associate attorney business plan

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A business plan for lawyers: How to write one and what to include

• June 21, 2024

Jennifer Anderson

If you’re reading this article, Congratulations! You must be thinking about starting a law firm and are looking for examples of a business plan for lawyers.

Of course, if you’re serious about this prospect, one of the first things you’ll need to do is sit down and draft a business plan. And, as luck would have it, that’s why we’re here today.

In this post, we’re going to walk you through the steps of creating a business plan for your new firm. As Aristotle once said, “For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.”

Sound advice.

A simple guide for a business plan for lawyers

So, we’ll provide you with the key parts and pieces for creating a law firm business plan along with a sample plan intended to show you how to create your own plan. 

Now, in order to walk you through this, we’ve created a hypothetical firm using certain assumptions, which we’ll list below. Your new firm almost certainly has different factors at play.

That’s alright. We trust you’ll be able to plug in the particulars that suit your business. For now, here’s what our fictional new law firm looks like:

• This California-based law firm is founded by four partners who were all business owners before going to law school. Using our fictional founders’ last names, we’ll call the firm Smith, Jones, Jackson, & Wyle, LLP.
• The firm aims to have multiple practice areas including business litigation, labor and employment, technology, and real estate.
• The target clients will be small-to-midsize regional businesses throughout the state. 
• The partners’ goal is to hire up to 10 associates over the next five years. 
• The firm’s main competitors are other small, regional business-focused firms. 
• Initial marketing ideas include social media, networking with former business contacts, and becoming thought leaders in various areas of the law through blogging and public speaking.
• The partners envision being highly tech dependent, utilizing CRMs, AI, and other tech tools as much as possible. 
• The founding partners’ goal is to launch the firm in 6 months and to be profitable within a year.

With those basic facts in mind, let’s break down the various components that we’ll include in our business plan:

1. Executive summary

A business plan for lawyers, like any plan, should start with an e xecutive summary . This section concisely outlines a business plan’s key points, goals, and strategies. Ultimately, it serves as a snapshot for quick understanding and decision-making and should include the following parts:

Mission statement

A Mission Statement is like the elevator speech for your new firm. It charts the course for your goals, objectives, clients – and also quickly lays out your proposed methods for reaching those goals. A sample Mission Statement for our firm might say: 

At Smith, Jones, Jackson, & Wyle, LLP (“SJJW”) we are dedicated to empowering small-to-midsize businesses in California with comprehensive legal solutions. With a foundation built on the rich business acumen and legal expertise of our founding partners, we aim to bridge the gap between business challenges and legal success. Our mission is to provide personalized, effective, and technology-driven legal services that not only address today’s legal needs but also anticipate tomorrow’s challenges. We are committed to becoming trusted advisors to our clients who leverage our unique background as former business owners to offer practical, actionable legal advice. Through innovation, integrity, and a client-focused approach, SJJW strives to achieve excellence in all aspects of our service, fostering long-term partnerships with our clients and contributing to their success.

Here, you will outline the firm’s growth objectives and provide a snapshot of the firm’s operations.

SJJW aims to become the leading legal advisor for California’s small to mid-sized businesses, expand our team with 10 associates within five years, and leverage technology to enhance efficiency and client satisfaction.

Brief overview

Some business plans also include a brief overview of the business. Our hypothetical firm’s overview might look like this:

Founded by four partners with business ownership backgrounds, our California-based law firm specializes in serving small-to-midsize businesses, emphasizing technology-driven solutions and personalized legal services to navigate complex challenges.

2. Firm description

Your law firm description will provide a bit more detail about the make-up of your business. This section should include information on: (1) legal structure and history; (2) location and areas of practice; and (3) vision for the future: 

SJJW is a dynamic legal partnership founded by four seasoned attorneys who are also experienced business owners. Based in California, our firm offers comprehensive legal services tailored to the needs and challenges of small-to-midsize businesses across the state. Our firm practices in four distinct areas: Business Litigation, Labor and Employment, Technology, and Real Estate. With a deep understanding of both the legal landscape and the entrepreneurial journey, our team is uniquely positioned to provide strategic, effective solutions across this range of legal disciplines. As an LLP, we emphasize collaboration, integrity, and innovation, leveraging cutting-edge technology to deliver exceptional service and outcomes for our clients. Our commitment to excellence, combined with our business-savvy approach, makes us a trusted partner for businesses seeking to navigate legal complexities with confidence.

3. Market analysis

The next part of our business plan for lawyers is the market analysis. Your market analysis is where you do the heavy lifting around how your firm fits into California’s extensive legal market. It should include information on your target market, a competitive analysis, and the need for your particular firm within the region. 

Target market

SJJW’s primary target market consists of small-to-midsize businesses in California, spanning various industries such as technology, retail, real estate, energy, and manufacturing. These businesses often encounter unique legal challenges that require personalized attention and expertise. With the state’s diverse economic landscape, there is a substantial demand for legal services that cater specifically to the nuanced needs of these entities, from regulatory compliance and intellectual property protection to labor disputes and contract negotiations.

Competitive landscape

The legal services market in California is highly competitive, with numerous firms vying for the business sector’s attention. Small, regional law firms similar to ours form the bulk of this competition, offering a range of general and specialized services. However, our differentiation lies in the unique blend of legal expertise and real-world business experience possessed by our founding partners. This combination positions us to offer unparalleled insights and practical solutions that resonate with business owners.

Market trends

The increasing complexity of regulatory environments, coupled with the rapid evolution of technology and the digital economy, has led businesses to seek legal partners who are not only advisors but also innovators. There’s a growing trend towards legal services that are highly specialized yet broadly knowledgeable about the cross-functional impacts of legal decisions.

Opportunities

Given our firm’s unique positioning and expertise, significant opportunities exist to capture market share by:

• Offering specialized services that address the intersection of business operations and legal requirements, such as compliance, data privacy, and e-commerce.
• Developing niche expertise in emerging areas of law that are particularly relevant to California’s business environment, such as tech startups, renewable energy, and digital media.
• Leveraging technology to provide more efficient, transparent, and cost-effective legal services, appealing to the tech-savvy and cost-conscious small-to-midsize business sector.
• Building strong relationships through networking and thought leadership, establishing the founding partners as go-to experts in legal matters relating to business.

Key challenges include establishing a distinct brand in a crowded market, continually adapting to rapidly changing legal and technological landscapes, and ensuring the firm remains accessible and appealing to the target market’s cost and value expectations.

In summary, the market analysis underscores the potential for SJJW to carve out a significant presence in California’s legal services sector for small-to-midsize businesses. By focusing on our strengths and strategically addressing the market’s needs, we can achieve substantial growth and success.

4. Marketing and sales strategy

The marketing and sales strategy is a crucial but often neglected aspect of any business plan for lawyers. This is where you lay out how you’re going to attract clients, convince them to use your firm’s services, and – importantly – how you’re going to retain those clients long term: 

Our objective is to establish SJJW as the premier legal service provider for small to mid-sized businesses in California, leveraging our unique blend of business acumen and legal expertise.

Marketing strategy

Brand positioning

Position the firm as not just legal experts, but as partners in our clients’ business success, emphasizing our founding partners’ background as business owners.

Digital marketing

• Website : Develop a professional website highlighting our expertise, services, and the unique value we bring to businesses.
• Content marketing : Regularly publish blogs, articles, and whitepapers on legal issues affecting our target market, positioning us as thought leaders.
• Social media : Engage with our audience on platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter, sharing insights, legal updates, and participating in discussions relevant to our target industries.

Networking and partnerships

• Leverage the existing business contacts of our founding partners and actively participate in industry events, seminars, and local business associations to build relationships and referrals.
• Establish partnerships with complementary service providers (e.g., accounting firms, business consultants) to offer bundled services or referrals.

Public relations

• Engage in speaking opportunities at industry conferences, webinars, and local business events to increase visibility and establish credibility.
• Utilize press releases for significant firm milestones, new service offerings, or significant case wins to build brand awareness.

Sales strategy

Client acquisition

• Implement a CRM system to manage leads and opportunities effectively and utilize  personalized follow-up and engagement strategies.
• Offer free initial consultations to prospective clients that provide immediate value and foster trust from the first interaction.

Client retention

• Provide exceptional client service with a focus on transparency, regular communication, and technology-driven solutions for ease of access and efficiency.
• Implement a client feedback loop to continuously improve services and address client needs proactively.

Cross-selling and up-selling

Once a client relationship is established, SJJW will identify additional legal needs or areas where the firm can provide value. The goal is to make sure all clients are aware of the full range of services offered.

By executing this comprehensive marketing and sales strategy, SJJW aims to rapidly grow its client base while maintaining high levels of client satisfaction and loyalty.

5. Operations plan

An operations plan outlines the day-to-day activities required to run your law firm. It details  things like processes, technology, staffing, and resources needed to achieve business objectives.

To ensure efficient, effective, and client-focused legal service delivery through advanced technology integration and streamlined processes.

Legal operations

Case managemen t: Implement a state-of-the-art Case Management System (CMS) to track and manage all cases efficiently, ensuring deadlines are met, and clients are kept informed.

Document management : Utilize a secure, cloud-based Document Management System (DMS) for storing, retrieving, and sharing documents with clients and within the team, enhancing collaboration and security.

Client communication : Adopt Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software to manage client interactions, ensuring personalized and timely communication across all touchpoints.

Technology integration

Artificial Intelligence (AI) : Leverage AI tools for legal research, document review, and predictive analytics to increase accuracy and reduce turnaround times.

Automation tools : Implement automation in routine tasks such as billing, client notifications, and document drafting to improve efficiency and reduce the risk of human error.

Human resources

Team structure : SJJW will initially be comprised of four partners and support staff, with plans to expand to up to 10 associates within five years. It is our goal to foster a culture of teamwork and continuous learning.

Professional development : Invest in ongoing training and professional development opportunities for all staff, ensuring the team remains at the forefront of legal and technological advancements.

Client service

Service delivery model : Offer flexible service models including traditional hourly billing and alternative arrangements like flat fees for defined services.  

Client feedback system : Implement a system for collecting and acting on client feedback to continually refine and improve service offerings.

Compliance and quality assurance

Regulatory compliance : Ensure strict adherence to legal and ethical standards, with regular reviews of compliance protocols, especially regarding data protection and privacy laws.

Quality control : Establish a quality control framework to review legal work internally, guaranteeing the highest standards of legal service.

6. Financial plan

Your financial plan is one of the most critical aspects of a business plan for lawyers. There are too many factors at play here for us to create a meaningful sample plan for our hypothetical firm, but here are the details you definitely want to include in your plan:

Initial capital and use

Detail how the initial capital provided by the founding partners will be allocated (e.g., office space, technology, marketing, initial payroll).

Financial projections

Include projections for revenue, expenses, and profitability for the first 1-5 years. Use realistic assumptions based on the size of your target market, expected client acquisition rates, billing rates, and operational costs. 

Revenue projections

Estimate potential earnings from client work, taking into account the growth in associate numbers and the capacity to handle more cases and matters.

Expense projections

Forecast expenses, including salaries, technology investments, office overhead, and marketing costs.

Profitability analysis

Calculate when the firm expects to become profitable. Our hypothetical firm, for example, aims to be profitable within the first year.

7. Legal and regulatory compliance

What kind of lawyers would you be if your plan didn’t include a section on legal and regulatory compliance ? A business plan for lawyers should always cover compliance, particularly in an environment where it is becoming increasingly important for firms to accommodate it .

This is where you’ll provide details regarding legal practice, data protection, and any relevant regulations for your areas of practice.

To uphold the highest standards of legal and ethical integrity by ensuring full compliance with all applicable laws, regulations, and professional guidelines governing the practice of law in California.

Compliance framework

State Bar of California : SJJW will strictly adhere to the rules and ethical standards set forth by the State Bar of California, including those related to client confidentiality, conflict of interest, and professional conduct.

Data protection and privacy : We will implement powerful data security measures compliant with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and any relevant federal laws. We will also protect client information through encrypted storage and secure communication channels.

Business operations compliance : As an LLP, SJJW will maintain compliance with California’s business operation laws, including partnership registration requirements, financial reporting, and tax obligations.

Employment law : It is our steadfast aim to follow all state and federal employment laws, ensuring fair labor practices, workplace safety, and equal opportunity employment within the firm.

Continuous monitoring and education

Regular training : We will conduct or host ongoing legal education and training for all partners and staff on compliance matters, changes in the law, and best practices in legal ethics and data protection.

Compliance audits : The firm will perform regular internal audits to review and assess compliance with all legal, regulatory, and ethical standards, identifying and rectifying any potential issues proactively.

Risk management

Professional liability insurance : Before beginning operations, SJJW will secure comprehensive professional liability insurance to protect the firm and its clients against potential legal malpractice claims or other claims.

Conflict of interest checks : The firm will implement a rigorous system for conducting conflict of interest checks for every new client and case, with the goal of preventing ethical breaches and maintaining the firm’s integrity.

Client confidentiality and trust

Confidentiality protocols : SJJW will establish strict confidentiality protocols to protect client information, including secure document handling procedures and restricted access to sensitive data.

Client trust accounts : In accordance with California law, the firm will manage client funds with the utmost care, adhering to the State Bar’s guidelines for handling and accounting for trust accounts, ensuring transparency and accountability.

8. Milestones and timeline

Finally, a business plan for lawyers should include a section that details the timing involved in getting your law firm up and running. Again, there are probably too many details to give an effective sample here, but at the very least, your plan should include the following components:

Launch timeline

Here, you’ll plot out the key steps leading up to your launch date , including legal organization, the establishment of your office space, technology implementation, and initial marketing.

Growth milestones

Lawyers love deadlines and the growth milestones section is a good place to create them. Set specific goals for things like client acquisition, revenue targets, and team expansion to be reached within the first year and beyond.

Obviously, your firm’s business plan will include a lot more detail than our hypothetical plan for SJJW. We hope, however, that this sample plan gets you started on an enjoyable journey to starting a successful law firm.

Starting a law firm is a challenging yet rewarding endeavor. A well-crafted business plan for lawyers means getting all the essentials in place to guide your firm’s growth and success.

Get your executive summary, firm description, market analysis, marketing and sales strategy, operations plan, financial plan, and legal compliance all covered before embarking.

With careful planning and execution, you can build a firm that not only meets but exceeds your expectations, providing exceptional legal services to your clients.

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• How to Start a Law Firm

How to Create a Law Firm Business Plan

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Contents: Guide To How to Start a Law Firm

1. How to Create a Law Firm Business Plan

2. how to create a law firm budget, 3. getting support: networking and hiring, 4. setting up your workplace, 5. creating your online presence, 6. implementing systems and processes, 7. making it official, 8. how to get more clients for your law firm.

The wait is over…gain an edge with the latest report.

What is a business plan and why is it important.

A law firm business plan is a document that summarizes what you want to achieve and how you’ll run your business. This summary includes general information about your law firm, why you chose to start it, major goals, the services you offer, a budget, and a strategy for gaining and managing clients.

A business plan is essential to any law firm as it documents, and serves as, a roadmap for the future.

As you think through what it is you want to achieve, what type of clients you want to serve, how much to charge as a lawyer , and what type of matters you want to handle, your business plan may evolve. That’s okay! Your law firm business plan can change as your goals change, so don’t feel pressured to have all the answers upfront.

