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Once you get some legal experience under your belt, you may think about opening your own firm. Setting up and running a law practice can be a daunting prospect, 但采取某些措施将有助于确保你的公司成长并保持盈利. Here are some guidelines to help accomplish the task successfully:
Develop a strategy
在你确定一个特定的客户群或市场，并决定你的竞争计划之前，你真的不能继续下去. 这意味着了解竞争对手是谁，并制定更优的战略，这样你就可以提供比竞争对手更有价值的服务. Strategy examples include:
- 试图通过从知名律师事务所聘请经验丰富的律师，并收取相当低的服务费来“垄断市场”.
- 专攻法律或行业的某一特定领域，并向市场推销公司的合伙人和同事，认为他们在该领域比竞争对手更有技能.
When assessing a strategy, 花尽可能多的时间诚实地评估你和潜在同事或合作伙伴的能力. 潜在客户会仔细考察你的律所，并期望对这个非常重要的问题得到满意的答案:“为什么我应该雇佣你们的律所，而不是你们的竞争对手??”
Create a business plan
商业计划通常与尚未开业的初创企业有关. However, even if your practice has been running for more than a year, it is not too late to document your plans for the future. A well-thought-out business plan can serve several important roles, 包括提供路线图，以帮助指导决策和确保扩张融资. 律师事务所的商业计划基本上与任何企业的计划相同，应该解决以下问题:
- Five years of detailed financial projections;
- Detailed description of the type of services you plan to provide;
- How you plan to charge for the services. Your firm may choose from, or mix, 任何计费方法，例如根据为客户收回或节省的资金的百分比收取应急费用, billing by the hour or quarter hour, or blending rates based on the average charged by the lawyers working on a case; and
- 一个营销计划，概述你的公司将如何寻找和营销目标客户.
Develop practice management metrics
As soon as your firm has accepted its first client, you must start tracking certain robust financial metrics. The metrics to track routinely include:
Utilization – From almost the first day practicing law, attorneys focus on utilization. 以全年收费的总可用小时数的百分比表示, this metric is the first step in determining performance. 大多数公司的运作都是基于每年1800到2300小时的计费时间. If a lawyer bills 1,700 hours, the utilization rate would range from 94.4 percent to 73.9 percent.
Blended rate – Some engagements are won based on the blended rate. On others, 混合比率是在事实之后计算的，并用于评估实践利用员工的能力. For example, if your firm billed a client $75,000 in total fees for 600 billable hours, 混合费率为每小时125美元(收费总额除以收费小时数). 老练的客户会监控这一利率，并经常质疑它为什么在上升. All things being equal, 在提供优质法律意见的同时保持较低的混合费率可以产生竞争优势.
Realization rate -通常记录的计费小时数与向客户收取的实际金额不同. Bills are written down for many reasons. 许多律师事务所忽略了管理这一费率，因为它通常是在工作完成后计算好的. Whatever the realization percentage rate is, 通过确定冲销的原因并至少消除其中一些原因，很有可能将其改善5%或更多.
Margin – Expressed as a percentage, 公司的利润率(扣除费用后的利润除以收取的费用)是衡量公司可计费程度的重要指标，也是衡量公司管理费用能力的重要指标. 35%至40%的利润率通常与一家能够在保持低成本结构的同时收取费用的高绩效律师事务所有关.
These are not the only metrics your law firm should track. 有经验的会计师协助律师事务所可以帮助您识别和报告财务指标使用平衡计分卡的方法.
Listen closely
成为现有客户和潜在客户的“首选”公司，在一定程度上意味着要花时间了解他们的需求，而不是竞争对手提供的需求. Clients often want to be understood, to feel that the professionals they hire, whether a lawyer, accountant or publicist, understand their needs and have the skills and expertise to help them.
你的律师事务所可以采用多种策略来发现和记录客户的需求. Whatever method you choose, however, 让整个公司都有责任留出时间来真正倾听客户的意见. 这通常会发现客户隐藏的需求，而这些需求正是你的公司所能满足的.
Participate in practice-development activities
There is no shortage of experts in the field of law firm marketing. 绝大多数方法都集中在与现有和潜在客户建立关系上. This is not accomplished overnight. 建立关系需要细心的喂养和培养，以便在未来有价值.
计划的具体内容应该以你和你的同事都乐于实施的方式进行调整. Practice-development activities can include targeted seminars, articles in publications read by your target client, 发送给现有和潜在客户的通讯以及一对一的网络.
发展实践的最重要的方面是提出一个计划并坚持下去, even when business is booming. Infrequent or insincere efforts generally result in little benefit.
Please contact Judith Barnhard via our online contact form for more information.
Councilor, Buchanan & Mitchell (老葡京手机app) is a professional services firm delivering tax, 会计和商业咨询专业知识遍及大西洋中部地区的办事处 Bethesda, MD and Washington, DC.
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