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Increasing Margins

A re your practice groups operating in a manner that will lead the law lkfirm toward its goals for 2004? If not, it's time to get your house in order. As William Cobb, managing partner of Houston's WCCI Inc./ Cobb Consulting (Houston; 713-277-2300; www.cobb-consulting.com), explains, "the practice group is now critical to the future of the law firm. Clients have gained power and are demanding innovative solutions-not products. Without market-facing practice groups to respond to the changing client needs, the typical law firm departmental structure will become irrelevant."

According to Cobb, partners must work with multidi sciplinary teams and, more important, share their knowledge and client relationships. So with mid-year approaching and practice group leaders putting their business plans together, he reminds leaders of some simple ways to improve the return their firms can get on the time of professionals involved in the practice groups.

Best of all: Such efforts generally add to distributable income by as much as 30% on the revenues produced by the group, Cobb claims. Key is to remember that:

1. Job descriptions are no guarantee that practice groups will perform. "Many firms have great manuals but poor results," Cobb says. "Great practice groups have business planning models and ways to measure their own progress, but that cannot happen without ongoing coaching and a continuing educational process."

2. Practice groups must ask the critical questions, such as: "Who are we and what differentiates us from our competitors?" Then group members must set their targets, take action, and establish measures to ensure they are on track.

3. Running a section or practice group requires collaboration, which, Cobb says, is not much different from partnership. "Collaboration means that a group of people is bound by a common vision and set of core values and accountable to one another for the accomplishment of that vision."

4. Practice groups must be market-facing and solutions-oriented....

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