That being said, the more thought you put into your business plan now, the better you’ll set yourself up for success in the long run.

What to consider when creating your business plan

Before you start writing a law firm business plan, as an attorney and a potential entrepreneur, it’s important to take a step back and reflect on what you want from your practice first. For a more specific, meaningful, and ultimately rewarding business plan, consider these three points:

1. What are your business goals?

The first and most critical step in writing an effective plan is to ask yourself, “Why do I want to own a law firm ? What do I want to achieve? What’s my definition of success ?”

Starting your own law firm isn’t just about having a job—it gives you the potential to have more freedom and more fulfillment. In theory, owning your own firm gives you more control over your income.

Consider the following questions to get started:

• What do I want to achieve through starting my own law firm?
• What’s the impact I want to have?
• What am I good at?
• How do I want to service my clients?
• What problems do I want to help solve?
• What does success look like after starting this law firm?

Answering these questions might be more difficult than you think, but they’ll help you get clear on your goals for why you want to run a law firm. 

2. Consider how much revenue you’ll need

Now that you have an idea of what success looks like, calculate how much annual revenue you’ll need to achieve those goals—and more.

In 2024, the median pay for lawyers was $176,470   (up from $126,930 in 2023) .  While this isn’t a small amount of money, after factoring in living expenses like saving for retirement, rent or mortgage payments, student debt repayment, vehicles, emergencies, office lease etc., that number gets eaten away quickly.

More importantly, there’s no extra room for investment in hiring or marketing to grow your law firm. So, it may just be you and you alone until things pick up.

In that case, be generous when estimating how much revenue you’ll need, and write down a number that scares you. You’ll be much better off planning with that number in mind from the beginning.

3. Setting your fee structure

After setting your goals and estimating a few rough numbers to start, it’s time to create your fee structure. 

Your fee structure should include:

• What others charge on average
• What practice area you’ve chosen
• What your business expenses are 

As you might already know, each client is different which means each matter you handle will be different. It could make sense to charge a flat rate for one project but an hourly rate for another. 

Understanding what your competitors are charging and how they’re structuring their pricing is a good starting point to then build out your own fee structure.

Luckily, there are so many incredible tools out there such as Clio’s Legal Trends Report , which can help you understand average hourly rates; a benchmark calculator for hourly rates within your jurisdiction ; blog posts about billing; and more, that make it easy for you to do market research and understand what others are charging.

4. Determine how many cases you need to meet that revenue goal

If you are only handling two or three cases per month, the number you came up with above might look outrageous. It’s not. 

For example, let’s use the 2024 median pay of $176,470 a year in annual revenue as our goal, with a flat fee of $3,000 per client.

$176,470  per year in revenue = an average case value of $3,000 – $3200 = 55 cases per year = 4 – 5 per month.

$176,470  per year might seem crazy if you’re only working a couple of cases per month, but keep in mind that you’re going to gradually work up to it.

The number of cases you’ll need may differ depending on your location and practice area, so do your research to make sure you come up with a realistic case goal (even if it still feels like a stretch).

This brings us to the next part of developing your business plan—writing it.

How to write a law firm business plan

Once you’ve got the starting points of your business plan worked out, it’s time to put pen to paper. 

While your law firm business plan should be tailored to your unique situation, the following list will walk you step-by-step through all key sections you need to have a comprehensive business plan:

1. Executive summary

An executive summary is a one-page, high-level overview of all the key information in your business plan.

Law firm business plans can cover a lot, so it’s worth having a succinct high-level overview to keep things simple (hint: While this section should come first in your plan, it’s actually easier to write this section last, after you’ve laid out your plan).

Your executive summary should include:

• Mission statement : One or two sentences describing your firm’s purpose.
• Core values : What values are most important to the firm?
• Major goals : What are your firm’s overarching goals and objectives?
• Unique selling proposition : What sets your firm apart from other firms?

2. Firm description

Next, write a company summary for your firm, something  concise that provides a general overview of your firm, while providing important details describing your practice and clients, including:

• Service(s) : What type of law do you practice? What types of clients do you serve? Firm values : Restate your mission statement and core values.
• Legal structure : What sort of business entity are you? Are you in a sole proprietorship or a limited liability partnership?
• Location : Where is the office geographically located? What areas does the firm serve?
• Unique selling proposition : What makes your firm stand out? What technology or services give your firm an edge?

3. Market analysis

A little bit of preliminary market research goes a long way. 

Look at bar association listings to see how many other firms in your area offer similar services. Is there a high demand for what you’re offering? If not, how can you ensure you stand out to potential clients? This will greatly inform the message you choose to use in your marketing efforts.

Create a market analysis for your firm, including the following:

• Ideal client : What demographics (like location, age, occupation), needs, and motivations would signify the best client match for your firm, and why?
• Industry description : What is the current and projected size of the market your firm is in? What are the trends in your legal niche?
• Competitive analysis : Who are your direct and indirect competitors, and how are they serving your target market? Where do your competitors succeed? What opportunities are there for your firm?
• Projections : How much can your ideal clients spend on legal services ? How much can you charge?

4. Organization and management overview

You know that you’re the best person to lead the firm, but does everyone else know it too? This section is your opportunity to provide important details about yourself—and the key players in your firm.

• Highlight your experience and the educational background details that set you apart.
• Add the same for other members of your team, if applicable, including what makes them right for their specific roles.
• If your practice is on the larger size, this section is a great place to add quick visual aids like an organizational chart.

5. Services

Outline the types of legal services your firm provides.

For example, if you practice family law, what will you provide in your portfolio of legal services—cohabitation agreements? Wills/estates? Pre-nups? 

You also want to include who your services are for. For example, you might offer legal tech services to start-up companies and high-tech clients.

When writing about your services it’s important to consider:

• What problems do your potential clients need your help with?
• How can your services uniquely help your clients solve their problems?
• What is the benefit of your services to clients?
• Why would potential clients choose your firm over another firm?

How to Start a Law Firm Checklist

Everything you need to start a law firm—in one checklist

6. Marketing strategy

Marketing is a critical part of your law firm , and your business plan. It helps you understand how to make your firm stand out from others, how much you need to charge, and how you’ll get the word out and attract new clients. Learn more about how to get new clients for law firms .

Consider including the following in your law firm marketing strategy:

• Ideal client : Where would they find you ( online , through a local business directory, local Google ads , etc)?
• Marketing goals : Detail what specific outcomes you hope to accomplish through marketing. Goals should include tactical objectives (more clients? Higher billing rates?) and overall objectives (like increased name recognition).
• Unique selling proposition : Restate what sets you apart and makes you uniquely able to best serve your clients.
• Competition : Detail who your competition is—and what they’re doing to gain clients. Analyze their marketing strategies and assess where the cost of your services fits in with your competitors.
• Action plan : List the specific actions your firm will take to reach your target market and achieve your marketing goals (this could include a media/advertising strategy).

It’s also important to consider that your marketing needs will be different depending on the current stage of your law firm. 

When starting your own law firm, then marketing for you might mean a lot of hustle—working referral relationships , identifying groups that you can get in front of for speaking engagements, blogging, and using social media to get your name in front of potential clients.

As you grow (or if you have existing marketing in place) you should be able to estimate the number of cases you will bring in through each channel. Then, you can quantify your marketing cost per client by dividing the total cost of that marketing effort by the number of cases you got from each marketing channel. For example, if you’re the only corporate lawyer in a small town, you’ll need to spend less on advertising than a family lawyer in a larger city.

Once you have an idea of the cost and effectiveness of your marketing efforts, implement a marketing tax on yourself—a percentage that comes out of every single case fee you collect, and that gets invested straight back into marketing efforts. 

This is a simple way to think about how much you need to be charging to fuel your revenue goals. It’s also an easy way to scale and grow your marketing budget.

Once you start mapping out this information, you’ll notice that a system starts to form, which connects your goals, the number of cases you need to bring in, the profit you need to make on each case, the money you need to re-invest in marketing, and the number of people or contract resources you will need to employ to keep growing.

Learn more about how to market your law firm with Clio.

7. Financial plan

The heart of your law firm business plan is the financial plan. After all, when it comes to your business, there may not be a more important question than, “How much does it cost to run your law firm?”

The key is to include as much specific financial information as possible—particularly if you’re seeking funding like taking out a bank loan. As you start out, this financial plan should include numbers for your first year.

This could include:

• Revenue goal : How much money you want to make broken down by month.
• Financial projections : What you’ll realistically expect to earn, how many cases you think you’ll have capacity to take on, and what you’ll be charging each client each month.
• Budget : A breakdown of your expenses and what your money will be going towards each month.
• Cash flow statement: What you actually earned and spent each month. (Clio makes this easy with the financial reporting feature ). This is different from your projections and budget and should be updated as the year progresses. You’ll find that you may have budgeted for something that cost you much less than you originally thought or made more in a month than you projected, these discrepancies should be recorded in your cash flow statement.

As you start it’s reasonable to make assumptions based on your goals. You should also review and update this document for your second year, third year, and so on as time goes on.

8. Start-up budget

If you’re creating a business plan for a new law firm, you need a realistic start-up budget. To do this, you’ll need to consider a number of up-front and day-to-day costs, and account for these in your revenue goals.

Here are a few examples of costs to include in your budget:

• Hardware (laptops, printers, scanners, office furniture, etc.)
• Practice management software and other technology services
• Office space (Will you rent, or work from home?)
• Malpractice insurance
• Staff salaries (Are you planning to hire an administrative assistant or paralegal?)
• Utilities (Phone, internet, etc.)

Once you’ve laid out all of these costs, take a second look. Are there places where you could reduce your operating costs, and in turn, increase your profit margins? There are also plenty of tools you can look at to help streamline non-billable tasks and leave yourself more time to practice law. Be sure to look at these options and work them into your operating budget.

Law firm business plan templates

Here are some links where you can find examples of business plans and business plan templates for law firms:

• Wy’East Law Firm
• Smith & Jones, P.A.
• Business Plan Workbook

Final thoughts on how to create a law firm business plan

Having a goal and understanding how to get there is essential for any lawyer deciding to hang their own shingle. Having a written business plan does a few key things:

• It creates a concrete explanation and breakdown of why you need to work a certain number of hours this week.
• It keeps you accountable to your goals and commitments.
• It serves as a comprehensive tool you can share with your firm, investors, and potential partners.

To learn more about how to start a law firm, be sure to check out our complete guide .

And again, remember that technology is a key part of any business plan. Watch how law firms use Clio in this on-demand webinar to learn how to set up an efficient and organized back office.

Written by: Lisa Dimyadi Last updated: August 12, 2024

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Creating A Business Plan

The logistics of how lateral partners should sell themselves.

Ed. note: This is the latest installment in a series of posts Lateral Link’s team of expert contributors. Michael Allen is Managing Principal at Lateral Link, focusing exclusively on partner placements with Am Law 200 clients and placements for in-house attorneys. 

A business plan is one of the most important tools to explain your practice, relationships, and strategy to another law firm. You should put together a business plan before even pursuing opportunities to preemptively answer questions that you anticipate encountering throughout the lateral placement process.

Why are business plans necessary in conjunction with their shorter brethren, LPQ’s (Lateral Partner Questionnaires), which deals almost exclusively with historical and projected business generations, conflicts, and key relationships? The answer is simply, the LPQ is your one-sheet resume, with just enough details to diligence a conversation on a lateral partner. The business plan on the other hand, is your opportunity to market your practice and walk the firm through your strategic process to achieving your goals.

There are a multitude of guidelines to adhere to when composing a business plan, but here are the six of the most crucial principles to consider:

1.  The Format. There isn’t one set way to compose a business plan, but generally the best business plans we see follow this structure:

Summary: The summary highlights your practice and experience in a neat 100-200 word package, giving the firm an overview of your past achievements, and your expectations for your practice over the next few years. This is the time to brag about yourself, are you Chambers ranked? Did you win a high value or newsworthy case in the last year or two? These are eye-catching details that belong in the summary. The summary is your hook so be judicious about the material you include.

Strategy: Your strategy section should outline your vision for your practice at the firm. This is not the time for ambiguity; if your strategy calls for additional associates to service extra work, include this in your strategy. Context is vital to this section. Your strategy should detail current market trends and forecast future ones to synthesize a strategy that accounts for potential growth or decay in your practice.

Track Record: Your track record is simply a breakdown of clients by year and fee origination. This should be succinct, there is no need to delve into the fine details. A chart that lists your major clients and the revenue generated from them each year is sufficient.

Revenue Projection: This section is perhaps the most difficult and of the most interest to law firms. Completing this section requires straddling a fine line between over and under-projecting. The chart in this section should break down your work by category. For example, Outbound Lit, IP Lit and Inbound Lit, could be three sections under your category heading. Your next column should be projected revenue. If you anticipate an increase or decrease in your historic revenue, be sure to list why, as firms will examine this section carefully. The next column should list the percent of work serviced specifically by you. Your last column should be the amount you personally bill. As long as your projections are reasonable and you justify any projected growth then your business plan will be deemed credible.

Marketing Plan: The marketing plan is your opportunity to demonstrate your long-term plan for growth with the company. This section can easily span several pages and should include a market analysis across all your different specialties. In this section you want to identify trends in the market to anticipate legal demand. You should also list specific corporations and your plan for targeting them to gain their business. Structure matters here. It is easy to meander through two pages of epiphanies before you realize you have incoherent drivel. Outline this section before you write to save yourself an hour of revisions.

2. Identify The Why. Firms are looking for partners for different reasons. While some firms buy books for accretive growth, others have succession planning concerns in mind. Some have platform expansion on their minds or an appetite to build a practice that cross sells nicely with an existing client base. Whatever the reason, firms prioritize certain hires for various reasons. Determine the value you bring to the firm and vice versa. Connect the dots and communicate a strategy. For example, if you are nearing the retirement age, the firm may question your ability to pass down your business to the next generation of partners. If this is the case, your business plan should focus on the long-term viability of your practice and envision a seamless succession plan to help the firm retain the clients after your retirement.

3.  Don’t Exaggerate. One of the biggest mistakes a lateral partner can make is to overestimate their potential. Your reputation and credibility are everything. Firms generally peg partner compensation at 33% of their business generation if under a $5mm practice. As the practice grows, there are more costs required to service the practice, and the percentage typically diminishes with scale. Given this formula it can be tempting to overestimate, or become overoptimistic of your chances to retain a client.

Firms run pro formas based on years of historical originations to determine future compensation. Since firms are not privy to every detail of your dealings, they might be unaware that your clients expect their demand to drop significantly—and in turn, diminish your book. If you fail to temper their expectations of future potential drops in earning potential, a disappointing year-end bonus could be the least of your problems.

Similarly, if your inflated estimations are the tipping point of your acceptance, you may find yourself being pushed back onto the market soon after if your business generation is comparatively disappointing to your estimations.  You don’t want to start a job with a target on your back.

4.  Don’t Understate. While the preceding section may sound unduly ominous, you do not want to underestimate your business potential out of fear of overshooting your true potential. Like any job interview, your goal is to communicate your potential, which means remaining cautiously optimistic while tastefully bombastic, i.e., credible to the decision maker who decides your compensation and role with the firm. Don’t expect firms to give you the benefit of the doubt. In fact, expect them to take a haircut off your numbers and poke holes in your strategy. That said, remain confident without exaggerating.

