P2P

86 LYNMARIE LANE is a legal marketing professional with more than 20 years of experience and great stories to tell. She is currently leading the marketing efforts for Source Consulting Group LLC and is embracing the dynamic world of legal technology. Case in point. Within the past year, a firm attempted to deploy the profitability module, which was sold to them as an add-on to their existing software. They came to Source to help enhance that module, as it was incomplete in aggregating and presenting the correct information. The consultants knew that to pull the data and build the dashboards, they needed to reach out beyond the IT department. They connected with the accounting staff, who understood not only the billing rates but also the actual cost rates for each partner and the direct and indirect costs associated with them. They also connected with the HR teams and others to get the data inputs that partners would find valuable. Source created a series of profitability reports, presented them to some partners, and determined what the partners wanted to see. And now, they are in the process of building these custom reports, layered on top of existing systems, to help other firms understand their true profitability. Their work is not just for large law firms, but more importantly, for mid-sized and smaller law firms that may not have a profitability solution in place. "The big law firms will always be profitable, but the smaller and mid-sized firms have to compete – they need to understand their profitability," Gibson added. What they might not realize is that obtaining dashboards and other reports is not as daunting as it seems. Nor does the conversation end there. Having this more informed view of profitability and putting it in the rearview mirror will also enable partners to focus on improvement and measuring a lawyer's (or employees') value on more than just profit. Profitability should be the pulse that gives a lifeline to those other critical areas. While many lawyers fully understand how their practices become and remain profitable, most do not have actionable data at their easy disposal. When they have this information in an easy-to-view dashboard format, they will become more educated and profitable regarding their practices.

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