Managament Of Law Firms

There is a prejudice against the word “management”. As if it was a severe sin to speak about management, a rare term in the Judiciary meanders and its toilers, to identify challenges for the juridical operators. The expression implies something more than just to administrate. It means a series of underlying concepts that denote a corporate approach, apparently business, but truly meaning the approach of efficiency and results. Innovation, technologies and strategies implicate management. This is not about abandoning the personal dimension of judges, members of the Prosecution or attorneys, but facing the current days that bring massification of information and lawsuits, scarce timing for communication, necessity of focus, quality and transparency. That is why management means the comprehension of activity contents and its shapes and insertion in the market and society, and also relevant interactions along juridical and ethical limits of communication.

The new management parameters, in all levels, from public to private, reach, assuredly, the law firms. It is fundamental, in the present days, that law firms, even the so called “law boutiques”, those with minor scale that focus handmade labor, embrace wariness in a way to professionalize itself facing the complexity of its due challenges. The search for quality activities, lower costs without jeopardizing the efficiency, innovation and attending expectations once created to compose a situation that demands more professionalism and capacity from law firms. 

The communication with clients through an absolutely clear and fast structure is an essential topic for the prompt addressees of the advocacy performance to be able to follow the tutelage of their interests. Transparency in communicating with clients accrues from the loyalty that permeates those almost “sacred” relations built inside the firms. It is safe to say that the attorney’s mission is a type of priesthood, having seen he is the trustee of clients and their secrets, which makes the lawyer a holder of highly relevant duties when preserving the interests trusted to him. It is certain that, in such context, he must account his actions.

Internal control, along with the meritocracy installed in a law firm, is another logical consequence of the market and the nature of performed activities. Measuring the time spent by each collaborator in the lawsuit, in order to evaluate its qualities and gaps is an imperative mission for new managers.

Communicating with society and other law firms, along with potential clients, is a task that can be exerted inside the ethical limits of advocacy, since it cannot be classified as a merchant activity, in spite of being inserted in a competition and partnerships scope. Advocacy resembles to Medicine, even though the customers have the right to information that must be respected and even encouraged. An important step is to observe the limits of these communications and yet not to neglect the slope that involves another facet of activity’s transparency. That is why an appropriate use of social networks is relevant: so that the law firm can be kept connected with the society and people’s feedback.

There are new and specialized consultants in legal management of law firms who assuredly own a noble spot within these new scenarios. There are numerous topics to be approached, studied and debated. For whatever reason it is absolutely relevant to highlight that only the constant professionalization, capacity and upgrading of law firms, along with appropriate self-criticism, will strength the bonds between advocacy and society. Thus the parameters of rationalization, strategy organization and costs optimization with an increasing quality are challenges that positively transform the society, restoring the participation of law firms within the Justice distribution.