5 Give Them A Vision. Most AmLaw firms seek to expand their presence or influence around the globe by bringing on profitable partners. It is probably the main priority of a firm chair in his or her strategic plan. Figure out what the firm’s vision is and see how you can contribute and how the firm platform might increase the pie for everyone.

For example, if you have potential business in Mexico City and your current firm does not have a Mexico City office but the prospective firm has a strong Latin American practice, walk the prospective firm through how you plan to cross-sell an international platform to your current client base to service additional business you are leaving on the table. A business plan marries your past performance with your future potential, showing how you plan to continue to grow your practice given new synergies.

6.  Address Issues Upfront. If you have something that needs explaining, you should take the opportunity to explain it upfront. Get ahead of the issue and make sure the firm understands what to expect. I am not suggesting that you should highlight your weaknesses, but at least, address issues that you can expect the firm to ask during the conversation. This can save major embarrassment later, and if the backlash is strong enough to push you from the partner ranks, it can be difficult to find another lateral job after that.

Writing a business plan is cumbersome, especially after a long day in the office. Between tailoring the message and the determining the structure, the whole affair can stretch out far longer than anticipated. My fellow recruiters and I at Lateral Link have ample experience to guide you through the process, help craft your motifs and structure your plan effectively. Feel free to reach out to me at [email protected] for more information.

Lateral Link is one of the top-rated international legal recruiting firms. With over 14 offices world-wide, Lateral Link specializes in placing attorneys at the most prestigious law firms and companies in the world. Managed by former practicing attorneys from top law schools, Lateral Link has a tradition of hiring lawyers to execute the lateral leaps of practicing attorneys. Click ::here:: to find out more about us.

Business Plan , Job Searches , Lateral Link , lateral partners , Lateral Partnership Questionnaire , Michael Allen

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Business Development Starters for Law Firm Associates

Six associate business development activities to get your practice off to a running start.

Table of contents

• 1. Pay attention to your internal marketing efforts. 

2. Manage relationships like they are your most important asset.

3. create your own experience database., 4. become active in an organization., 5. show what you know., 6. build your platform., associate business development building blocks for the long term, subscribe to attorney at work.

I remember when partners would say to associates, “Don’t worry about getting business. Just spend your time doing the work and learning your craft.” Then, firms would make someone partner and tell them to build a practice. Without having planted the seeds as an associate, it was an uphill battle at best.

Well, if my experience is representative, those days are gone. While in most law firms, the No. 1 priority for associates is still to become excellent lawyers, many firms are asking their young lawyers to start thinking about marketing and business development earlier in their careers.

I think it’s a great idea. At the same time, however, it’s important to establish and communicate reasonable expectations. It would be rare for a sixth-year lawyer in white-collar litigation, for example, to have opportunities to generate business, given what’s at stake for clients. On the other hand, practices with less money or perceived risk involved, such as estate planning, might present immediate prospects.

That said, today’s associates show an incredible desire for practical information on how to build a practice. Regardless of the substantive area involved, there are many things young lawyers can and should do to set the stage for future marketing and business development success.

Associate Business Development Fundamentals

If you implement all six of these activities, your future marketing efforts will be much more productive.

1. Pay attention to your internal marketing efforts. 

As an associate, your most likely source of business, of course, is the partners in the firm. Working on matters for a partner’s client gives you two vital things:

• Experience, so you have something to market someday to others.
• Exposure to clients, through which you can build your client service skills and relationships.

So treat partners like clients. Practice good client relations skills on them. For example, identify their expectations upfront; keep them apprised of the status of the matter; be responsive, and follow up when the project is completed. In addition, be active in the firm. Show initiative by offering to write for a practice group newsletter, sign up to attend a baseball game with clients, or make a presentation to another department after attending a CLE program. Internal visibility will result in more good work and good marketing opportunities.

I recently met with a partner to discuss his business development efforts and I asked how he tracks his contacts. He showed me a huge stack of business cards in his desk with a rubber band around them, admitting there were many people in that deck whom he cannot recall.

As a young person, you may find it hard to believe but it’s true: You think you will remember your contacts, but you will not. You think you will stay in touch with people, but you will not. Not unless you organize and manage them, that is.

Keep track of undergrad and law school friends, former colleagues, contemporaries at client companies or co-counsel firms, experts, friendly opposing counsel, bar contacts and other professional acquaintances. It doesn’t matter how you do it — use Excel, Outlook, a notepad or the firm’s client relationship management (CRM) database — just do it. This is especially important if you don’t like networking and meeting new people. At least you won’t lose track of those you already know!

As is the case with your contacts, you may think you will recall everything you have worked on, but trust me, you will not. I can’t tell you how many partners, when preparing a pitch or for a meeting, will say something like, “I wish I could remember how many of these I have done.”

Why is this important? Because a lot of lawyers can say they worked on deals — but how many can cite the number of deals in a particular industry or the aggregate dollars involved? A lot of people can say they have participated in arbitrations — but how many can recall the number of arbitrations or the specific issues involved? Numbers and facts are very compelling to prospective clients.

As an added bonus: If you ever try to get certified in a practice area or elected into a credentialing organization like a “college,” you likely will need this information anyway. You can track it however you like but many associates find it helpful to do it in conjunction with their annual self-assessment.

Every lawyer needs to be involved in an outside organization and, ultimately, its leadership. Done right, this will:

• Help you meet people and build your network of contacts.
• Allow you to give something back to the profession or the community — which people expect of lawyers.
• Help you build your leadership skills and a reputation as the kind of person who can get things done.

For pure business development, some organizations may be better than others. For young lawyers, however, I am less concerned about what the group is than the lawyer’s commitment to it. For example, a seventh-year lawyer with whom I work is a member of a service organization and landed an eminent domain issue when the group’s building was targeted by the city.

If you are seeking an organization in which to get involved, your choices are many:

• School-related groups, such as your college or law school alumni association
• Bar association entities, such as the Young Lawyers Division of the ABA or your state bar
• Industry groups, like a local forum for start-up technology companies
• Community or civic groups, such as a library or homeless shelter volunteer group
• Diversity or affinity groups, like the Asian American Bar Association
• Organized activities, like an annual marathon or charity golf tournament
• Social or networking groups, like a breakfast club of young professionals

For your outside activity to be helpful for future business development, you must make a real commitment to it — dive in, attend meetings and get involved. For your contributions to be genuine, you must feel some passion for the organization, its subject or its cause.

Substantive expertise is still a work in progress for most young lawyers. Still, I believe associates should aim to complete one “thought-leadership” activity each year, which could include:

• An article for a newsletter, blog, or website, whether published by the firm or an outside source
• A speech, which could be given at an internal firm meeting (e.g., for a practice group), a firm-sponsored event for clients (like a webinar or seminar), or something sponsored by an outside group (such as the aforementioned organizations)

Opportunities are easier to obtain than you might think. For subject matter, you only need to know more than the reader or audience member. For example, you could track the whistleblower cases in your courts and report on trends over the past five years. Or you could identify a niche within a niche (e.g., M&A issues involving government contractors) in which you have had some experience.

And, don’t forget, you can always team with a firm partner, a client, a referral source, or another “authority” if you need more substantive expertise or gravitas. In fact, my very first published article was co-authored with a faculty advisor from my MBA program.

Finally, you need to get comfortable with how you present yourself to people — your personal brand. This takes many forms, including:

• Your “elevator speech” — how you describe what you do (and what the firm does)
• Your firm website bio
• Your LinkedIn profile

Spend time thinking about how to describe your practice. Create different versions for different audiences (e.g., an HOA meeting of neighbors versus a law school reunion). In all cases, focus on the kinds of clients you represent, what you do to help them and ways in which you (or the firm) are different.

Be conscious of your personal brand when you talk with people, whether it’s a partner from whom you’d like to obtain more work or someone unrelated to the firm. And keep your brand message up to date. For example, review your firm bio and LinkedIn profile at least twice a year, adding new areas of expertise or interesting new representative cases on which you’ve worked. Your practice will change and your experiences will grow, so you need to make sure you are always presenting the best version of yourself.

Marketing and business development can be frustrating for associates because the return on today’s investment is clearly well into the future. However, like the time value of money, the earlier you start, the greater your potential.

Will any of these six steps bring in business? Probably not, at least not in the short term. But each is an essential building block to your future marketing and business development success.

©Photo by Austris Augusts on Unsplash  

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Sally Schmidt, President of Schmidt Marketing, Inc., helps lawyers and law firms grow their practices. She was a founder and the first President of the Legal Marketing Association, is a Fellow of the College of Law Practice Management and was one of the first inductees to LMA’s Hall of Fame. Known for her practical advice, she is the author of two books, “ Marketing the Law Firm: Business Development Techniques ” and “ Business Development for Lawyers: Strategies for Getting and Keeping Clients .” Follow her @SallySchmidt.

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19 Mar 2020

How to Write Your Law Firm Business Plan

By Cari Twitchell

News Articles Healthy Strategy

Every new law practice needs a business plan . This is a guide to creating one.

Here is what should go in your business plan once you’ve decided about your law firm business model.

Section One: Executive Summary

This section provides a succinct overview of your full plan. It should also include the following:

• Mission statement.  This statement should be one or two sentences at most, so you can quickly state it off the top of your head at any given moment. It should clearly state your value and offer inspiration and guidance, while being plausible and specific enough to ensure relevancy. For further direction on how to write a mission statement, read this Entrepreneur article .
• Core values.  Your core values outline the strategy that underpins your business. When written well, they help potential employees and clients understand what drives you every day. When written incorrectly, they include meaningless platitudes that become yet another thing forgotten or ignored during practice. To pack the most punch into your core values, write them as actionable statements that you can follow. And keep them to a minimum: two to four should do just fine. You can read more about writing core values at  Kinesis .
• What sets you apart.  If you are like every other attorney out there, how will you stand out? This is known as your unique selling proposition (USP). What is it that will convince clients to turn to you instead of your competition? By clearly stating your USP, you identify what it is about your firm that will ensure your success.

Are you feeling slightly overwhelmed by all of this? Then write this section last, as you’ll find much of what you write here is a summary of everything you include in subsequent sections.

Section Two: Company Description

Write a succinct overview of your company. Here is what it should cover:

• Mission statement and values.  Reiterate your mission statement and core values here.
• Geographic location and areas served.  Identify where your offices are located and the geographic areas that you serve.
• Legal structure and ownership. State whether you are an LLC, S-Corp or other legal entity. If you are something other than a sole proprietor, identify the ownership structure of your firm. How does your law firm business model influence the ownership type?
• Firm history.  If you are writing or updating a plan for a law firm already in existence, write a brief history that summarizes firm highlights and achievements.

This section is often the shortest. Do not spend much time or space here. Touch on the major points and move on.

Section Three: Market Analysis

Done correctly, a well thought out market analysis will help you identify exactly what your potential clients are looking for and how much you should charge for your services. It also enables you to identify your competitors’ weaknesses, which in turn helps you best frame your services in a way that attracts your preferred clientele. You probably already considered some of these subjects when deciding on the small law firm business model, but you need to document them.

Elements of a market analysis include:

• Industry description.  Draft up a summary that encompasses where your particular legal niche is today, where it has been, and which trends will likely affect it in the future. Identify everything from actual market size to project market growth.
• Target audience.  Define your target audience by building your ideal client persona. Use demographics such as location, age, family status, occupation and more. Map out the motivations behind their seeking your services and then how it is you are best able to satisfy their requirements.
• Competitive analysis.  This is where you dive into details about your competitors. What do they do well? Where do they fall short? How are they currently underserving your target market? What challenges do you face by entering legal practice in your field of choice?
• Projections.  Provide specific data on how much your target audience has to spend. Then narrow that down to identify how much you can charge per service.

A proper market analysis includes actual data to support your analysis. If you are unsure of where to find data, Bplans  has a great list of resources for you to use. And if you would like to read further about conducting a market analysis, check out this article from the Small Business Administration.

Section Four: Organization & Management

This section goes into detail about you and any others who may have ownership interest in the firm. The small law firm business model section here should incorporated into the management documentation. Do not be afraid to brag a bit!

• What is your educational background?
• What experience do you currently have?
• Why are you the right person to run your firm?

If there are other individuals involved, it is a good idea to insert your organizational chart here. Visuals help quickly convey information and break up otherwise blocky text.

Section Five: Services

The Services section is the heart of your law firm business model plan. It is where you dive into all aspects of your services, including:

• The problem(s) you are addressing.  What pain points do your preferred clients experience? What can they do right now to alleviate those pain points? Answer these questions, and then take the extra step to explain how those current solutions fail to adequately address their problems.
• The solution(s) you are providing.  This describes how your solutions better resolve your prospective market’s needs. This not only includes the actual work you do, but the benefits that each client will receive based on your work.
• An overview of your competition.  Describe your competition here. For instance, which other solo attorneys and firms provide the same solutions as you? What are your advantages over these competitors? What do you differently when providing your solutions? How will clients gain additional benefits by seeking out your services instead of working with your competitors?

Section 6: Marketing Strategy

Your marketing strategy section needs to address the three P’s:

• Positioning.  How will you position your law firm and your services? What will you say to present your practice in the best light? What short statements can you use to entice a potential client to pursue your services?
• Pricing.  How much will you charge? How does that fit within the legal industry? Within your niche industry? What do clients receive for that price?
• Promotion.  Which sales channels and marketing activities will you pursue to promote your practice? Who is in charge of these activities? Even if you plan to build your law firm on the basis of word-of-mouth referrals, you must remember that most referrals will still look for information about you before contacting you. Know where they will look and ensure you are there.

Section Seven: Financials

Last comes the financials section. It is the key component to your plan if you are going to seek funding to get your practice off the ground. It is imperative that you complete this section even if you are not seeking funding, however, as you need to paint a clear financial picture before opening your doors.

Two main items make up this section: budgeting and forecasting (sales and cash flow). Answer these questions to help you address these items:

• How much starting capital do you need?
• How much money will it cost to keep your practice operating on a month-to-month basis?
• How many cases will you need to close each month to break even?
• How many cases would you need to close to make a profit?
• What is your projected profit and loss for the year?

This section often incorporates graphs and other images, including profit-and-loss and cash-flow tables. The more specific you get with your numbers, the more likely you are to succeed!

One final note: If your goal is to submit your business plan to potential funders, you want to do everything you can to make sure your plan stands out. One good way to do this is to work with a designer to artfully format your plan. Great presentation can take you a long way.

Originally published 2017-09-23. Republished 2020-07-31.

Cari Twitchell

About the Author

@CariTwitchell

/in/caritwitchell/

Website: https://www.customcontentllc.com

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Last updated October 7th, 2022

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How to Create a Law Firm Business Plan Aimed at Success

Want a successful law firm? Start with a solid business plan. Our guide covers everything that will help you create a roadmap for success.

A firm exists to serve people—so its business plan must take into account those it aims to help. A law firm's business plan lays out the key pillars that will support a practice, from operational details to marketing strategies to financial projections. Furthermore, it should provide a clear roadmap for where the firm hopes to be in the coming years.

In this blog,  we will guide you through the process  of creating a comprehensive law firm business plan that  will help you achieve your goals . Additionally, in our latest Grow Law Firm podcast, our host Sasha Berson conversed with Omar Ochoa, the founding attorney of Omar Ochoa Law Firm, to discuss the topic of creating a law firm business plan aimed at success. Be sure to listen to another insightful episode featuring Tom Lenfestey, where he discusses crafting a sellable and profitable law firm.

