California
Attorney Ethics Counsel

January 10, 2017

5 Law Firm Systems to Review for 2017

Properly managing a modern and profitable law firm in 2017 and beyond requires balancing vigilance and innovation.  The legal headlines are full of emerging risks to law firms, including confidentiality breaches and technology disasters.  The legal headlines are also full of competitive risks for law firms.  Passive management of a law firm, even a successful one, is not a good strategy.  You may not change, but the marketplace surely will.

January seems like the right time of year to face up to the things we should be doing, but aren’t.  Here are 5 firm systems that you should review critically in 2017, and annually:

1. Firm Management. Consider whether your Partnership Agreement or other organizing documents are up to date, with detailed compensation structures that incentivize partners and other attorneys at the firm to think about and comply with all ethical requirements.  Analyze governance policies to ensure that you prioritize compliance with legal ethics requirements, and to ensure an appropriate response in the event of an ethics question or a potential ethics issue.

2. Clients and Matters. Analyze technology systems for identifying and resolving client conflicts, protecting client confidentiality, and documenting each of the firm’s engagements.  Any system is only as good as the information that goes into it and only works if it is used consistently and uniformly.  Many conflict issues arise from latent conflicts (a subsidiary vs. parent conflict, for example) that may not be obvious on the face of a conflict search.  Ensure that your systems are properly set up, and are being used, and used in the right way.

3. Calendaring and Deadlines. A sophisticated calendaring system to monitor all firm deadlines is essential.  Take advantage of new technology to integrate calendaring functions into attorney workflow, and to ensure accuracy.  Ensure that your system is durable and can be accessed in the event of an emergency or significant disruption.

4. Information Management. Client confidentiality in California is not a gray area: you must keep client information confidential.  This means that your firm must have sufficient systems in place to ensure that information is secure.  Analyze whether your information security policies are sufficient (what rules exist regarding laptop security, thumb drives, cloud data, for example).  Analyze whether attorneys and staff are following the policies.  Consider whether your firm’s technology is sufficient to prevent a breach, and/or to respond to one if it occurs.

5. Financial Management. Review your trust accounting procedures and safeguards to ensure that client funds are handled properly.  The rules are quite clear about what you can, and cannot, do with these funds.  Ensure that your attorneys and staff are properly trained to identify appropriate issues and to handle these items properly.  Separately, consider any alternative fee arrangement from an ethical perspective: does the arrangement place the client’s interest in conflict with yours?  does the arrangement incentive something that could be an ethical concern (e.g., incentivizing attorneys to spend as little time as possible on a case)?  is the arrangement properly documented, to avoid ambiguity when bills come due?