Project Management Tools for Attorney Practice Planning

Practice planning is a proactive way for law firms to  secure  better trained and more motivated attorneys.

As part of our series on project management for law firms, we give examples of using software applications like Teamwork - not only for case management, but also firm management duties like attorney development. While we focused on associate training plans in our previous article, this post will discuss how project management tools can help with attorney practice planning. 

Unlike training plans, which aim specifically at skill development, practice plans are geared more towards overall career development. These plans help associates allocate time and resources to legal work, administrative and managerial contributions, marketing, training and more. 

The idea is to provide attorneys with the ability to formulate career goals along with an activity plan to realize them. 

Check out our three-part-series on practice planning  for more details on the practice planning process. 

Part 1:   Better Associate Performance Using a Structured Planning Process

Part 2:  Practice Planning for Lawyers: Our Approach

Part 3:  Putting It All Together: How We Do It

Just like for a training plan, a project management application can be used as a tool to map out the plan with tasks, responsibility assignments, due dates and time estimations. We typically suggest making a yearly plan which allows associates to plan time allocations to billable and non-billable time for the upcoming 12 months. With a clearly defined outline in hand, it will be easier to get resources and support approved.

Shareholders will get a good idea of the direction in which an associate wants to take their career and can keep track of their progress. 

The following video provides an example of a practice plan that is set up and managed in the Teamwork project management application :

As shown in the video, using the Teamwork application for attorney practice planning helps law firms to focus on the organization and delegation of tasks and opportunities, workflow effectiveness and efficiency, deadline and time management, collaboration and communication, as well as case oversight and progress reporting.  All of this creates a more efficient and transparent law firm and a more happy workplace. 

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