Why Is a Business Plan Important for Law Firms?

A business plan is a vital tool for any law firm to achieve success. It outlines goals, strategies, and the feasibility of business ideas, providing a clear direction and focus for the firm. The plan can be used to secure funding from investors or financial institutions by demonstrating the potential for growth and profitability.

Moreover, a business plan supports decision-making by evaluating the feasibility of new ventures and assessing potential risks and rewards. It helps to manage resources effectively by setting financial goals and tracking progress, ensuring the firm is making the most of its resources and achieving objectives.

Lastly, a law firm's business plan enables growth by identifying new opportunities and developing strategies to capitalize on them. By planning for the future and setting realistic growth targets, law firms can take their businesses to the next level. Overall, a well-developed business plan is critical for success in the legal industry, providing direction and focus, supporting decision-making, managing resources effectively, and enabling growth.

General Tips for Creating an Attorney Business Plan

Building a business plan for law firms is not an easy or intuitive process. By considering the following issues before opening your doors to clients, you have a much better chance of having a stable firm that matches your values and has a clear set of goals.

— Stay Focused

Forming a law firm can feel overwhelming. You have a lot of freedom and can easily get sidetracked into issues that either can wait or do not deserve your attention.

If having a strong law firm website design is important enough for you to include in your plan, you will spend time on that instead of less important matters.

A plan also includes a budget. The process of planning your firm's finances can ensure that you do not overspend (or underspend) as you start your own firm.

The attention to detail that comes from having a plan will help you avoid spreading yourself too thin by focusing on every issue or the wrong issues. Instead, you will maintain your focus on the important issues.

Whether you have law partners or develop a solo law firm business plan, the plan will help you stay focused on your end goals.

— Keep Track of Goals and Results

It is easy to set goals when you  start a law firm and then promptly forget about them.

Your plan will set out your goals and the metrics you will use to determine your progress toward meeting them. The plan should also explain how you will know when you have met them.

For example, you might have a growth goal of reaching five lawyers within two years. Or you might have a revenue goal of collecting $200,000 your first year.

Too many businesses, including law firms, meander on their developmental path. By setting goals and the path for meeting them, you will have guardrails to keep your firm on track.

"If you want to be the number one law firm in the country by revenue right in a 20 year time period, have that be your goal and everything that you do right is in service of that goal. You might not get there, but you're gonna find that you're gonna be very successful either way."

"If you want to be the number one law firm in the country by revenue right in a 20 year time period, have that be your goal and everything that you do right is in service of that goal. You might not get there, but you're gonna find that you're gonna be very successful either way." — Omar Ochoa

— Sort Out Your Own Law Firm Strategy

Developing a clear vision is important for establishing a strategic law firm plan aimed at long-term goals . As Omar Ochoa discusses in the podcast, having very specific milestone visions like where you want to be in five, ten, or fifteen years helps drive the strategy and actions needed to get there.

It's easy to say that you'll run your law firm better. But a plan actually helps you identify how to improve by articulating a concrete strategy. The process of creating the plan will help you pinpoint problems and solutions.

A plan forces consideration of operational details often overlooked. It equates to defining your firm's purpose and then pursuing that vision with purpose-driven strategies and actions. As Omar notes, marrying vision to action through knowledge of other successful law firm models is key to achieving goals.

One area that is frequently overlooked in plans is the inclusion of law firm marketing strategies . Developing this aspect is critical for attracting clients and sustaining growth.

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— Move Forward

You should view your plan as a law firm business development plan that will guide the formation and growth of your firm .

You can review the document periodically to remind you and your law partners of your growth and expansion projections. After this review, you can ensure your growth and expansion remain on track to carry you to your goals.

The review will also tell you whether you need to update your firm's goals. When you started your law firm, you might have been unduly pessimistic or optimistic in your projections. Once you have some time to operate according to your plan, you can update your goals to keep them realistic. You can also update your processes to focus on what works and discard what does not.

The review can provide your projections for what you hope to accomplish and the roadmap for accomplishing it.

Law Firm Business Plan Template

Each of the websites below includes at least one attorney business development plan template:

• Business Plan Workbook
• PracticePro
• Smith & Jones, P.A.
• Wy'East Law Firm

You can use a law firm strategic plan example from these sites to start your firm's plan, then turn the plan into a document unique to your circumstances, goals, and needs.

What to Consider before Starting Law Firm Business Plans

Before starting a law firm business plan, think through a few key issues, including:

— Setting the Goals

Reflect deeply on your firm's purpose. Think about who you represent and how you can best meet their needs. A law firm exists for its clients. As you think about your  law firm goals , think about goals for providing legal services to your clients.

"We continue to try to have the biggest impact that we can because ultimately, in my opinion at least, that's what lawyers are for, is to be able to help people and be able to move us forward." — Omar Ochoa

You need to set realistic and achievable goals. These goals should reflect your reasons for starting your law firm. Thus, if you started your law firm because you expected to make more money on your own than working for someone else, set some goals for collections.

While you are setting your goals, think about how you will reach them and the ways you will measure your success. For example, if you want to expand to include ten lawyers within three years, think about intermediate goals at the end of years one and two. This helps measure your progress.

— Choosing Partnership Structure

For lawyers considering a partnership structure, it's important to select partners that complement each other's strengths and weaknesses to help the firm function effectively.

There are 2 main partnership structure options:

• A single-tier model provides equal decision-making power and liability between partners.
• Meanwhile, a two-tier structure offers tiers like equity and non-equity partners, providing flexibility and career progression opportunities.

While similarly skilled individuals may clash, partners with differing abilities can succeed together. Some attorneys also choose to run their own firm for flexibility. This allows them to leverage different specialists through occasional joint ventures tailored for specific cases, without the constraints of a single long-term partnership. Furthermore, it highlights how the law firm partnership structures impacts freedom and sustainability.

— Thinking of the Revenue You Need

Calculate how much revenue you need to cover your overhead and pay your salary. Suppose your expenses include:

• $2,000 per month for office rent
• $36,000 per year for a legal assistant salary
• $600 per month for courier expenses
• $400 per month for a copier lease

Assume you want the  median annual salary for lawyers  of $127,990. You need $199,990 per year in revenue to cover your salary and expenses.

But revenue is not the end of the story. Your landlord, vendors, and employees expect to get paid monthly. So, you should also calculate how much cash flow you need each month to cover your hard expenses.

You also need a reserve. Clients expect you to front expenses like filing fees. Make sure you have a reserve to pay these costs and float them until clients reimburse you.

— Defining the Rate of Payment

You need to make some difficult decisions when it comes to setting your own fee structure. If you choose a higher billing rate, you will need to work less to meet your revenue goals. But you might not find many clients who are able to pay your fees.

Whether you charge a flat fee, contingent fee, or hourly fee, you should expect potential clients to compare your fees to those of your direct and indirect competitors. Remember, your firm competes against other lawyers, online services like  LegalZoom , and do-it-yourself legal forms books.

Finally, you need to comply with your state's rules of professional conduct when setting your fees. The  ABA's model rules  give eight factors to determine the reasonableness of a fee. These factors include the customary fee for your location and the skill required to provide the requested legal services.

— Making the Cases in Your Law Practice Meet the Revenue Needs

Figure out how much you need to work to meet your revenue target . If you charge a flat fee, you can simply divide your revenue target by your flat fee.

Hourly fee lawyers can calculate the number of hours they need to bill and collect. However, law firm owners rarely bill 100% of the hours they work due to the administrative tasks they perform to run a firm. Also, you will probably not collect 100% of your billings, and clients could take 90 days or longer to pay.

Contingency fee lawyers will find it nearly impossible to project the cases they need. You have no way of knowing the value of your cases in advance. You also have no idea when your cases will settle. You could work on a case for years before you finally get paid.

The Founder of Omar Ochoa Law Firm

Omar Ochoa is a founding attorney with extensive experience in complex litigation, including antitrust, class actions, and securities cases. He has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for clients and has been nationally recognized as one of the best young trial lawyers in the country.

Omar graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with degrees in business administration, accounting, and economics. He later earned his law degree from the university, serving as editor-in-chief of the Texas Law Review. He has clerked for two federal judges and has worked at the prestigious law firm Susman Godfrey L.L.P. Omar is dedicated to seeking excellence. He has been recognized for his outstanding achievements in antitrust litigation.

Parts of a Business Plan for Law Firm Formation: Structure

A law firm business plan is a written document that lays out your law firm goals and strategies.

For many businesses, a business plan helps secure investors. But the ethical rules prohibit law firms from seeking funding from  outside investors or non-lawyer shareholders .

Your business plan is for you and your law partners. It will help you manage everyone's expectations and roles in the firm. Here is a law firm business plan example to help you see the parts and pieces in action.

— Executive Summary

An executive summary combines the important information in the business plan into a single-page overview. Your plan will include details like projections, budgets, and staffing needs. This section highlights the conclusions from those detailed analyses.

Your executive summary should include :

• A mission statement explaining the purpose of your firm in one or two sentences
• A list of the core values that your firm will use whenever it makes decisions about its future
• The firm's overarching goals for itself, its lawyers, and the clients it serves
• The unique selling proposition that sets your firm apart from other firms in the legal industry

You should think of this section as a quick way for people like lenders, potential law partners, and merger targets, to quickly understand the principles that drive your firm.

— Law Firm Description and Legal Structure

First, you will describe what your law firm does. You will describe your law practice and the clients you expect to serve.

Second, you will describe how your firm operates. The organization and management overview will explain your legal structure and the management responsibilities of you and your law partners.

This section should fill in the details about your firm's operation and structure by:

• Describing the scope of the legal services you offer and your ideal clients
• Restating your mission statement and core values and expanding upon how they will guide your firm
• Explaining your location and where your clients will come from
• Describing your business entity type and management structure
• Detailing your unique selling proposition , including the features that distinguish your firm from your competitors

When someone reads this section, they should have a clear picture of what you will create.

— Financial Calculations

Your attorney business plan explains where your firm's revenue comes from and where it goes. This is where your skills as a lawyer begin to diverge from your skills as a business owner. You may need to learn a few new accounting concepts so you can perform the analyses expected in a financial plan.

You will need a  financial plan  for at least the first year.

If you plan to seek a bank loan or line of credit, your bank may need a financial plan that covers three years or longer.

You will need more than a few rough numbers for a useful business plan. Instead, you will need to estimate your expenses and revenues as accurately as possible.

"Take some financial statements courses, take some managerial accounting courses that teach you how to track costs, how to frame costs in a way that you're looking at the important costs." — Omar Ochoa

You might need to contact vendors and service providers to get precise costs. You will probably need to track your billings with your prior firm to predict your revenues. If you are opening a law firm after law school or an in-house job, you may need a competitive analysis to show what similar law firms earn in your location and practice area.

Some reports you may need in your business plan include:

• Revenue analysis listing the fees you will collect each month
• Budget describing your monthly and annual expenses
• Financial projections combining the revenue analysis and budgeted expenses to predict your profit margins
• Cash flow statement showing how your revenues and expenses affect your cash on hand.

Your cash flow statement might be the most important financial report because it explains how your bank balance will fluctuate over time. If your clients take too long to pay their bills or you have too many accounts payable due at the same time, your cash flow statement will show you when money might get tight.

— Market Analysis

A market analysis will tell you where you fit into the legal market in your location and field. You need a competitive analysis to understand the other lawyers and law firms that will compete with you for potential clients. You can also analyze their marketing messages to figure out how to stand out from the competition.

A competitive analysis will tell you what services other firms offer, how much they charge, and what features help your competitors succeed.

Your analysis should include a discussion about your :

• Ideal clients and what you can do to help them
• Market size and whether you offer something clients need
• Competitors and what they offer to clients
• Competitive advantages and how you can market them to potential clients

You can also develop and hone your marketing strategy based on the benefits you offer to clients over your competitors. Finally, a market analysis can tell you the locations and practice areas in which your firm may expand in the future.

Your market analysis helps you focus your efforts on your legal niche.

— Marketing Plan

A marketing plan sets out the steps you will take to reach your target market. Your marketing strategy will take your market analysis and turn it into a plan of action.

You will start with the results of your market analysis identifying your clients, your competitors, and your competitive advantages. You will then discuss the message you can deliver to potential clients that captures the advantages you have over your competition.

Some advantages you might have over other lawyers and law firms might include tangible benefits like lower billing rates or local office locations. Other advantages might provide some intangible benefits like more years of experience or state-bar-certified specialists in those states that allow specialization.

You will then discuss your marketing plan. A marketing plan explains :

• Characteristics of the target market you want to reach
• What your competition offers
• The distinct benefits you offer
• A message you can use to explain what separates you from your competition
• Your action plan for delivering your message
• Your goals for your action plan, such as the number of client leads, new clients, or new cases per month

Your action plan will include the marketing channels you want to use to spread your message. Marketing specialists can help you identify the best channels for your marketing message and client base.

For example, if you practice intellectual property law, you need to reach business owners and in-house lawyers who want to protect their companies' brands, inventions, artistic works, and trade secrets. A marketing agency may help you create a marketing strategy geared toward trade publications and business magazines.

However, IP lawyers require an entirely different marketing strategy than firms that practice family law. Family lawyers need to market to individuals and will tailor their marketing efforts toward different marketing channels and messages.

Even if you expect most of your client leads to come from referrals, you still need brand recognition for those leads to find you. You should consider a website, basic SEO, legal directory, and bar association listings.

— Your Law Firm Services

You will outline the services your law firm offers to clients. Lawyers with established clients and an existing legal practice can simply describe what they already do.

Any new law firm or lawyer transitioning from other practice areas should consider:

• Practice areas you know and enjoy
• Overlapping practice fields that will not require extra staff, such as personal injury and workers' comp
• Related legal services your clients may need, such as wills and guardianship

By offering needed services you can competently provide, you can gain clients and avoid referring existing clients out to other lawyers.

— Your Law Firm Budget

You should approach your budget as a living document. You will spend more money as you add more lawyers and staff members to your firm. But you can also look for ways to reduce your operating costs through investments in technology services and other cost-saving measures .

Your budget should set out the amount you expect to initially spend on start-up expenses. As you create your start-up budget, remember many of these expenses are not recurring. Furniture, computers, and office space build-outs can last several years. In short, your budget should answer the question, "What do you need to open a law firm?"

It should also lay out the amount you plan to spend each month to operate your firm. Here, you will include your recurring expenses, such as rent, staff salaries, insurance premiums, and equipment leases.

Using your operating budget, you will determine the amount of money you need to start and run your firm. This, in turn, will tell you whether you need to take out a loan or tap into your savings to start your law firm. You will need a plan for paying your expenses and day-to-day costs while your firm gets onto its feet.

Let us help you create a digital marketing strategy and a growth plan

Some Useful Tips on Creating a Business Plan for Law Firm Creation and Development

As you draft your law firm business plan, you should focus on the process. By putting your thoughts down in writing, you will often identify issues you had not previously considered.

Some other tips for drafting your business plan include:

— Describe Both Strengths and Weaknesses

You want to project confidence as you prepare your business plan. Remember, you will use this plan to approach potential law partners, lenders, and merger targets. You need to show that you have a solid plan backed up by your financial projections.

