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KPIs in the Legal Sector: How to Determine and Monitor Them

  • Every CRO and legal department wants success for its organization and its employees. The driving factor for success is undoubtedly a solid plan for getting there. But what exactly does success mean for you and your company? Which direction do you want to go? And how exactly do you want to get there?

Evaluation of success can be a challenging task. Here, you must differentiate between the desired qualitative result and the quantitative goals that are necessary to achieve this goal. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) can help with this process.

What is a KPI (Key Performance Indicator)?

Key performance indicators, abbreviated “KPIs”, are business indicators that evaluate the performance and success of a company. KPIs provide the data and knowledge needed to answer key questions, and they should be measurable, detailed, and tailored to a company's specific goals.

How to determine the most important KPIs for your company

Creating and implementing KPIs is a difficult process involving political sensitivities, change management obstacles, coordination issues, and infrastructure constraints.

Here are a few questions to get you started:

1. Why are you creating KPIs? What is the main goal? Do you justify the value? Show off your achievements? Observe trends? Determine education? Spending as a benchmark?

2. What are the goals of the department? What are the overall goals of the company? Is there a strategic plan that you could see?

3. Which features are important for management (companies, legal department, business areas)? Interview all key stakeholders, including the head of legal department, business units, and those who will be using your KPIs. They must understand what matters to them and promote acceptance.

4. Is there someone in the organization who has extensive experience in defining and implementing KPIs? If this is the case, you should visit these people and talk to them about their experiences. This could save you a lot of time at the start of work.

5. Is it possible to track key figures in other areas? What do they look like and how are they rated and measured?

6. What is the company's overall experience with key performance indicators? Have they been used before? If so, how have they proven successful? What were the most important findings?

7. Which processes and technologies are already in place that could be helpful in measuring and creating key figures? What procedures and tools would need to be put in place and what would that effort look like?

8. What is the role of the KPI program in relation to other priorities of the department? Is it important enough to get started right away? Does it have to wait? Before you get started, make sure you have enough time and resources to dedicate yourself to the task. Everyone is annoyed by a stop-and-start approach.

Three major challenges you'll face

Creating and implementing an effective KPI program is a huge undertaking that requires attention as the team continues to operate “business as usual,” which in itself is a huge challenge.

Here are a few more obstacles you should be prepared for.

Generating an actual list of measurement results is neither easy nor fast

  • This requires coordination with the entire legal team from the outset to get their approval, as well as a timetable with objectives to keep the project on track.

It is difficult to know WHAT to measure

  • The question of how to measure is more complicated and often requires infrastructure upgrades and change management. In the early stages of KPI development, this is often overlooked. Understanding the capabilities of your infrastructure and how data collection affects your team's activities from the start can save you time and effort in the long run.

Data analysis is a minefield

  • Be critical of the figures and ask lots of questions when you evaluate and analyze the data (especially in the initial phase) before sharing it with the team, organization, or business unit.
  • It will take some time to refine the process and avoid the dangers of “garbage in, garbage out.” A critical review of data should be a milestone in your overall plan for implementing KPI. Only when you are convinced of the data should you continue.

The most important legal KPIs that need to be measured

Customer-related KPIs

Acquiring a client is only half the battle for a law firm. Establishing a good relationship is critical to your company's success, as it increases client satisfaction and strengthens your firm's reputation. Here are a few customer-related KPIs to keep an eye on:

Die durchschnittliche Gebühr pro Kunde Die Anzahl der von jedem Kunden bearbeiteten Fälle Akquisition neuer Kunden Bewertungen der Kundenzufriedenheit (Umfragen oder Berichte)
Die Anzahl der Anwälte, die jedem Mandanten zugewiesen werden Aktive Kunden Die durchschnittliche Anzahl der gelösten Fälle Die durchschnittliche Anzahl der gelösten Fälle Kundenbindungsraten

employee productivity

If you are engaged in legal work, it is difficult to Your team's productivity to keep an eye on. To ensure that your organization is operating at maximum efficiency, you need to monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) for employee efficiency. In the legal industry, time is the be-all and end-all, and you want your employees to work effectively to generate healthy income. The following is a list of key performance indicators for monitoring employee productivity:

Verlauf des Falles Überwachung der Kosten und Gebühren Nicht abrechenbare vs. abrechenbare Stunden
Zugang zum Fall Verwendungshäufigkeit Gesamtzahl der nicht in Rechnung gestellten Tage

finances

The job of every law firm is to maintain solid finances and ensure profitability. Consider how you can track the following KPIs to ensure that your organization meets its financial goals:

Einnahmen aus monatlichen Abrechnungen Erfassungsquote Die aktuellste Betriebskostenschätzung Nettogewinn in Prozent der Einnahmen
Gesamtverschuldung des Unternehmens Dauer der Forderungen Die derzeitige Schätzung der jährlichen Einnahmen Netto-Gemeinkosten

Marketing for law firms

Marketing for law firms is just as important as marketing for any other type of business because it helps you attract new customers and get the attention of your target audience. You want to attract as many new customers as possible to ensure consistent income for your company. Here are some marketing indicators for law firms to keep an eye on:

Anzahl der monatlichen Website-Besucher Wirksamkeit des E-Mail-Marketings Traffic aus Referenzen (Referrals)
Konversionsraten auf Landing Pages Kundenakquisitionskosten Engagement in den sozialen Medien

Steps after recording your KPIs

After recording the most important KPIs, the next step is to create a report. KPI reports, which detail your legal team's progress, are critical for concentrating all staff.

top.legal software helps you to keep your bottom-of-funnel figures under control by understanding the key KPIs for concluding a contract. With people-based dashboards, you can Share data and improve your sales efficiencyvisualize, effectiveness, and speed.

The reports are often a valuable measure of how well your law firm has addressed specific issues (or lack thereof). Include the following important information in your KPI reports:

  • Changes to every KPI you track should be highlighted.
  • Indicate which KPIs require additional attention.
  • Explain the importance of the individual KPIs and how they impact the success of your law firm.
  • Remind everyone to keep an eye on KPIs regularly.
  • Charts and graphs can be used to visualize the progress of each KPI.

Conclusion

Capturing KPIs requires effort and patience, but the reward will be worthwhile if you see a significant change in revenue, customer acquisition, and other metrics. With the help of performance indicators, you can run your law firm more efficiently and improve the performance of your team members.

Schedule a FREE demo today to see how easy it is to measure KPIs and provide advanced and accurate reports with contract management software from top.legal to create.

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