Every law firm starts with the desire to grow someday. However, some owners fail to realize that growth isn’t a destination but a continuous process. Therefore, if your law firm is adhering to best practices and providing top-notch services to its clients, it’ll most likely experience an increase in demand. For many law firms, the problem now lies in not knowing what to do from this point onwards. How to scale your law firm becomes the million dollar question. For this reason, we have curated four tips on how to continue growing your law firm.

1. Always aim to make an excellent first impression.

As a law firm, you must take your first impressions seriously. Try to always present your business as professional and trustworthy—and remember that even the smallest aspects of your business matter. For example, using quality tax return envelopes when submitting your tax forms and other tax mailing needs is a good idea. Such attention to detail is evidence of your firm’s professionalism, and it also promotes a good impression.

While making an excellent first impression is essential for all attorneys, some must place more emphasis on it than others. For instance, a transactional attorney whose firm is on retainer doesn’t have to worry too much about making first impressions. This differs from the importance a car accident lawyer or personal injury lawyer (who work for a personal injury law firm that deals with rare legal events) should place on first impressions.

Engaging with clients for the first time is typically the most critical part of establishing a relationship. This is because, at that moment, the client wants to know if you can represent them. You, on the other hand, are trying to gain the client’s trust and confidence. So, if you see it this way, you must ask yourself the following question: “How do I convince clients to choose us?”

The answer lies in putting your best foot forward at all times to ensure you make a positive impact in the minds of your clients. Everything from your looks to your behavior and how you present your tax returns is a part of this. It all matters. When you fail to make an excellent first impression, you can cause damage to your firm’s reputation and destroy years of hard work. What’s more, you also degrade the overall perception of the law profession.

2. Know the right time to hire and when to outsource.

Growing your law firm means taking on more work, and this can be an uphill battle if you don’t hire the right people at the right time. You see, knowing when to hire is just as important as hiring the right employees for the job. This is because if you wait until you’re bombarded with clients and desperate for help, it might be too late and will derail your firm’s growth.

Waiting until you’re stressed to get new employees would mean extending your to-do list to add a task you don’t have time for, thereby leading to a flimsy recruitment process. Therefore, the best thing is to be proactive. When you’re proactive about recruitment, it gives you more time to select qualified candidates.

Furthermore, sometimes, hiring a full-time employee can be a long-term commitment that you may not be able to afford. So, make sure you carefully calculate what it would cost to hire a new employee before embarking on it. Alternatively, look to the careers of impressive attorneys like Malliha Wilson to see how to manage this quandary.

Malliha an alumnus from McGill University and currently serves as Senior Counsel for Nava Wilson LLP. She has a great deal of experience in human rights, labour law, and other complex litigation. A look at her LinkedIn profile shows that she is an experienced lawyer with years of experience serving as an Assistant Deputy Attorney General to the Ontario government and a litigator presenting cases to the Supreme Court of Canada.

3. Use as many tools as possible.

As a savvy law firm, you need to know that the world is fast-changing, and you need to adjust your company strategy to match the present day’s demands. This involves investing in tools that’ll promote efficiency, engagement, and productivity in your firm. According to the 2020 Legal trends report, attorneys who worked in firms that consistently used technology in their processes earned 20% more than lawyers in firms that were yet to adopt technology monthly.

With this in mind, an OKR tool is an excellent place to start when considering technological tools for your firm. The OKR methodology helps business owners set and achieve ambitious goals. An OKR framework also helps clarify and align goals with team OKRs to ensure that a firm acquires the best possible outcomes. For instance, let’s look at an OKR example that involves a business that wants to increase its sales. It can do this by setting goals using marketing OKRs.

The team members first need to have a brainstorming session where contributors will come up with measurable goals. The next important step in the OKR process is to ensure that contributors set their own OKRs and set key results as benchmarks. This step will serve as a results metric or key performance indicator (KPI) for tracking progress.

Even with the best intentions, some tasks take forever to be completed in corporate situations. However, with technological tools like an OKR template, it’s a lot easier for team members to remember and honor their commitments and company growth strategies.

4. Create efficient operational strategies.

Without an efficient strategy in your firm, growth will be hindered due to wasted time ad resources. Therefore, it would help to create a system that allows operations to flow smoothly, thereby promoting a positive environment for your clients and staff.

For instance, let’s assume your firm is based in the Denver area. If a motorist has an auto accident that leads to a spine or knee injury—or any other serious injury that requires immediate medical attention—that motorist may come to your Denver area firm for legal advice. This automobile accident may have been the fault of a negligent driver, and the victim may want to file a lawsuit and make an insurance claim.

The victim’s first step would be to find a Denver car accident attorney to help them communicate with their medical care provider and insurance company for a fair settlement. Now, if your legal team already has an excellent operational strategy with the right lawyers on board, you’ll be able to handle this personal injury case swiftly. Your team can take help of trial animation experts and recreate the accident scene to prove your point in the court.

To sum things up, using technology, establishing efficient systems and procedures, maintaining a good impression, and knowing when to hire or outsource talents will allow your law firm to achieve long-term commitments and goals, thereby promoting continued growth.