At the same time, you need to remain realistic. Write a business plan that describes your business challenges as well as your competitive advantages.

For example, if you have a strong competitor that has a solid  law firm reputation management  and many of the clients you will target, acknowledge the difficulty of getting those clients to switch law firms. Describe your marketing strategies for approaching and pitching your law firm to those clients.

— Think Ahead

Remember that your business plan sets out the roadmap for both the establishment and operation of your law firm . Think about issues that could arise as your firm grows and matures.

For example, you may have a goal of reaching ten lawyers in three years. But as your staff grows, you may need a human resources manager. You may also seek to handle your payroll in-house instead of outsourcing it to a payroll provider. These changes will create ripple effects throughout your business plans. You will incur costs when you add staff members. You will also realize benefits like increased attorney efficiency.

At the same time, any projections more than five years into the future will likely be useless. Your firm and its clients will evolve, and technology will change how you practice law.

"A law firm that actually does something in the unique way that is an actual measurable advantage to their clients or to their firm." — Tom Lenfestey

— Be Clear about Your Intentions

As you develop your plan, you should keep its purpose in mind. First, you want to outline your core values and goals for your law firm. Set out the reasons why you started your law firm and what you intend to accomplish with it.

"You can't just be doing something because you want prestige. There's gotta be more to that, right? You have to have a purpose that you're following. And if you've got that, that purpose is like gravity, right? You will always be grounded." — Omar Ochoa

Second, you set out your path to achieving those goals. This will include boring technical information like how much you spend on legal research every month. But it will also explain your approach to solving problems consistent with your mission statement and philosophy for law firm management.

— Consult and Update If Necessary

Your plan should guide you as you build your firm. It contains your goals and the roadmap for reaching them. But your plan is not carved in stone.

As you face challenges, you will consult your plan to make sure you approach these challenges in a way consistent with achieving your goals. But under some circumstances, you might find that the plan no longer provides the right solution.

As you work with your firm and your law partners, your goals, processes, and solutions to problems may evolve. The technology your firm uses may change. Your law firm's costs may go up with inflation or down as you realize economies of scale. You should update your plan when this happens.

— Develop a Succession Plan for Your Law Firm

Creating a succession plan for a law firm is essential for ensuring a smooth transition and preserving the firm’s value. Drawing from the experiences of professionals in other fields, it is clear that lawyers often face unique challenges in succession planning. A well-structured exit strategy can help lawyers realize the value of their practice, whether they plan to retire or pursue other interests.

Firms generating over $2 million in revenue typically have invested in systems that make them more attractive and easier to transition. These systems are crucial in creating value and attracting buyers. A transition-based sale, where the selling attorney remains involved for a period, ensures a smooth handover of clients and referral sources, reducing the risk of value loss. Additionally, specialized, systematized, and profitable firms command higher valuations. By investing in robust systems and considering your exit strategy early, you can create lasting value, financial security, and peace of mind, making your law firm more sellable in the future.

Building High-Value Law Firms with Tom Lenfestey, the CEO of Law Practice Exchange

This podcast episode features a discussion between Sasha Berson and Tom Lenfestey about the Law Practice Exchange, a marketplace for buying and selling law firms. Tom, an attorney and CPA, explains how his experience with other professionals inspired the creation of this marketplace. They discuss the importance of building systems to enhance a firm's value, the challenges of succession planning, and strategies for creating a smooth transition and maximizing value during a sale.

"You make more money with hopefully more consistency and less stress. And so that's also part of it is enjoy it. Build to better, right, overall, but build that firm that you want." — Tom Lenfestey

Tom Lenfestey

The CEO of Law Practice Exchange

Tom Lenfestey is an attorney and CPA who founded the Law Practice Exchange, a marketplace for buying and selling law firms. With a background in assisting dentists and CPAs in selling their practices, Tom identified the need for a similar platform for lawyers. His work focuses on helping attorneys realize the value of their practices, providing structured exit strategies, and facilitating smooth transitions.

Final Steps

There is no recipe for creating a business plan for law firm development. What goes into your mission statement and plan will depend on several factors, including your law firm's business model. But this is a feature, not a bug of developing a business plan.

The process of business planning will help you develop solutions to issues you might have overlooked. If you have law partners, just going through the process of creating a law firm business plan can ensure that everyone is on the same page.

As you create your plan, the process itself should provoke thoughts and ideas so you can have a unique law firm tailored to your goals and values. This will help you get exactly what you wanted when you started in the legal industry.

To learn how to expand your client base as your firm grows, check out Grow Law Firm, a professional  law firm SEO agency .

• Easy steps you can take to bring in more clients and up this year’s revenue
• The top website and marketing mistakes holding your law firm back

Find out how much demand there is in your geographical area

To view the calculation tailored to your law firm's needs, please provide your email address

Consult with Sasha Berson, a legal marketing expert , to address your marketing needs.

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Maximizing Attorney Performance: The Essential Guide

Brian Kennel

  THE PLAN:

Hire the best attorneys. 

Develop them into successful attorneys. 

Encourage productivity and retention with  compensation and incentives.

Attorney performance is a combination of several factors. The right compensation and incentives coupled with a robust amount of transparency will help motivate hardworking lawyers and make them more secure in the belief that their hard work will pay off. Not far behind compensation and incentives is the need for a clear progression path and the tools and training. Finally, a strong communication process that ensures attorneys receive regular performance feedback is essential. 

Over the last couple of months, PerformLaw has focused on how to put this "PLAN" of establishing an effective associate development program into action.  A ttorney performance engagements include customized policies, procedures, forms, and templates for your organization.

We regularly design attorney performance programs that include compensation and benefits, practice planning and guidance, progression policies, and processes for improving communications.

We can engage with you on a project level or as part of longer-term attorney performance improvement and monitoring relationship. The structure of these agreements can include in-person visits, regularly scheduled or ad hoc calls, email support, performance analysis, templates, and report style communications. We can work on improving a single lawyer’s performance or an entire firm.

Clients who engage PerformLaw to improve attorney performance get objective, experienced, and practical advice. Use of our tools, templates, processes, market awareness and creative plan design expertise are included in the engagement.  Attorney performance engagements include customized policies, procedures, forms, and templates for your organization. 

The decision to bring in outside support to help improve profitability typically in response to a need for objective advice and new ideas. These new ideas and approaches can involve better cost allocation systems, better financial reporting, process innovations, cost control, new software, changes to compensation and incentives, marketing, pricing, staffing, facilities, and organizational development.

Whether you firm is struggling with one or more of these areas or just wants to do better, we can help diagnose the high impact issues quickly and help you to apply more of your resources to fixing the issues.

Clients use our services on a project basis or on a longer-term agreement to help implement our recommended actions. Our role can include financial analysis, strategic and technical advice in several areas, and as a resource to support the change management process.

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This post continues our deep exploration of law firm compensation best practices. When setting base ...

Law firm partners and managers need help making management decisions quickly, and they need insightful analysis and business advice. Many suffer from limited access to experienced law firm managers. Their time is short, and without help, decisions are made ad hoc and rely too heavily on instinct. At times they consider outside consultants, but the available options are costly and complicated. PerformLaw developed management support agreements and expertly delivered consulting services to overcome these challenges and provide high-quality business advice to law firms when they need it.

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Crafting Your Business Plan: Why It’s the Smart Move for Any Associate

There are countless articles to read about “how” to create a business plan. But exploring the “why” of having a plan may be of greater value, particularly for associates and more junior attorneys.

January 30, 2019 at 01:30 PM

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There are countless articles to read about “how” to create a business plan. But exploring the “why” of having a plan may be of greater value, particularly for associates and more junior attorneys. Therefore, in this article we look at the benefits of creating a business plan early in your career. In short, this is one New Year’s resolution truly worth keeping.

The Business Plan

The plan is not just a document. It is a tool that attorneys prepare to take stock of experiences, skills and relationships. The plan identifies what sets you apart from other attorneys. And yet, the plan is so much more than that.

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Law Firm Business Plan Template

Written by Dave Lavinsky

Law Firm Business Plan

You’ve come to the right place to create your Law Firm business plan.

We have helped over 1,000 entrepreneurs and business owners create business plans and many have used them to start or grow their Law Firms.

Below is a template to help you create each section of your Law Firm business plan.

Executive Summary

Business overview.

The Harris & Harris Law Firm is a startup up business that provides legal advice and services for clients located within the Scottsdale, Arizona region. The company is founded by Roger Harris and his son, Anthony. Roger Harris has been a partner in a well-established company, Foundations Law Firm, for over twenty years. Anthony Harris is a recent law school graduate who will begin his training under the scholarship of his father. With the extensive list of former clients in hand, Roger and Anthony are confident they can begin open their doors for business and grow the new law firm successfully.

Harris & Harris Law Firm will provide a comprehensive array of services for individuals or business entities who need advice and/or legal representation in court proceedings. Harris & Harris will provide a multi-prong approach to fashion specific solutions for each individual they represent; in that regard, all services are custom-packaged and provided for clients by the lawyers at Harris & Harris. This unique factor will set them above all other area lawyers, as most follow standard processes within the companies where they work.

Product Offering

The following are the services that Harris & Harris Law Firm will provide:

• Client-centric efforts in every case until resolution is found
• Unique process to fully explore client options in any dispute
• Creative and sustainable solutions on a case-by-case basis
• Prioritization of client needs above all else
• Dedication to professionalism and honesty
• Equally dedicated to securing the correct outcomes for our clients
• Team of highly-skilled lawyers who create winning solutions

Customer Focus

Harris & Harris will target the residents of Scottsdale, Arizona. They will also target medium-to-large businesses within Scottsdale, Arizona. They will target former associates and lawyers with whom they can collaborate in the future. They will target residents who have been served a summons for civil or criminal case appearances, whether as a witness, interested party or a potential defendant.

Management Team

Harris & Harris will be owned and operated by Roger Harris. He recruited his son, Anthony, to join the new firm upon Anthony’s recent graduation from law school. Within the next ten years, depending on performance, Anthony will receive incremental distributions of up to 49% of the company value in private stock. This will be based on Anthony’s performance and growth in the company as his role expands.

Roger Harris was formerly a partner in a well-established company, Foundations Law Firm, for over twenty years. He practiced law in the personal law arena, including wills and probates, trusts and other forms of personal law. He also managed the real estate law team at his former place of employment. Roger’s role in Harris & Harris will be the President, with the primary responsibility of driving new client traffic to the company. Roger has recruited Anthony, Richard Cummings, and Torey Crouch to begin their employment at Harris & Harris, as well.

Anthony Harris is a recent law school graduate who will begin his training under the scholarship of his father. Anthony will specialize in a unique processing of individual cases by creating algorithms that will specify which outcomes will best serve the client. Anthony will also represent clients in court and assist in defense appearances. With the extensive list of former clients in hand and the unique processes they’ve designed for clients going forward, Roger and Anthony are confident they can begin and grow the new law firm successfully.

Richard Cummings, a former associate of Roger Harris, will take on the role of Managing Partner in the launch of Harris & Harris. He will oversee all junior partners and staff, as the total number of lawyers grows expeditiously over the first few years.

Torey Crouch, a former law student with Anthony Cummings, will take on the role of Research & Records Manager, as she will form the background work necessary for all the other lawyers on staff.

Success Factors

Harris & Harris Law Firm will be able to achieve success by offering the following competitive advantages:

• Friendly, knowledgeable, and highly-qualified team of Harris & Harris Law Firm
• Comprehensive menu of services designed to provide specific customer-centric solutions
• Specializations in real estate, trusts, probate, civil and criminal law are all offered under this multi-pronged services of Harris & Harris Law Firm
• Harris & Harris offers family discounts and other forms of packages for clients.
• Harris & Harris offers a “monthly pay” program for clients who need to spread out payments over time.

Financial Highlights

Harris & Harris Law Firm is seeking $200,000 in debt financing to launch its Harris & Harris Law Firm. The funding will be dedicated toward securing the office space and purchasing office equipment and supplies. Funding will also be dedicated toward three months of overhead costs to include payroll of the staff, rent, and marketing costs for the print ads and marketing costs. The breakout of the funding is below:

• Office space build-out: $20,000
• Office equipment, supplies, and materials: $10,000
• Three months of overhead expenses (payroll, rent, utilities): $150,000
• Marketing costs: $10,000
• Working capital: $10,000

The following graph outlines the financial projections for Harris & Harris Law Firm.

Company Overview

Who is harris & harris law firm.

Harris & Harris Law Firm is a newly established, full-service law firm in Scottsdale, Arizona. Harris & Harris Law Firm will be the most reliable, solution-centric and effective choice for clients in Scottsdale and the surrounding communities. Harris & Harris Law Firm will provide a comprehensive menu of attorney services for any individual, family or business to utilize. Their full-service approach includes a comprehensive array of services that are uniquely prepared for each client.

  Harris & Harris Law Firm will be able to serve the residents and businesses of Scottsdale. The team of professionals are highly qualified and experienced in all aspects of the law and several permutations of legal representation. Harris & Harris Law Firm removes all headaches and issues of securing a comprehensive law firm that is reliable and dedicated to clients, and ensures all issues are taken care of expeditiously, while delivering the best customer service.

Harris & Harris Law Firm History

Since incorporation, Harris & Harris Law Firm has achieved the following milestones:

• Registered Harris & Harris Law Firm, LLC to transact business in the state of Arizona.
• Has a contract for 10,000 square feet of office space midtown Scottsdale office buildings
• Reached out to numerous former clients and contacts to consider Harris & Harris for all their legal representation needs.
• Began recruiting a staff of five lawyers and three office personnel to work at Harris & Harris.

Harris & Harris Law Firm Services

The following will be the services Harris & Harris Law Firm will provide:

• Dedication to professionalism and honest dialogue

Industry Analysis

The law firm industry is expected to grow over the next five years to over $75 billion. The growth will be driven by an increased population requiring legal representation The growth will be driven by the increase of income for individuals, which can support the decision to hire representation. The growth will be driven by the increase in faulty or misleading documents, agreements, and certifications. The growth will be driven by legal firms who collect fees for business mergers and negotiations. Costs will likely be reduced as current technology becomes dated and new, higher-performing technological advances are employed.

Customer Analysis

Demographic profile of target market.

Customer Segmentation

Harris & Harris Law Firm will primarily target the following customer profiles:

• Residents of Scottsdale region
• Businesses within Scottsdale region
• Former associates and clients with whom they can collaborate
• Individuals or businesses that have been served with a summons to appear in court

Competitive Analysis

Direct and indirect competitors.

Harris & Harris Law Firm will face competition from other companies with similar business profiles. A description of each competitor company is below.

Diamond & Johnson Defense

Diamond & Johnson Defense is a law firm located in Phoenix, Arizona. The firm was established in 1998 and has three partners who oversee all cases: Robert Anderson, who is a lead criminal defense attorney; Lisa Martinez, who is a criminal appeals and post-conviction relief attorney, and David Collin, an investigations and trial preparation lawyer. The law firm has a total of six attorneys who specialize in criminal defense, and six office staff, who communicate directly with each lawyer on staff.

Diamond & Johnson Defense is known as “The Defendant’s Law Firm” in Scottsdale, as 99% of the law practice is focused on personal law representation in civil or criminal court cases. The law firm charges fees within the top 5% in the county for personal representation. The years of practice have proven to be winning ones for Diamond & Johnson Defense, as over 69% of their clients have been released without any prison time. The team at D & J Defense are known to be highly-skilled at investigations and trial preparation, with several team members who will take on a single case to thoroughly cover every possible defense for each client.

