‘Tis the season for New Year’s Resolutions. Common resolutions include spending more time with the family, exercising more, losing weight or cutting out chocolate…completely.  But by the end of January, speaking from personal experience, resolutions seem to get pushed to the side or “reprioritized.”  Resolutions shouldn’t be just personal. The start of the year is the perfect time for law firm leaders to reflect upon the past year and make resolutions and goals for the year ahead.  For those who have not finalized their business resolutions, here are three simple ones you may want to keep for 2016:

1. Manage Your Inventory 
Most firms make a big push for collections during the last quarter of each year. After that the partners sit back,congratulate themselves, and then watch their accounts receivable grow, again. Then, again, in the last quarter panic sets in and the process repeats itself. If this sounds familiar, we recommend establishing a process that manages accounts receivable all year long. Partners need accountability and client payment expectations need to be established.  January
is the perfect time to deal with older accounts receivable that were expected but not collected and ones that have been neglected. Establish your expectations and priorities now. As with collections there is probably unbilled time that should be billed to the client or written off. Also, develop a process to address the Work In Process (WIP) and establish partner expectations regarding unbilled time.  Your receivables and unbilled time probably need to lose some weight.

2. Create an Efficient Organizational Structure 
Many law firms create bloated workforces and then deal with the bloat through lay-offs. Over time new people are hired and, again, the process repeats itself. You should strive for a lean organization with gifted people doing amazing work. It is equally important to have the right kind of people as it is to have the right number of people. Also, this is the time to ensure the workforce is aligned with your time generation and revenue goals and most importantly your strategic vision and plan. Overcapacity has a dramatic impact on profitability and a negative impact on productivity.  Your structure could probably use a diet that ensures the weight will stay off.

3. Engage in Effective Marketing
It is no secret that revenue generation in many firms is fairly flat. Effective marketing can help increase top line growth. Now is the time to review your use of your website, social media, client management programs, business development activities, etc. Most importantly, marketing efforts must fit within the firm’s overall strategic vision and plan.  If you don’t have a strategic plan, develop one before you allocate dollars for marketing.  If you don’t know what you want to accomplish, spending money on marketing is not the answer.  Now is the time to ensure the strategic vision is shared and the marketing dollars are in line with that goal.

The beginning of the year is your time to establish a plan if you don’t have one or review your current plan to ensure it reflects your vision.  Resolutions need to have a positive impact on business operations. As with any project, resolution execution takes discipline and should be measurable.  If you want to survive, let alone grow, evaluate your: business, customers, competition, finances, and operations.  Planning gets everyone moving in the same direction.