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Workshop Overview
Financial awareness is increasingly vital for all lawyers in a successful modern law firm.
This can be a very dull subject for those of us not excited by the words accruals, budget codes or time sheets.
That’s why we have designed a simple and fun law firm simulation to bring all these ideas to life. We introduce financial concepts, illustrate them and then discuss them until we have general understanding. Following the discussion we then run a session of the simulation where lawyers in teams of four set up a law firm and compete with other firms. After each session they are given their financials. In this way the learning is brought to life.
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Pre workshop activity
- Meeting to discuss the participant’s needs and those of the firm
- Draft workshop outline tailored to your needs, so that it can emphasise timely time recording or more accurate narratives etc.
- Agreement of agenda
- Participants complete a short questionnaire on their training needs in preparation for the workshop.
Duration
- Half a day to a full day, or two half days.
Typical Agenda
Introduction and Objectives
Quarter 1
• Overview of financial reports P&L Balance Sheet etc
• Law firm simulation in 4 teams
• Review of learning
Quarter 2
• Billing, budgeting & accruals
• Law firm simulation & review of learning
Quarter 3
• Implication of budget shortfalls, overspends and under billing
• Law firm simulation & review of learning
Quarter 4
• Working with the finance department
• Law firm simulation & review of learning
Results of law firm simulation
Workshop summary
Personal actions
Post workshop activity
- Participants leave with individual actions
- Email follow up of personal action plans
- Suggested conversation with their line manager on their actions
- Optional WebEx conference call follow up on these actions
- Optional 121 coaching
- ITD blog with further tips and suggestions
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Client feedback
- “Brilliant session brought a dull subject to fine.”
- “The business game is a great idea.”
Participant comments
- “Very interesting to see the issues we’ve heard of before really brought to life and made relevant.”
- “I know it’s important to do time sheets every day, but now I now why and what the consequences of not doing them can be.”
Call or email ITD to explore how we can help your lawyers be more aware of the financial aspects in a modern law firm
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Finance training for lawyers – Case Study
This is a regional law firm with offices in a number of cities.
Background
Lawyers tend to enjoy doing the law. It is what they are good at and usually why they became lawyers. But a modern law firm requires a lot more of them. There is a critical business need for lawyers to be aware of at least the fundamentals of finance and act on this understanding.
Need
To impress upon lawyers the vital importance of understanding finances both in terms of running an efficient law firm but also in being able to engage and discuss such principles with clients.
Activity
We discussed these needs both with the training people and then senior partners to get their perspective and to ensure they would follow up on the training. We also spoke with senior financial people in the firm to get a better understanding of the needs from their view and to understand the internal system requirements for time recording and billing.
We designed a half day and full day proposal based on the ITD business game. This business game makes the session fun, interactive and a potentially dry subject come to life.
The training was piloted by a group of lawyers in its half day format and received fabulous feedback.
The programme was rolled out to all fee earners in either its half day or full day format dependant on the lawyers experience.
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Outcomes
The main outcomes of this session were:
- “Great fun and great learning”
- “We got superb feedback from all the lawyers, which is amazing for this subject”
What the participants said
- “Very interesting to see the issues we’ve heard of before really brought to life and made relevant.”
- “I know it’s important to do time sheets every day, but now I know why and what the consequences of not doing them can be.”
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