Legacy Law Associates

Legacy Law Associates is well-known as a “compassionate” team of attorneys, specializing in family wills and trusts. With a team of dedicated and experienced attorneys, the firm aims to provide comprehensive legal services that meet the goals of each client or family who need legal services during a difficult season of life. Legacy Law Associates consists of a partnership of two attorneys, Jonathan Dunlap and David Sessions, who established the law firm in 2005 in Phoenix after graduating from law school together. Together, the co-owners seek families who have legal needs after the death of a family member; such as estate negotiations, final documents and closures, trustee assistance, probate searches, and confidential proceedings per the will of any individual. The law firm has hired a private secretary for each partner and is housed in a small office in downtown Phoenix. The firm has not grown since 2007 and does not choose to make that a pivotal goal for their partnership, relying instead on the on-going legal processes of trusts, wills, probate and other related items.

Construction Defect Law Firm

The Construction Defect Law Firm is owned and operated by Chip Jackson and is located in Green Valley, Arizona. The focus of the law firm is to represent homeowners who have determined a new or nearly-new home contains construction defects. In most cases, the home builder has moved on from the geographic region and, even when contacted repeatedly, is unwilling to rectify the situation by repair or monetary refund.

Chip Jackson is a highly-skilled evaluator and contractor within the construction industry. He is able to determine the viability of most construction issues with merely a cursory examination and has proven over the past ten years to be a worthy adversary in the courtroom. He wins 98% of all cases he brings into the courtroom. Chip’s clients are always homeowners who have been victims of construction defects in homes that are typically new or less than ten years old. His skill set includes negotiation outside the courtroom, compelling videos of problematic construction processes, drone footage of damaged rooftops, chimneys and other areas not typically viewed by homeowners and other support graphics that demonstrate the defects of the property.

Competitive Advantage

Harris & Harris Law Firm will be able to offer the following advantages over their competition:

Marketing Plan

Brand & value proposition.

Harris & Harris Law Firm will offer the unique value proposition to its clientele:

Promotions Strategy

The promotions strategy for Harris & Harris Law Firm is as follows:

Word of Mouth/Referrals

Harris & Harris Law Firm has built up an extensive list of contacts over the years by providing exceptional service and expertise to former clients and associates. This group will follow Roger and Anthony to their new company and help spread the word of Harris & Harris Law Firm.

Professional Associations and Networking

Harris & Harris Law Firm will take an active role in all community organizations and networking events, where they can spread the word about the launch and start of their company. The law firm will offer an Open House specifically for association members to acquaint the city of Scottsdale with their new services and location.

Website/SEO Marketing

Harris & Harris Law Firm will fully utilize their website. The website will be well organized, informative, and list all the services that Harris & Harris Law Firm provides. The website will also list their contact information and list their available reservation times to meet with one of the attorney’s for an initial consultation. The website will employ SEO marketing tactics so that anytime someone types in the Google or Bing search engine “law firm services” or “lawyer near me”, Harris & Harris Law Firm will be listed at the top of the search results.

The pricing of Harris & Harris Law Firm will be moderate and on par with competitors so customers feel they receive excellent value when purchasing their services.

Operations Plan

The following will be the operations plan for Harris & Harris Law Firm. Operation Functions:

• Roger Harris will be the Owner and President of the company. He will engage and manage new client relations.
• Anthony Harris will be the Legal Outcomes & Research Manager for the company. He will work with clients to craft potential outcomes based on algorithms and research.
• Richard Cummings will take on the role of Managing Partner and, as such, will oversee junior partners and staff, as the total number of staff lawyers is expected to markedly grow in the coming five years.
• Torey Crouch will take on the role of Research & Records Manager, where she will support and provide research for all junior and senior attorney staff members. She will also oversee the office personnel.

Milestones:

Harris & Harris Law Firm will have the following milestones completed in the next six months.

• 5/1/202X – Finalize contract to lease office space
• 5/15/202X – Finalize personnel and staff employment contracts for the Harris & Harris Law Firm
• 6/1/202X – Finalize contracts for Harris & Harris Law Firm clients
• 6/15/202X – Begin networking at association meetings and industry events
• 6/22/202X – Begin moving into Harris & Harris Law Firm office
• 7/1/202X – Harris & Harris Law Firm opens its office for business

Financial Plan

Key revenue & costs.

The revenue drivers for Harris & Harris Law Firm are the fees they will charge to clients for the legal services and representation they provide.

The cost drivers will be the overhead costs required in order to staff Harris & Harris Law Firm. The expenses will be the payroll cost, rent, utilities, office supplies, and marketing materials.

Funding Requirements and Use of Funds

Harris & Harris Law Firm is seeking $200,000 in debt financing to launch its law firm. The funding will be dedicated toward securing the office space and purchasing office equipment and supplies. Funding will also be dedicated toward three months of overhead costs to include payroll of the staff, rent, and marketing costs for the print ads and association memberships. The breakout of the funding is below:

Key Assumptions

The following outlines the key assumptions required in order to achieve the revenue and cost numbers in the financials and in order to pay off the startup business loan.

• Number of Clients Per Month: 125
• Average Revenue per Month: $325,000
• Office Lease per Year: $100,000

Financial Projections

Income statement.

Balance Sheet

Cash Flow Statement

Law Firm Business Plan FAQs

What is a law firm business plan.

A law firm business plan is a plan to start and/or grow your law firm business. Among other things, it outlines your business concept, identifies your target customers, presents your marketing plan and details your financial projections.

You can easily complete your Law Firm business plan using our Law Firm Business Plan Template here .

What are the Main Types of Law Firm Businesses? 

There are a number of different kinds of law firm businesses , some examples include: Commercial Law, Criminal, Civil Negligence, and Personal Injury Law, Real Estate Law, and Labor Law.

How Do You Get Funding for Your Law Firm Business Plan?

Law Firm businesses are often funded through small business loans. Personal savings, credit card financing and angel investors are also popular forms of funding.

What are the Steps To Start a Law Firm Business?

Starting a law firm business can be an exciting endeavor. Having a clear roadmap of the steps to start a business will help you stay focused on your goals and get started faster.

1. Develop A Law Firm Business Plan - The first step in starting a business is to create a detailed law firm business plan that outlines all aspects of the venture. This should include potential market size and target customers, the services or products you will offer, pricing strategies and a detailed financial forecast. 

2. Choose Your Legal Structure - It's important to select an appropriate legal entity for your law firm business. This could be a limited liability company (LLC), corporation, partnership, or sole proprietorship. Each type has its own benefits and drawbacks so it’s important to do research and choose wisely so that your law firm business is in compliance with local laws.

3. Register Your Law Firm Business - Once you have chosen a legal structure, the next step is to register your law firm business with the government or state where you’re operating from. This includes obtaining licenses and permits as required by federal, state, and local laws.

4. Identify Financing Options - It’s likely that you’ll need some capital to start your law firm business, so take some time to identify what financing options are available such as bank loans, investor funding, grants, or crowdfunding platforms.

5. Choose a Location - Whether you plan on operating out of a physical location or not, you should always have an idea of where you’ll be based should it become necessary in the future as well as what kind of space would be suitable for your operations.

6. Hire Employees - There are several ways to find qualified employees including job boards like LinkedIn or Indeed as well as hiring agencies if needed – depending on what type of employees you need it might also be more effective to reach out directly through networking events.

7. Acquire Necessary Law Firm Equipment & Supplies - In order to start your law firm business, you'll need to purchase all of the necessary equipment and supplies to run a successful operation.

8. Market & Promote Your Business - Once you have all the necessary pieces in place, it’s time to start promoting and marketing your law firm business. This includes creating a website, utilizing social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter, and having an effective Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy. You should also consider traditional marketing techniques such as radio or print advertising. 

Learn more about how to start a successful law firm business:

• How to Start a Law Firm

A Definitive Guide to Master Law Firm Business Development

As a law firm, building robust, long-lasting client relationships can be challenging. After all, networking, client engagement, and lead generation tactics can be time consuming. However, adapting to modern business development strategies and incorporating new technology can streamline these processes.

In this article, we’ll discuss how to make connections, set your firm up for a prosperous future, and integrate innovative tools so that your vision of your firm’s success can become a reality.

• What is Law Firm Business Development?

Five Business Development Ideas for Law Firms

How to create a law firm business development plan, law firm business development vs. law firm marketing, resources to support law firm business development, what is law firm business development.

Law firm business development refers to anything you do, intentionally and systemically, to generate your firm’s revenue and gain clientele. It focuses more on the big picture rather than smaller transactional tasks.

You may apply law firm business development strategies by:

• Taking on new practice areas
• Cross-selling to existing or former clients
• Expanding the geography of your practice
• Implementing a more robust client intake process 

Constructing a business development plan requires time, reviewing data regarding your firm’s performance, staying up to date on trends in the industry, and keeping an eye on your competitor’s performance. 

Law firms of any size, practice, or location can use these law firm business development ideas to build their business:

When you hear “networking,” you may automatically think of attending happy hours or big legal conferences. That’s one way to do it, and it’s a good start. This way, you can feel more comfortable and make connections in a more relaxed environment. But don’t stop there.

After you’ve attended a few events and gotten the hang of how they work, it might be time to explore other ways to put yourself out there. You may want to base your approach on your clientele and practice area.

For example, if your clients are predominantly from the medical field or need health law related services, attend events that sponsor and host physicians. Should one of their patients need representation, a doctor you met at one of these events could direct them to you.

Online Forums

People with a common problem usually take to online forums to get answers to their questions. The conversation is a collection of posted messages, allowing multiple people to participate.

Drop into a forum and offer insights and advice to people seeking help. You might just land your next customer if you check out:

• Social media groups
• Thomas Reuters Legal Community
• Bar Association forums
• The Lawyerist Community
• Law school alumni forums

Referrals/Reviews

Some lawyers might avoid asking for referrals or reviews since they consider it free legal marketing . As long as you comply with the American Bar Association’s (ABA) guidelines, there’s no need to worry.

Referrals and reviews are a great lead generation strategy for law firms. Referred leads tend to have a higher conversion rate as they come from clients you’ve worked with and established a line of trust.

Client Engagement

Receiving leads and, ultimately, clients requires you to build strong personal relationships with your current clients. You can do this by being attentive to their needs, providing emotional support, and maintaining constant and clear communication.

As cliché as it sounds, put yourself in their position and ask yourself what you would want. Take the time to ensure they understand everything regarding their case. When you get an update on their case, let them know immediately. 

Once the case resolves, ask them for feedback. Your proactivity and willingness to do better prove your dedication and care for them.

They’ll remember how you went the extra mile for them and may feel more inclined to share their experiences with their friends and family, who just may be your future clients.

Thought Leadership

Thought leadership increases brand awareness and is another avenue to convert leads into clients. In other words, what’s your niche? If one thing about your firm stands out, make sure your prospects know what it is. Showcase your expertise by focusing on the quality of the service or perk you can provide rather than the quantity.

If you’re a personal injury attorney, provide content about common mistakes people make when dealing with insurance companies. If you run an immigration firm , write a post or make a video on how the Green Card process goes step by step.

Creating a law firm business plan sounds intimidating, but when you break it down into simple steps, you’ll feel like you can do anything.

Define Measurable Goals

Start small, and list the goals you want to accomplish in the next year. This can look like reaching a broader clientele by taking on a new practice area or partnering with another lawyer. You may have specific revenue goals you want to achieve and want to better define your law firm’s finances.  

Goals combine your firm’s performance and aspirations to create actionable, tangible achievements. 

Create Actionable Strategies

As mentioned before, goals need to be tangible and elicit action. How will you achieve these goals? Some ideas for strategies are:

• Increasing visibility on LinkedIn or Facebook
• Attending networking events that are more clientele-based than colleague-based (See the doctor example above)
• Setting aside time to answer questions on social media or forums

Prioritize Your Goals

Prioritizing your firm’s goals will help you make actionable steps that you can measure and adjust along the way based on their performance. Overloading yourself with too many goals at once can be overwhelming and may be hard to track.

For example, if you want to build a presence on Instagram the most, take steps like:

• Converting your page into a business account
• Learning the different tools and which hashtags to use
• Deciding if you want to post photos, videos, or a mix
• Figuring out how often you’ll post both on your account and stories
• Leverage Instagram or Facebook ads

Your firm should aim to implement a set of goals over a defined period, likely on a quarterly basis. 

Develop a Timeline To Test and Measure Performance

Goals are nothing without timelines or creating processes to track them. You’ll want to set a cadence, pull reports, and gauge revenue generation. This way, you can see what’s working and what isn’t.

Law firm business development and legal marketing tend to go hand-in-hand, but there is a distinction. 

Digital marketing , such as Google advertising or pay-per-click (PPC), can generate immediate revenue.

In business development, your focus is still generating revenue, but it’s less of a focus on selling. Instead, it’s about building your firm and relationships and setting up revenue streams with the long-term end goal in mind.

Investing in law practice management software can help maximize your firm’s business development and marketing. With PracticePanther, your firm has access to native resources to effectively attract and retain more business, including: 

• CRM : From lead to closed business, easily collect and store important client data in PracticePanther’s legal crm . Use this information to populate documents, create audience lists for email marketing campaigns, and more! 
• Custom tags : Easily track where leads came from with tags that can be customized to your firm’s liking. Create custom tags for “LinkedIn Ads” or “Website” to track the performance of a campaign. Then, you can easily filter your tags and generate reports to identify which marketing tactics don’t work for your firm.
• Email management : Use PracticePanther to automate your firm’s email marketing. Once a contact is created in PracticePanther, you can use the MailChimp integration or another email automation tool to sync to your email contact list. Having a space with all the information on one platform can save you time from bouncing back and forth from different websites.
• Client intake : Streamline the onboarding process with automated client intake forms . Add custom fields to capture the information your firm needs and add your logo. Embed intake forms on your website and email signature so clients can contact your firm from anywhere. Once a client’s information is captured, it automatically syncs to PracticePanther as a contact, so you always have the record. (Yes, you can even tag them!)
• Integrated legal calendaring software : Easily keep track of deadlines, appointments, court dates, and meetings with a built-in calendaring system . Sync your Google or Outlook calendars to PracticePanther to keep track of your events, meetings, and tasks in one place without double entry. 

Use These Tips To Effectively Invest in Your Firm’s Profitability

By adopting modern business development strategies and adopting legal-specific software, your firm can increase its visibility, generate more new business and enhance client satisfaction. As we’ve discussed, goals are nothing without processes to measure them. PracticePanther helps firms manage all aspects of their practice from business development to legal case management in one place.

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Kamron Sanders

Kamron Sanders is the Senior Content Marketing Specialist at PracticePanther, an all-in-one legal practice management software. She is responsible for creating engaging content across multiple channels including social media, articles, videos, and more. Kamron views marketing through a customer-focused lens and equips legal professionals with the information and tools to automate their practice.

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Attorney Business Plan Template With Legal Insights

Attorney Business Plan Template With Legal Insights provides a template that will assist you in putting together your business plan. You can download it here for free. An attorney’s business plan is vital to the business development process. A well-written attorney business plan can help you secure financing, land clients, and avoid common pitfalls that often lead attorneys to failure.

