7 Tips for Effective Legal Resource Allocation

Legal teams face increasing workloads with tighter budgets. Here are 7 key strategies to optimize your legal resources:

1. Use data to make decisions
2. Implement legal project management software
3. Prioritize tasks and projects
4. Balance team workloads
5. Utilize flexible staffing options
6. Monitor performance regularly
7. Encourage collaboration and knowledge sharing

Quick Comparison of Resource Allocation Methods:

Method	Pros	Cons
Data-driven decisions	Fact-based choices	Requires good data systems
LPM software	Streamlines workflows	Initial costs and learning curve
Task prioritization	Focuses on high-value work	Time-consuming to implement
Flexible staffing	Scalability, cost savings	Potential integration challenges
Regular performance monitoring	Enables quick corrections	Requires constant oversight
Knowledge sharing	Improves teamwork	Risk of over-sharing information

Key benefits: Faster turnaround times, increased productivity, higher client satisfaction, cost savings, and improved employee retention.

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1. Use Data to Make Decisions

Legal teams can make better choices about resources by using data. This means looking at numbers and information to guide decisions, rather than just relying on gut feelings.

Why Data Matters

Using data helps legal teams:

• Find ways to improve
• See if they're meeting their goals
• Use their resources wisely
• Do better work overall

Real-World Example

Michael Haynes, General Counsel at Juro, changed their main contract template. He made it simpler and linked it directly to the company's money goals. This change had clear results that the legal team could measure.

Key Numbers to Watch

Legal departments should keep an eye on these important numbers:

Number to Track	What It Means	Why It's Important
Legal Costs vs. Company Income	How much money is spent on legal compared to what the company makes	Shows if too much is being spent on legal work
Total Cost of Legal Work	All money spent on legal work, both inside and outside the company	Helps make sure money is being used well
How Long Contracts Take to Approve	Time from start to finish for contract approval	Affects how quickly the company can make money
Number of New Cases	How many new legal issues come in	Shows how much work the legal team has
Planned vs. Actual Spending	Comparing what was expected to spend with what was actually spent	Helps with planning and using resources

By watching these numbers, legal teams can:

1. Use their resources better
2. Work faster and smarter
3. Make smarter choices about hiring, outsourcing, and buying new tools
4. Show how the legal team helps the whole company

How Companies Use Data

Here are some ways real companies have used data to improve:

1. BusyLamp Example

   • A legal team used BusyLamp to track their usual spending
   • This helped them predict costs better
   • They sent reports showing spending by location, type of work, and who needed the work

2. Saving Money on Lawyers

   • One team looked at their data and realized they could hire two more lawyers
   • This actually saved them money compared to hiring outside help

3. Choosing the Right Law Firm

   • A team used BusyLamp to compare two law firms
   • They found they could use the cheaper firm more without losing quality
   • This saved them a lot of money

Tools That Help

Some tools can make using data easier:

• BusyLamp: Helps track spending and see costs clearly
• BigHand Resource Management: Helps law firms see who's available and manage workloads

Looking to the Future

New tools are coming that use smart computer programs to:

• Guess how likely a case is to succeed
• Help legal teams focus on cases they're more likely to win
• Find possible problems before they happen

These tools are especially helpful in places with lots of complex legal cases, like Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

2. Use Legal Project Management Software

Legal project management (LPM) software helps law firms work better and faster. It puts all tasks, documents, and team talks in one place. This makes it easier to manage resources and get better results for clients.

Here are some popular LPM software options:

Software	Key Features	Price Range
Clio	Case management, time tracking, billing	$39 - $139 per month
Asana	Task tracking, automated workflows, custom dashboards	$0 - $24.99 per month
Trello	Visual boards, drag-and-drop interface, cloud-based	$0 - $17.50 per month
ProProfs Project	Task scheduling, document storage, custom workflows	Starts at $2 per user per month

Real-World Results

1. Clio Success: A small law firm used Clio to handle a big class action lawsuit on their own. They didn't need to team up with a larger firm, so they kept more of the money they earned.

