Legal Operations

If you want to survive in the wild, wild west of the legal industry, especially the personal injury sector, an effective intake department is table stakes. Here are five best practices for law firm intake based on lessons learned from building ours and from observing how other high-performing firms have operated theirs.

While Clifford Chance may be the latest firm to enter a legal battle with former partners over compensation clawbacks, it certainly isn’t alone, as pay disputes between firms and outgoing partners are becoming more common, amid rising partner pay and lateral movement.

The legal industry is going through the same leadership reckoning playing out across the Fortune 1000. The pioneers are already on the far side of the river. The settlers are crossing. And the stragglers are still deciding whether to go. Which camp are you in? And more importantly, who are you learning from right now?

Before the next CRM or AI investment, answer three questions honestly: Where does its data come from? How does it stay current without asking attorneys to maintain it? And what happens to our relationship intelligence when a partner walks out the door?

Artificial intelligence is rapidly embedding itself into legal workflows, but much of the conversation treats all use cases as if they carry the same level of risk, even if they do not. The more useful question is not whether AI works, but where it can be safely applied and where it cannot.

Traditional law firm models have long relied on profitability strategies anchored around several key levers, including annual rate increases, improved discount management and collections, and expense management. While these are necessary and important, they are subject to the law of diminishing returns as most firms with good execution capabilities can easily replicate these tactics.

Despite widespread investment into AI across the legal industry, just a small group of law firms are consistently realizing measurable returns in operational speed, financial visibility and revenue performance, according to a new report from Law.com and legal industry technology provider Elite.

Most firms are aiming their newest tools at the work they already do — pouring their most powerful technology into running the same tasks a little faster. But when everyone automates the same tasks at once, no one pulls ahead. That reaches the future a little faster while leaving a firm’s largest opportunity untouched — and that opportunity isn’t doing more of the existing work, but transforming how the high-value work gets done.