This template contains all the information you need to write a winning attorney business plan. It includes a sample attorney business plan and worksheets to help you fill the document with the correct information. This template is a PDF file that can be downloaded and printed for easy access. The plan starts with the legal background of the business and then follows with information about the company’s history, financial projections, management team, and more.

The lawyer business plan template below is designed to give you a strong foundation for writing your business plan. It includes information on developing your business plan and provides guidelines for legal considerations. We have also included insights from our lawyers that will give you helpful insights into legal matters to consider when developing your business plan.

What is an attorney business plan?

A business plan is a detailed, structured document that lays out the details of your business. It helps you map out where you are now, where you want to go, and how to get there.

An attorney business plan is a formal document written for a specific purpose—to get financing. It is not a general planning document that can be used to report any business plan.

It is a highly-structured document that needs to include the following:

The purpose of the business

The legal and financial issues you need to address

The management and leadership structure

The plan’s budget and projected revenue and profit

The market analysis

The company’s value proposition

The competitive landscape

An overview of the company’s history

A business plan should not be a document you write at the last minute. The longer you spend writing, the more successful your business will be. The template has a sample plan you can use to get started, but it also gives you room to add your content to the project.

How To Get Your Business Plan Approved

The first step towards getting your business plan approved is to ensure it is ready to be submitted. You can use this template as a guide to prepare your plan before sending it to your business advisor.

Consider the following:

– If you want to raise equity, you’ll need to explain why investors should be interested in your company.

– Describe the main risks and opportunities for your business.

– Be clear about your number of employees and your number of clients.

– Include a description of the industry that you work in.

– Be realistic about the market size and growth potential.

– Include details about the products or services you offer .

– Explain the business model and the target market.

– Give details about your financial projections.

– Provide the expected revenue and earnings per year.

– Describe the business operations and the structure of your organization .

– Show how you are going to reach your target market.

– Be prepared to justify any cost estimates that you include.

– Include an executive summary at the end of the plan.

– Remember that your plan should be between six to eight pages long.

The different sections of a legal business plan

An attorney’s business plan is vital to the business development process. A well-written attorney business plan can help you secure financing, land clients, and avoid common pitfalls that often lead attorneys to failure.

This template contains all the information you need to write a winning attorney business plan. It includes a sample attorney business plan and worksheets to help you fill the document with the correct information. This template is a PDF file that can be downloaded and printed for easy access.

The plan starts with the legal background of the business and then follows with information about the company’s history, financial projections, management team, and more.

The different sections of a legal business plan are listed below.

Executive summary.

• Market Research
• Company History
• Legal and Regulatory Background
• Financial Projections
• Management Team
• Operations and Marketing Plan
• Capital Structure
• Company Mission Statement
• Risk Management

Business Plan Sections

A business plan is a document that lays out a company’s goals, strategies, and objectives. It should include all the information required to show investors the business is viable.

Business plans typically include the following sections:

This section is the heart of the business plan. It’s where you concisely describe the business and its prospects. It should include a summary of the company’s mission statement and the business plan’s overall objective.

Company Overview

This section describes the company’s history and shows how it has grown. It also details the company’s products, services, and other offerings.

Frequently Asked Questions Attorney Business

Q: What do you like to do in your spare time?

A: I like to spend quality time with my family in my spare time.

Q: Why did you decide to attend law school?

A: I chose law school because I wanted to help other people. Being a lawyer would make me feel more fulfilled than doing anything else.

Q: What are the three main goals you hope to achieve during your time as an attorney?

A: My main goals are to help others, learn how to represent clients better, and learn to use different software programs.

Top Myths About Attorney Business

• I am not qualified to write a business plan.
• I don’t have the time to write a business plan.
• It will cost me too much money.

I aim to help you understand the legal aspects of becoming a self-employed lawyer. As an attorney , I know what it takes to become a successful attorney. I’m also aware of all the challenges facing a new lawyer. And now, I’ll share the tips and tricks that helped me to become a top lawyer in the industry.

What Are the Benefits of Understanding Criminal Psychology?

Essential questions to ask a car accident lawyer – be sure about your pi claim.

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5 Business Development Basics for Associates

The idea of bringing in clients can be daunting for younger lawyers. Secretly, most associates seem to feel that success in this area is either unlikely or impossible.

Chief Executive Officer Fishman Marketing

Most lawyers want to have their own clients, but looking ahead 10 or 20 years, few see a clear roadmap to success.

The specifics are where it gets complicated. There’s a lot of advice out there. Candidly, much of it is terrible. Some of it makes sense in theory but doesn’t work in practice. Of course, associates are rarely able to judge which is which. By the time they figured it out, they’ve squandered the years they should have been building the infrastructure for their future success.

Can you imagine spending a decade doing the wrong things without realizing it? Most lawyers never really figure out the right things; they just do a lot of different wrong things, or a few wrong things for a long time, then quit in frustration. They simply think that they must not be marketers, rather than understanding that they’ve been implementing a flawed plan. It’s our job to give them useful advice and help aim them in the right direction.

DRIP, DRIP, DRIP — THAT’S ALL MARKETING IS

Developing business isn’t especially complicated. In part, it’s a numbers game: do the right things and enough of them that they gradually and systematically build and develop their personal network and reputation.

Plan, prepare and execute. Steadily, over time. A little bit every week. Just make sure the things they are doing are the right things.

I’ve trained tens of thousands of lawyers and helped thousands of associates prepare for partnership, or at least for getting clients. What have I learned?

That today’s associates know the game. They’ve heard gray-haired seasoned attorneys assure them that “law is a profession, not a business” and “doing good work is the best marketing.” But Millennials know better; they know that your competitors are also doing darn good work. They learned it’s a business the hard way when smart, skilled, hard-working but generic or fungible associates got fired unceremoniously in the recession. Or when friends had their big-firm job offers withdrawn because there wasn’t enough business to go around — no hard feelings; it’s just business.

Today’s associates are hardworking, smart and adaptable. They know not to rely on the firm’s loyalty to feed them forever. They’re industrious and impatient. They want to control their own destiny. Good for them.

So, what should they do?

FIVE-STEP MARKETING PLAN FOR ASSOCIATES

Here’s the basic outline of an associate marketing program. These five basic steps will help associates build a sizable network of relationships, and a personal brand for something that clients will want to hire you to do.

In the first two to three years, they must learn to be a great lawyer, emphasizing both technical skills and client service. Help them build their long-term marketing infrastructure, the social media platform and other tools they’ll leverage through partnership.

Encourage them to join a local bar association, meet their peers, learn the profession, build their résumé by joining a committee, get active, and work toward a leadership position on a small, relevant committee. Build both their personal and professional networks.

Gradually, as they grow into midlevel associates, they can start to add more external marketing and networking activities. Get them out of the office. Teach them not to eat lunch at their desks.

Around year four or five, they should start to develop a specialty niche or industry expertise in an area they enjoy. We can’t let them become one more generic generalist. We want them to offer more, both to the firm and its clients and prospects. Help them find something they’re passionate about to focus on, something narrower than “commercial real estate” or “complex business litigation.” Not “transportation law,” but “interstate transportation of infectious biological material.” Once they have that narrow specialty in mind, then it’s easier for them to determine what to write, speak and network about to help them become market leaders. They’ll finally know whom to network with and how to build their personal brands. This is critical.

As they get more experienced, they should spend more time out of the office with prospects and referrals. If they’ve accomplished step 4 above, they’ll have: A) something to sell beyond “I’m a smart, service-oriented lawyer” (precisely like hundreds or thousands of look-alike lawyers in your community); and B) hundreds of interested prospects. They’ll stand out in a positive, client-oriented way.

That’s the big overview. The niche practice is the silver bullet, the special sauce. They might develop business otherwise — many lawyers do — but their chances are exponentially greater if they offer a unique specialty. 

About the Author

Ross Fishman, JD, specializes in branding, websites, and marketing training for law firms. A former litigator, marketing director, and marketing partner, he has helped hundreds of ALA member firms dominate their markets. A Kentucky Colonel (like Col. Sanders), Fishman was the first inductee into the Legal Marketing Association’s Hall of Fame, and recently negotiated the safe end of a 12-hour armed police standoff. (No, really!) He’s written 10 books on marketing, all of which are available on Amazon. 

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Fine art bidders beware (know the terms of sale before bidding), 6 representations and warranties art buyers must have, six must-have representations and warranties for art buyers, a tenant-shareholder’s rights to inspect board minutes, ruskin moscou faltischek, p.c. welcomes tyla phillip, jacqueline fink and madison scarfaro as first-year associates, ruskin moscou faltischek, p.c. welcomes attorneys douglas wasser & adam russ, rmf attorneys recognized by best lawyers® for 2025, rmf attorney adam l. browser named adjunct professor of maurice a. deane school of law at hofstra university, ruskin moscou faltischek, p.c. welcomes associate brittany l. adikes to the firm, public comment closes on fire safety recommendations for battery energy storage systems (bess), new york law journal - personal liability of a fiduciary for claims against an estate, bankruptcy strategist overcoming the constitutional invalidity of section 106a, bankruptcy strategist rethinking terminated leases, bankruptcy strategist sigh of relief derivitave actions safe for now.

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Pension Board Seeks 9th Cir. Redo in Allianz Fund Collapse Suit

By Jacklyn Wille

A pension fund board that previously sued Allianz Global Investors US LLC over the collapse of its Structured Alpha funds asked the Ninth Circuit to reconsider reviving litigation by plan participants who say they were harmed by the ordeal.

The July decision allowing retirees to press ERISA claims against the pension board creates a lose-lose scenario in which retirement plan fiduciaries can face litigation based solely on the “supposed risks” of any given investment, trustees for the Carpenters of Western Washington said Thursday in a petition for rehearing . This is “antithetical” to the flexibility afforded to plan fiduciaries under ...

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Politics | mueller report: who and what the special counsel investigated.

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Mueller Report: Who and What the Special Counsel Investigated

By LARRY BUCHANAN and KAREN YOURISH UPDATED APRIL 17, 2019

After more than two years of criminal indictments and steady revelations about contacts between associates of Donald J. Trump and Russia, we already know a lot about the work done by Robert S. Mueller III , the special counsel who investigated Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. This is everything we knew before the release of the special counsel’s report.

The investigation revealed a range of events related to Russian interference and the 2016 election.

Russian Hacking and WikiLeaks As part of a complex effort to sabotage the campaign of Hillary Clinton, Donald J. Trump’s 2016 rival, Russia’s top military intelligence service hacked the computer networks of Democratic organizations and the private email account of the chairman of the Clinton campaign and released tens of thousands of stolen emails through WikiLeaks to the public, according to an indictment filed by Mr. Mueller . Only the Russians have been charged.

Russian Social Media Manipulation The Russian government also directed a network of Internet trolls who used fake accounts on social media to manipulate potential voters and influence the election, according to the special counsel.

Trump Tower Moscow Mr. Trump and other Trump Organization executives were involved in discussions throughout the 2016 campaign to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. During the campaign, Mr. Trump repeatedly denied having any business interests in Russia, but has since admitted that discussions took place.

Trump Tower Russia Meeting Donald Trump Jr. arranged a meeting with a Kremlin-connected lawyer after being told that the Russian government wanted to share damaging information about Mrs. Clinton. After the meeting was uncovered by The New York Times , the Trump team pushed a false narrative about the reason for holding it.

Russian Contacts All told, Mr. Trump and more than a dozen of his associates had more than 100 contacts with Russian nationals and WikiLeaks, or their intermediaries, during the campaign and transition. These included multiple offers of dirt on Mrs. Clinton, attempts to arrange “back-channel” meetings between Mr. Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, and private messages with WikiLeaks and other Russian fronts . At least 10 other advisers were told about these interactions but did not have any themselves.

Russian Sanctions Several people close to Mr. Trump engaged in discussions about deals to give Russia relief from economic sanctions. Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump’s onetime campaign chairman, had repeated conversations with a Russian business associate about a plan to end a guerrilla war between Russia and Ukraine that might have led to sanctions relief. Michael D. Cohen, the president’s longtime personal lawyer, delivered a sealed proposal to the office of Michael T. Flynn, the president’s first national adviser, for the same purpose. Mr. Flynn also spoke with the Russian ambassador about sanctions (court documents show that Mr. Trump’s presidential transition team knew about these calls and coached Mr. Flynn on how to respond).

Other Foreign Contacts Other foreign officials also reached out or offered assistance to the Trump campaign. An emissary for the leaders of two Arab nations told Mr. Trump Jr. that the princes were eager to help his father win election . An Israeli company was asked to provide a proposal for using social media manipulation to help defeat Mrs. Clinton. And an informal adviser to Mr. Trump’s team during the presidential transition attended a meeting in the Seychelles that was convened by the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates.

Obstruction Inquiry Mr. Trump’s public and private attacks on investigations have exposed him to accusations of obstruction of justice . These include efforts to pressure the director of the F.B.I., James B. Comey, to end the bureau’s investigation into Mr. Flynn, firing Mr. Comey and Attorney General Jeff Sessions and attempting to fire Mr. Mueller.

Other Charges Mr. Manafort and his longtime business associate, Rick Gates, were convicted of fraud and other crimes related to their work for pro-Russian Ukrainian politicians before joining the Trump campaign. Mr. Manafort and a Russian associate were also charged with witness tampering. Several others, not shown here, have been charged in spin-off investigations.

Six people connected to Trump were charged. Five were convicted or pleaded guilty.

Michael T. Flynn Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. about conversations he had with the Russian ambassador during the presidential transition.

related events Russian Contacts Russian Sanctions

Michael D. Cohen Mr. Trump’s former lawyer pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about negotiations to develop a Trump Tower in Moscow during the campaign. He has also been sentenced to prison in a different investigation related to hush-money payments he made on behalf of Mr. Trump.

related events Trump Tower Moscow Russian Contacts Russian Sanctions

Roger J. Stone Jr. A longtime friend and adviser to Mr. Trump, Mr. Stone was indicted on charges of lying to Congress about his efforts to contact WikiLeaks.

related events Russian Hacking and WikiLeaks Russian Contacts

Paul Manafort A longtime Republican consultant and lobbyist, Mr. Manafort served on the Trump campaign from March until August 2016, including three months as chairman. He was convicted of financial fraud and conspiracy stemming from consulting work he did in earlier years in Ukraine on behalf of pro-Russian political figures. He also had multiple contacts during the campaign with a Russian associate believed to have ties to Russian intelligence and shared private Trump campaign polling data with him. Mr. Manafort lied to the special counsel’s office after pledging to cooperate with its inquiry, a judge found.

related events Trump Tower Russia Meeting Russian Contacts Russian Sanctions Other Charges

Rick Gates Mr. Gates, a deputy campaign chairman, was Paul Manafort’s longtime right-hand man in Ukraine. He agreed to cooperate with the special counsel inquiry after pleading guilty to financial fraud and lying to investigators.

related events Russian Contacts Other Foreign Contacts Other Charges

George Papadopoulos A former Trump campaign adviser who had multiple contacts with Russians and repeatedly told campaign officials about them. He pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. about his contacts.

related events Russian Contacts

Twenty-eight others — including 26 Russians — were also charged .