2. Asana Efficiency: Law firms using Asana say they work together better and spend less time on paperwork.

3. ProProfs Project Improvement: One mid-sized law firm finished 30% more projects on time after starting to use ProProfs Project.

What to Look for in LPM Software

When picking LPM software, make sure it has these key features:

Feature	Why It's Important
Task Management	Helps teams work better and know who's doing what
Time Tracking	Makes billing more accurate and helps earn more
Document Management	Keeps files organized and easy to find
Client Portal	Lets clients see what's happening with their case
Reporting	Shows how well the team is doing and where to improve
Integration	Works with other tools the firm already uses

Tips for Using LPM Software

1. Start Small: Begin with one or two features and add more as your team gets used to the software.

2. Train Your Team: Make sure everyone knows how to use the new tools.

3. Get Feedback: Ask your team what's working and what's not, then make changes.

4. Review Regularly: Check how the software is helping your firm and look for ways to use it better.

3. Rank Tasks and Projects

Legal teams need to focus on the most important work. To do this, they should use a system to rank tasks and projects. This helps them use their time and resources wisely.

Here's how to rank legal tasks effectively:

1. Look at how important the task is for the company
2. Check how risky the task is
3. See how urgent the task is

Creating a Ranking System

Follow these steps to make a good ranking system:

1. Set clear rules for ranking tasks
2. Use a simple system to group tasks
3. Get approval for high-priority tasks
4. Work with others to agree on priorities
5. Use software to help manage tasks
6. Check and update your system regularly

Example: 8x8's Priority System

Ilan Hornstein from 8x8 uses this system:

Priority Level	Description	Approval Needed
P0	Very urgent	Executive
P1	High priority	Executive
P2	Medium priority	Department leader
P3	Low priority	None

This system helps 8x8's legal team focus on the most important work first.

Tips for Better Task Ranking

1. Use a 0-10 scale for importance: Rate tasks based on how much they matter to the company. For example, a big merger might be a 9 or 10, while a simple contract review might be a 2 or 3.

2. Group tasks by risk: Use labels like "low," "medium," "high," or "critical" to show how risky each task is.

3. Consider urgency: Think about when each task needs to be done and how much work it will take.

4. Get input from others: Talk to business leaders to make sure legal priorities match company goals.

5. Use software to help: Legal project management tools can make it easier to track and manage task priorities.

4. Balance Team Workloads

Balancing workloads among team members helps prevent burnout and ensures fair task distribution. Here's how to do it:

1. Do a workload time audit for 2-4 weeks
2. Group tasks by priority, expertise, risk, and frequency
3. Talk to team members about their workload
4. Set up a standard process for new cases

Filling Skill Gaps

To address skill gaps and manage workloads:

1. Use services like Plexus Engage to find lawyers with specific skills
2. Give simpler tasks to junior staff like paralegals
3. Use legal operations teams to find work that can be automated
4. Train non-legal staff to handle basic legal tasks

Real-World Example

Shalley and Murray, a New York City criminal law firm, improved their case management using Knack software. This change made their data management and workflows better.

Don Murray, a partner at the firm, said: "I can't imagine keeping track of all this by hand anymore. I just can't even believe that we did that and survived as a business."

Tips for Better Workload Management

Tip	Description
Use software	Track tasks and manage cases with tools like Knack
Set follow-ups	Always have at least one follow-up task for each case
Make daily lists	Keep a "daily to-do" list to stay focused
Filter tasks	Use software to sort tasks by different criteria
Check regularly	Review case status and adjust due dates as needed

5. Use Flexible Staffing Options

Law firms and legal departments are using more contract attorneys and legal process outsourcing (LPO) to handle changing workloads and save money. This trend is growing fast.

