Avoiding Wastage In Your Law Firm – Performance

Wastage is the number one issue in service-based businesses,
including law firms. Wastage is a result we see when there is a
weak interaction between the system, process and people, and it
hampers progress.

How do you grow and scale?

Let’s begin with the most common distinction between these
two terms. In general, we think of growth in linear terms: a
company adds new resources (capital, people, or technology), and
its revenue increases as a result.

By contrast, scaling is when revenue increases without
substantial resource increases. It is often said
that the ability to scale is when a business becomes an asset to
the owners.

Therefore, when waste from which revenue and profits leak is
unattended, the firm cannot grow and scale.

So, what are wastes in a law firm context?

According to the International Institute of Legal Project
Management, the following are typical wastes:

• Multiple processing of tasks being done more than once or
  handled more than they should be. Reading the same email three or
  four times because the inbox is overflowing, which means you read
  it – I don’t have time now. Then mark it unread. Read it again
  and again before you reply. Handle something only once.




• Overproduction of overinvestment occurs when thoughts are
  performed more than they need to. So, spending 2 hours on drafting
  a simple letter, for example.




• Motion is typically when the movement of processes is too slow.
  This could be due to poor information management and unnecessary
  waiting or travel time. In South Africa, transportation delays
  resulting from ineffective public transport constitute a
  significant wastage.




• Defects are commonly caused by errors or multiple reworks – may
  be due to too many cooks in the kitchen or not having the right
  people to drive.




• Non-utilised resources mean to win this inefficiency in
  delegation or utilising technology.




• Technology – due to underutilisation or poor training.

LPM teaches you to identify waste and resolve it.

Contact SchoemanLaw for LPM training in Africa https://www.schoemanlaw.co.za/training/ and
upcoming events: https://www.schoemanlaw.co.za/media-events/

The content of this article is intended to provide a general
guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought
about your specific circumstances.