Alex van der Zwaan A lawyer who worked with Mr. Manafort and Mr. Gates and who pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about conversations he had with Mr. Gates over work they did together for a pro-Russian Ukrainian political party.

related events Other Charges

Konstantin V. Kilimnik A longtime Russian business associate of Paul Manafort who had multiple contacts with Mr. Manafort while he was the Trump campaign chairman and who received private Trump campaign polling data. He was charged with conspiring with Mr. Manafort to obstruct justice by trying to shape the accounts of prospective witnesses in Mr. Manafort’s case.

related events Russian Contacts Russian Sanctions Other Charges

Richard Pinedo A California man who sold fake bank accounts and was an unwitting participant in Russia’s scheme to influence the election.

related events Russian Social Media Manipulation

Twelve Russian intelligence officers Charged with hacking the computer networks of Democratic organizations and the private email account of the chairman of the Clinton campaign and then releasing tens of thousands of stolen emails through WikiLeaks to the public.

related events Russian Hacking and WikiLeaks

Thirteen Russian nationals Charged with manipulating social media to subvert the 2016 election and help the Trump campaign.

Dozens of others were swept up in the investigation, including campaign and administration officials, family members, Trump Organization executives and members of Mr. Trump’s legal team .

Donald Trump Jr. Mr. Trump’s eldest son arranged the now-famous Russia meeting at Trump Tower. He also exchanged private messages with WikiLeaks and was aware of negotiations to develop a Trump Tower in Moscow.

related events Trump Tower Moscow Trump Tower Russia Meeting Russian Contacts Obstruction Inquiry Other Foreign Contacts

Ivanka Trump Michael D. Cohen said he briefed Ms. Trump and Donald Trump Jr. on the Moscow Trump Tower project during the campaign. She was also contacted by a Russian woman whose husband offered to help her father develop a separate real estate project in Moscow.

related events Trump Tower Moscow Russian Contacts

Jared Kushner As a senior campaign official, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law attended the Trump Tower Russia meeting. He was also told that a campaign aide had been approached about setting up a back-channel meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin, and that Donald Trump Jr. received a private message from WikiLeaks . As a senior transition adviser, Mr. Kushner met at Trump Tower with the Russian ambassador and discussed setting up a way to communicate with Moscow during the transition. He also met with a Russian banker close to Mr. Putin in an attempt to establish a direct line of communication to the Russian president.

related events Trump Tower Russia Meeting Russian Contacts Russian Sanctions

Hope Hicks A fixture of Mr. Trump’s inner circle throughout the campaign and in the White House, Ms. Hicks was involved in the drafting of a false statement in response to questions about the 2016 Trump Tower meeting arranged by Donald Trump Jr.

related events Trump Tower Russia Meeting Obstruction Inquiry

James B. Comey Former F.B.I. director who alleged that Mr. Trump pressured him to drop the investigation into Michael T. Flynn.

related events Obstruction Inquiry

Rod J. Rosenstein Deputy attorney general who appointed the special counsel to investigate Russia’s election interference.

Robert S. Mueller III The special counsel overseeing the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and the possible involvement of Mr. Trump’s campaign.

Alan Garten The Trump Organization’s general counsel was involved in the drafting of the misleading statement about the 2016 Trump Tower meeting arranged by Donald Trump Jr.

related events Trump Tower Russia Meeting

Stephen K. Bannon Mr. Trump’s former campaign chairman and chief White House strategist emailed Roger J. Stone Jr. in October 2016 for insight into WikiLeaks’s plans to publish documents that could damage the Clinton campaign.

related events Russian Sanctions

Rick Dearborn A campaign adviser who was approached by a Russian intermediary about arranging a back-channel meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin.

Donald F. McGahn II The former White House counsel threatened to quit after Mr. Trump asked him to fire Mr. Mueller.

Jeff Sessions Weeks after he was confirmed as attorney general, the former senator recused himself from any investigation into charges that Russia meddled in the election after revelations that he had failed to report encounters with the Russian ambassador during the campaign.

related events Russian Contacts Obstruction Inquiry

Carter Page Russian intelligence operatives tried to recruit Mr. Page , a foreign policy adviser to the 2016 Trump campaign, in 2013. During the campaign, Mr. Page gave a speech in Russia and met with at least one Russian government official in Moscow. He told at least four members of the campaign about his trip.

Stephen Miller As a top adviser to the president, Mr. Miller helped draft a letter, which was never sent, that explained why the president wanted to fire James B. Comey. During the campaign, Mr. Miller was among top campaign officials whom George Papadopoulos told about his Russian contacts .

Sam Clovis Mr. Clovis was among the Trump campaign officials whom George Papadopoulos told about his contacts with Russians .

related events

J. D. Gordon Mr. Gordon met briefly with the Russian ambassador during the Republican National Convention. He also had contacts with Maria Butina and was among the Trump campaign officials who knew that Carter Page would be traveling to Russia in July 2016.

Thomas P. Bossert Mr. Trump's former chief homeland security adviser was aware of conversations about sanctions that occurred during the presidential transition between Michael T. Flynn and the Russian ambassador.

Corey Lewandowski Mr. Trump’s first campaign manager was among the Trump campaign officials who knew that Carter Page would be traveling to Russia in July 2016. He was also told about George Papadopoulos’s contacts with Russians. In 2017, Mr. Trump asked Mr. Lewandowski to pressure Mr. Sessions to resign, but Mr. Lewandowski did not act on the request.

K. T. McFarland A senior transition official and former deputy national security adviser who was aware of conversations about sanctions that occurred during the transition between Michael T. Flynn and the Russian ambassador.

Reince Priebus A senior transition official and former White House chief of staff, Mr. Priebus was forwarded an email exchange during the transition that said Michael T. Flynn was discussing sanctions with the Russian ambassador. In a December 2017 meeting in the West Wing, Mr. Trump asked Mr. Priebus how his interview had gone with the special counsel’s investigators and whether they had been “nice.”

Sean Spicer Former White House press secretary who was forwarded an email exchange during the transition that said Michael T. Flynn was discussing sanctions with the Russian ambassador.

Avi Berkowitz A White House aide who works for Jared Kushner, Mr. Berkowitz met with the Russian ambassador at Mr. Kushner’s request during the presidential transition.

Mark Corallo A former spokesman for Mr. Trump’s legal team who told Mr. Mueller about a conference call with Mr. Trump and Hope Hicks in which, he said, Ms. Hicks said that emails written by Donald Trump Jr. before the Trump Tower meeting "will never get out."

Donald J. Trump The president has repeatedly sought to dismiss the special counsel’s investigation as a “witch hunt.”

related events Trump Tower Moscow Trump Tower Russia Meeting Russian Contacts Obstruction Inquiry

Sarah Huckabee Sanders Ms. Sanders, the White House press secretary, initially said the president “certainly didn’t dictate” the false statement issued by Donald Trump Jr. about the Trump Tower Russia meeting.

Jay Sekulow Mr. Trump’s private lawyer initially said the president was not involved in a false statement about the Trump Tower Russia meeting. Separately, Mr. Cohen has alleged that Mr. Trump's lawyers, including Mr. Sekulow, helped with Mr. Cohen's false testimony to Congress about a proposed Trump Tower project in Moscow.

These Russians or Russian intermediaries were also of interest.

Aras Agalarov A Russian real estate developer who co-hosted the 2013 Miss Universe pageant with Mr. Trump in Moscow. He set the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting in motion after being told by a Russian government official that Russia wanted to share damaging information about Mrs. Clinton with the Trump campaign.

related events Trump Tower Russia Meeting Russian Contacts

Emin Agalarov Aras Agalarov’s son and a Russian pop star who helped Donald Trump Jr. arrange the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting.

Rob Goldstone A British-born publicist who served as an intermediary between the Trump campaign and the Agalarovs.

Sergey N. Gorkov The head of a Russian bank who is close to Mr. Putin, Mr. Gorkov met with Jared Kushner during the transition. The bank, Vnesheconombank, is under American sanctions.

Sergey I. Kislyak The former Russian ambassador to the United States who met with multiple members of the Trump campaign and transition.

Felix H. Sater A Russian émigré and Trump business associate who was involved in negotiations during the campaign about developing a Trump Tower in Moscow.

Maria Butina A Russian who admitted to being involved in an organized effort to open up unofficial lines of communication between Russians and Americans in the N.R.A. and the Republican Party. She posed for a photo with Donald Trump Jr. at a 2016 dinner hosted by the N.R.A. in Louisville, Ky.

Andrii V. Artemenko A pro-Russian Ukrainian lawmaker who pushed a plan to end a guerrilla war between Russia and Ukraine that might have led to sanctions relief. Mr. Cohen and Mr. Sater were also involved.

Alexander Torshin A former Russian government official close to Mr. Putin who made contact with the Trump campaign and appears to have been behind efforts to use an N.R.A. meeting to arrange back-channel communications between Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin.

Ivan Timofeev A Russian who said he had connections to Russia’s foreign ministry and who had repeated contacts with George Papadopoulos about setting up a meeting between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Viktor F. Vekselberg A Russian oligarch who met with Mr. Cohen at Trump Tower .

Irakly Kaveladze An executive at Aras Agalarov’s real estate development company who represented Mr. Agalarov at the 2016 Trump Tower meeting.

Paul Erickson A Republican operative who reached out to the Trump campaign about arranging a back-channel meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin.

Rick Clay An advocate for conservative Christian causes who reached out to the Trump campaign about arranging a back-channel meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin.

Rinat Akhmetshin A Russian-American lobbyist who attended the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting.

Arkady V. Dvorkovich A Russian deputy prime minister who met with Carter Page in Moscow and expressed strong support for Mr. Trump.

Kirill Dmitriev A Russian investor who is close to Mr. Putin and attended a secret meeting in the Seychelles that was convened by the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates.

Olga Polonskaya A Russian woman originally introduced to George Papadopoulos as the niece of Mr. Putin (she was not).

Dmitry Klokov A former Russian Olympic weight lifter who offered to help the Trump Organization develop a real estate project in Moscow.

Elena Klokov A Russian woman who reached out to Ivanka Trump on behalf of her husband, Dmitry Klokov, about helping Mr. Trump develop a real estate project in Moscow.

Natalia Veselnitskaya A Kremlin-connected lawyer who attended the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting.

Joseph Mifsud A London-based professor with connections in Moscow who told George Papadopoulos that Russia had “dirt” on Mrs. Clinton in the form of “thousands of emails.”

Dmitri Peskov Mr. Putin’s spokesperson who Michael D. Cohen contacted about Trump Tower Moscow.

The head of WikiLeaks and people who are connected to Mr. Stone .

Julian Assange The founder of WikiLeaks, which released tens of thousands of Democratic emails stolen by the Russians during the 2016 election.

Jerome Corsi A conspiracy theorist and political commentator who was asked by Roger J. Stone Jr. to be an intermediary between Mr. Stone and WikiLeaks .

Randy Credico A New York comedian and former radio host who may have acted as an intermediary between Mr. Stone and WikiLeaks in 2016.

Other foreign officials or intermediaries.

Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan The crown prince of Abu Dhabi and de facto ruler of the United Arab Emirates who convened a January 2017 meeting in the Seychelles that brought together a Russian investor close to Mr. Putin and Erik D. Prince.

related events Other Foreign Contacts

Erik D. Prince The founder of Blackwater and an informal Trump adviser who arranged a meeting in August 2016 between Donald Trump Jr., George Nader and Joel Zamel. He also attended a meeting in the Seychelles that was convened by the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates. He is the brother of Betsy DeVos, Mr. Trump’s education secretary.

related events Russian Contacts Other Foreign Contacts

George Nader A Lebanese-American businessman who told Donald Trump Jr. that the leaders of Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. wanted to help his father win the election. He is cooperating with the special counsel.

Joel Zamel The owner of an Israeli firm that put together a proposal for the Trump campaign to manipulate social media.

Mohammed bin Salman Crown prince of Saudi Arabia who was among the Arab leaders George Nader said wanted to help the Trump campaign.

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How attorneys in alleged troll factory case plan to keep Mueller secrets from Moscow

After more than a year of arguing, prosecutors and defense attorneys in a court case related to alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election have agreed on a complex system for handling "sensitive" discovery information, designed to ensure the government's best-kept secrets stay far from the Kremlin as the 2020 election looms.

So far, defense attorneys for Concord Management and Consulting, a Russian firm accused of funding a troll factory that aimed to sow discord before and after the 2016 election, have not been able to share - or discuss -- the sensitive information with officers of the company under a strict protective order, which the defense attorneys said makes it virtually impossible to prepare for trial.

Prosecutors, on the other hand, said that revealing the sensitive information to individuals in Russia, far beyond the reach of U.S. legal jurisdiction, could compromise national security and potentially reveal to the Russian government just how much U.S. intelligence and law enforcement knows -- and doesn't know -- about Russia's purported interference efforts in 2016. The U.S. government says Concord is controlled by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a co-defendant in the case and an associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"That information, used by a foreign adversary, could be used to avoid detection in the future," U.S. Attorney Jonathan Kravis told the court in March, echoing concerns national security and legal experts shared with ABC News in October.

After months of haggling, on Wednesday the two sides offered the judge a joint proposal for a compromise: the government would identify some sensitive materials, called "intermediate Sensitive," that can be taken to Russia and seen there by certain court-authorized individuals, like company officers or potential witnesses in the case, as long as they view the materials in a designated location in Russia and are escorted by an authorized chaperone, according to the new protective order that's been proposed.

But the most closely held information, dubbed "U.S. Sensitive," would remain in the U.S., locked away in the law offices of Reed Smith, the American firm representing Concord. To share that information with anyone, Concord's attorneys would first have to get the court's permission, potentially by going through a third party called a " firewall counsel " which would review the request. Filings related to the request would be done electronically but also delivered by hand on an "encrypted disk."

If approved, those people would still have to physically come to the U.S. to view the material. Defense attorneys for Concord have previously said there's little chance company officers, some of whom like Prigozhin are co-defendants in the case, would travel to the U.S. for fear of arrest upon arrival.

"U.S. sensitive material may under no circumstances be disclosed, transported, or transmitted outside the United States unless so ordered by the Court," the proposed order says.

The discovery in the case is made up of millions of documents, including the material already deemed non-sensitive, and ranges from social media postings to email messages. Eric Dubelier, the lead defense attorney, said in a pre-trial hearing Tuesday that his legal team has spent a year trying to through all the information and still isn't done sorting through it.

The sensitive information, Wednesday's filing says, includes witness statements, information that could identify potential witnesses, information related to ongoing investigations and information "related to sensitive law enforcement or intelligence collection techniques."

Prosecutors have indicated they're especially concerned about information contained in search warrants executed by law enforcement in the case.

U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich has yet to sign the new protective order as of this report, but indicated in court Tuesday she was eager to review it.

Concord is the only one of three Russian business entities and 13 Russian individuals charged in the case to respond in court. U.S. law allows for a corporate defendant to fight a court case without any individual from the corporation physically being in court - and, in this case, without putting themselves in danger of being arrested.

Concord has pleaded not guilty to a conspiracy charge, and the trial is tentatively scheduled to begin in April 2020. Russia has long denied election interference allegations.

In the meantime, special counsel Robert Mueller, who's 448-page report included a long section on Russia's alleged online influence operation ahead of 2016, warned that Russia will be back for 2020.

"They're doing it as we sit here," he told lawmakers in July. "And they expect to do it during the next campaign."

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