A December 2022 survey by the Blickstein Group found:

• Over 45% of legal departments used more alternative legal staffing providers (ALSPs) in the past year
• 30% plan to use even more in the coming year

Here's why flexible staffing helps:

1. Saves money: Turns fixed costs into variable costs
2. Scales easily: Can quickly add or remove staff as needed
3. Brings in experts: Gets specific skills for short projects
4. Prevents burnout: Helps full-time staff avoid overwork (52% of attorneys report feeling burnout)

How to Mix In-House and Outside Help

To use outside help without hurting your team or work quality:

1. Use both: Combine outsourced paralegals with in-house staff
2. Try before you buy: Test flexible talent before hiring full-time
3. Focus on big picture: Let core team work on key tasks
4. Use tech: Get software to track who's free and assign work
5. Check often: Make sure your flexible staffing plan is working

Real-World Example: Kirkland & Ellis

Jon Ballis, Chairman of Kirkland & Ellis, found that high salaries weren't enough to attract top lawyers anymore. He said: "I know this sounds insecure, but I hear often that you are a tough place to work, and it's not worth it."

This shows why flexible work options are becoming more popular. They help lawyers balance work and life better.

Flexible Staffing Benefits

Benefit	How It Helps
Save money	Turn fixed costs into variable costs
Scale easily	Quickly adjust to changing workloads
Get experts	Bring in specific skills for short projects
Balance workload	Prevent burnout among full-time staff
Manage risk	Respond quickly to new legal issues

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6. Monitor Performance Regularly

Keeping track of how well your legal team is doing is key to making smart choices about resources. By using Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), legal teams can make better decisions based on real data.

Here are some important KPIs for legal teams:

KPI	What It Measures	Why It's Useful
Matters per Attorney	How much work each lawyer has	Helps balance workloads
Turnaround Time	How fast tasks are completed	Spots slowdowns in work
Cost per Matter	How much each task costs	Helps use money wisely
Legal Spend % of Revenue	How much the company spends on legal work	Keeps an eye on overall costs
Compliance Rate	How well rules are followed	Helps manage risks

Using these KPIs can help legal teams work faster and smarter. For example, Branch Metrics saw big improvements after they started tracking their work:

"We cut the time spent on each task by over 2 days - that's almost 60% faster! We used to take 4 days per task, but now it's only 1.7 days." - Daniel Michalek, Legal Operations Manager at Branch Metrics

How to Use KPIs to Improve

To make the most of your performance data:

1. Set clear, easy-to-measure KPIs that fit your company's goals
2. Use good systems to collect and look at your data
3. Check your KPIs often to see what's working and what's not
4. Use what you learn to make smart choices about your resources
5. Keep updating your KPIs to make sure they're still helpful

7. Encourage Teamwork and Information Sharing

Working together and sharing knowledge helps legal teams use their resources better. Here's how to make it happen:

1. Use tools that help people work together
2. Get teams to talk to each other more
3. Make it easy for everyone to share what they know
4. Have leaders show why working together matters

Tools for Working Together

These tools can help legal teams share information and solve problems:

Tool	What It Does	How It Helps
SharePoint	Central place for info	Keeps all work stuff in one spot
Microsoft Teams	Team chat and calls	Makes it easy to talk and meet online
Dropbox Paper	Work on docs together	Lets many people edit one file at once
Microsoft OneNote	Share notes	Helps make guides everyone can use
Workstorm	All-in-one work tool	Puts messages, files, and calls in one place

Using these tools can save lawyers time. For example, they can cut down 11 hours a week spent dealing with document issues.

To get the most out of these tools:

1. Have bosses use and support them
2. Make sure they follow legal rules
3. Set up ways to share info that work for everyone
4. Turn messy info into organized data
5. Give teams easy access to contract templates and clear steps for work

Real Results from Working Together

Clients now expect law firms to use new tech, like AI. A 2023 survey by Litera found that 73% of US lawyers doing mergers and acquisitions said clients ask about their tech tools, especially AI.

Law firms are using tech to:

• Share what they know across the firm
• Work faster and smarter
• Meet what clients want

Tips for Better Teamwork

1. Train people to do different jobs: This helps everyone understand each other's work.
2. Do team-building activities: These help people work together better.
3. Practice real work situations: This shows how to handle tough cases as a team.
4. Talk in ways each team understands: Legal leaders should explain things clearly to non-legal teams.

