that?   Apocryphally or otherwise, they report that "in some firms, practice leaders tell us that they have even submitted the same plan year after year with a different cover page;" can you say, "out to lunch?"  (Actually, can you say, "get me the *&@*# out of this firm!")

Conversely, getting the practice group itself to take the plan seriously requires full engagement from the start.  The practice leader should not draft the plan and circulate it for comment, because the group will tacitly reject it as the foreign body it is.  Rather, the practice group as a whole—OK, make it the partners only if you must—should develop it as a body, ideally at the groups annual retreat (and now's the time to inaugurate that tradition if you haven't already).   Fine, but what, then, is the actual content of the plan?

Essentially, it's "where are we today, where do we want to be in one to three years, and what concrete steps do we need to take to get there?"   In other words:

• what core services do we offer?
• what economic, national, and global trends are affecting the value of those services?
• who are we competing with [be brutally honest on this one]; and
• what makes our group truly distinctive [as above: and the answer is not "the quality of our lawyers," which is merely the price of admission].

If you're starting to feel depressed, and thinking this will all amount to an inordinate waste of time, making already-cynical lawyers more so, you need to decide if you honestly prefer the alternative, which is letting your group drift rudderless into the future, following a "strategy" of spasmodic and opportunistic initiatives occasioned by circumstance and your competitors.  Or, ask yourself this:  What would you advise a client in a hotly competitive industry who was leaving its future in the hands of chance?