By working together better, law firms can:

• Make more money
• Get bigger clients
• Keep clients happy for longer

A study by McKinsey found that 54% of people who quit their jobs felt their work wasn't valued. By working as a team and sharing info, law firms can help their staff feel more important and want to stay.

Making Sure It's Safe

When using tools to work together, law firms must:

• Check that the tools follow legal rules
• Use business versions of tools, not personal ones
• Make sure client info stays private

For example, Virtual Deal Rooms let clients see all the papers for a big deal in one safe place. Clients now expect this for all kinds of legal work.

Conclusion

Effective legal resource allocation helps legal teams work better and make clients happier. By using the seven tips in this article, legal departments can do more with less.

Using data to make choices is key. When legal teams track important numbers and use project management software, they can decide what to do first and how to split up work. This, plus ranking tasks, makes sure the most important things get done.

Balancing work among team members and using flexible staffing helps teams handle changing workloads. By mixing in-house staff with outside help, legal departments can adjust to new demands while keeping costs down. Checking how well the team is doing lets managers make changes quickly.

Lastly, teamwork and sharing knowledge are crucial. When legal teams work together and use tools to share information, they can solve problems better and serve clients well.

Here's how these strategies can help:

Benefit	Result
Work gets done faster	Less time wasted
Teams get more done	People work at their best
Clients are happier	Work is done faster and better
Money is saved	Resources are used wisely
Staff like their jobs more	Work is fair and people can grow

As legal departments face more work with less money, using these tips becomes very important. By thinking like a business and using technology, legal teams can handle challenges, work faster, and do better for their companies and clients.

Real-world examples show how these strategies work:

1. Data-driven decisions at Branch Metrics: Daniel Michalek, Legal Operations Manager, reported: "We cut the time spent on each task by over 2 days - that's almost 60% faster! We used to take 4 days per task, but now it's only 1.7 days."

2. Flexible staffing trend: A December 2022 survey by the Blickstein Group found that over 45% of legal departments used more alternative legal staffing providers in the past year, with 30% planning to increase usage.

3. Technology adoption at Kirkland & Ellis: Jon Ballis, Chairman, noted that high salaries alone weren't enough to keep top lawyers. This led to more flexible work options to help lawyers balance work and life better.

4. Client expectations for AI: A 2023 Litera survey showed 73% of US lawyers doing mergers and acquisitions said clients ask about their tech tools, especially AI.

Expert Opinions

Legal industry experts have shared useful insights on how to best use resources in law firms and legal departments. Their views highlight the importance of using data to make decisions, adopting new technology, and managing staff wisely.

Sarah Day from DLA Piper stresses the need to understand each person's skills: "Resource managers should really know the individuals and their skills. This helps them assign work properly and understand what people want to do." This approach helps make sure team members get tasks that match their abilities and career goals, which leads to better work and happier employees.

Simon Beddow from BCLP points out the money benefits of good resource management: "We have fewer write-offs because the right people are doing the right work. Clients can see that we can add or remove team members as needed." This flexibility makes clients happy and helps the firm make more money.

Hammad Akhtar notes that resource management is becoming common practice: "Many of our associates talk to friends at other firms who see resource management as a normal part of work now. It's becoming expected." This shows that law firms are starting to see the value of planning how they use their resources to stay competitive and meet client needs.

The importance of using technology for resource planning is clear:

Statistic	Percentage
High-performing projects using project management software	77%
Firms with less work implementing resource management software	62%

These numbers show that technology plays a big role in making the best use of legal resources.

Experts also say it's important to keep checking and adjusting resource plans. As one Legal Operations Manager puts it: "Using resources well leads to better results and helps the whole organization do better." This idea is shared across the industry, with professionals recognizing that being able to change plans and use data to make decisions is key to handling the challenges of modern legal work.

Some key takeaways from expert opinions:

1. Know your team's skills and goals
2. Use technology to manage resources
3. Be flexible with team sizes
4. Keep checking and adjusting your plans
5. Use data to make decisions

Comparing Resource Allocation Methods

Law firms need to use their resources well to work better and help clients. Let's look at different ways to do this and see what works best.

Resource Allocation Methods Comparison

Method	Good Points	Bad Points
Using Data to Decide	Makes choices based on facts	Needs good data systems
Legal Project Tools	Makes work easier	Costs money to start, takes time to learn
Ranking Tasks	Focuses on important work	Takes time to set up
Flexible Staffing	Can change quickly, saves money	Might not fit with other systems
Checking Work Often	Can fix problems quickly	Needs constant watching
Sharing Knowledge	Helps teamwork	Might share too much info

Each way of using resources has good and bad points. Using data helps make smart choices, but you need good systems to collect data. Legal project tools make work easier, but they cost money to start and people need to learn how to use them.

Ranking tasks helps focus on what's important, but it takes time to set up. Flexible staffing lets firms change quickly and save money, but it might not work well with what they already do.

Checking work often helps fix problems fast, but someone needs to watch all the time. Sharing knowledge helps teams work better, but there's a risk of sharing too much information.

Real Examples

Some law firms are already using these methods:

1. Clifford Chance and Ashurst: These firms hired special managers to help give out work. This makes sure everyone has the right amount of work to do.

2. BigHand Study: A study by BigHand found that 1/3 of lawyers in big firms don't know how work is given out. This shows why it's important to have a good system.

3. Project Management Institute: They found that 23% of projects are late because of bad planning. This shows why it's important to plan well.

Tips for Choosing a Method

When picking a way to use resources, law firms should think about:

1. What they need
2. What resources they have
3. What they want to do in the future

It might be best to use parts of different methods to get the best results.

Expert Advice

Experts in the legal field have some good advice:

• Sarah Day from DLA Piper says: "Resource managers should really know the individuals and their skills. This helps them assign work properly and understand what people want to do."

• Simon Beddow from BCLP points out: "We have fewer write-offs because the right people are doing the right work. Clients can see that we can add or remove team members as needed."

• Hammad Akhtar notes: "Many of our associates talk to friends at other firms who see resource management as a normal part of work now. It's becoming expected."

These experts show that knowing your team, using resources well, and being able to change are all important.

Main Points to Remember

Here are the key things to keep in mind for better legal resource allocation:

1. Use data to make decisions: Look at numbers and facts to guide how you use resources. This helps law firms work smarter.

2. Try legal project management (LPM) software: These tools help manage tasks, track time, and see who's available. They make work easier to organize.

3. Give out work fairly: Make sure all lawyers get a mix of tasks. This helps everyone learn and grow.

4. Check workloads often: Keep an eye on how much work each person has. This stops people from getting too stressed or not having enough to do.

5. Use tech to keep good lawyers: Show lawyers how their work fits into their career plans. This makes them want to stay at the firm.

6. Talk and work together more: Share information and help each other out. This makes projects run smoother and keeps clients happy.

7. Keep changing how you work: Always look for ways to do things better. This helps deal with new problems and risks.

Real-World Examples

Here's how some law firms are putting these ideas to work:

Firm	What They Did	Result
Clifford Chance	Hired special managers to give out work	Everyone now has the right amount of work
Dentons Cohen & Grigsby	Focused on talking more with clients	Better teamwork between firm and clients
Kirkland & Ellis	Offered more flexible work options	Easier for lawyers to balance work and life

Expert Advice

Legal experts say these things are important:

• "Know your team's skills and what they want to do," says Sarah Day from DLA Piper.
• "Give the right work to the right people," advises Simon Beddow from BCLP.
• "Resource management is now normal in many firms," notes Hammad Akhtar.

Key Numbers

Some important facts about legal resource management:

• 77% of projects that do well use project management software.
• 62% of firms with less work are using resource management software.
• 84% of legal teams use data to help make daily decisions.

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