Plan to Plan: One Page for the Next 12 Months  

There’s a saying – popular in management circles – that goes something like: “Failure to plan is planning to fail.” 

If nothing else, management literature is good for giving readers renewable opportunities to feel like failures. So, there’s that. 

That said, there’s no small number of law firms across North Carolina for whom the sum total of business planning done amounts to: I’m going to open a law firm. Doing family law. With this person as my partner. 

And honestly, there’s nothing super wrong with that. In recent years, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs have sought to recapture some of that “let her rip” attitude that had been lost to endless spreadsheets, go to market strategies and EBITDA. Or maybe not that last one, I’m still not entirely clear on what that is. And they enshrined this (re)turn to not overthinking the business planning process in the ethos: “ready, fire, aim.” 

I have a lot of thoughts about that, particularly living in a country with as many guns as we have, but I’m going to holster those for now (see what I did there?) and just stick with business planning. Ready, fire, aim, was seen as a needed correction to an entrepreneurial ecosystem that had gotten too mired down in planning and analysis and not connected enough to letting her rip. As we suspected all along, MBAs ruin everything. 

Skip the MBAs 

In the ecosystem of law firms, however – particularly small and medium sized firms – we have not suffered from this same overdependence on planning and analysis. (Pausing to let waves of understatement crash on the shores of your consciousness.) It’s far more common in my work, to work with firms who have never had a formal planning or analysis process and which, largely, have managed to do pretty well, notwithstanding. 

That said, there is some value in the strategic planning process, particularly if it is kept in check to the scope of a small business. We are not talking about bringing in a team of fresh-faced Ivy leaguer McKinsey consultants (see? MBAs again) to produce a 500 slide PowerPoint deck, charge millions of bucks and provide you a bunch of insights you could have figured out yourself for free with a library card and some time to read and think. 

Instead, I’m talking about an abbreviated strategic plan; one that is sized to fit a smaller business, can be tackled in a few good hours and will give you a concise plan to work from for the next year (and beyond). The time and energy you’ll sink into this will be worth it whether you are just starting your new law firm, heading into your 20^th year or just starting to scale up your hiring. It’s a high ROI activity, with one caveat: as with gym memberships, relationships and Duolingo lessons, you get out of it what you put into it. 

The planning process I am going to commend you to is the building of a one-page strategic plan. This is a generic term, and some quick Googling will reveal no shortage of downloadable forms available to use. I’m going to share the format I think works best, though your mileage may vary. Most of the value in this process comes from the sitting, thinking, and focusing on things that matter but that don’t intrude on the daily scrum of your thoughts running a firm. The classic, “important but not urgent” stuff. 

The version of the one-page strategic plan that I think offers the most bang for your buck for law firms is from Verne Harnish’s company, Scaling Up (parent company: Gazelle). If you search for “one-page strategic plan Gazelle” you will find your way to the right place for some downloadable forms. The forms are freely available, and you don’t need to use their forms; this process will work just as well with a yellow legal pad and a pen. 

Before I dive further into the details of the plan, it’s worth noting that “one page” is a bit of a cheat. It’s meant to printed on 11×17 paper and used front and back, making it more like a four-page plan. But you can certainly keep it to a page or close to it. 

The plan begins with a high-level focus and then follows those insights down into more discrete, actionable chunks, until you land at the things that should inform your day-to-day decisions in the firm. 

Core Values and Purpose 

At the core of a thriving law firm lies a clear, actionable purpose that drives every decision and strategy. Your firm’s purpose should align with long-term goals that serve as the foundation of your organizational culture. This articulated purpose and values help to bring every team member into alignment. By focusing on these guiding principles, your firm can create a solid framework for success, growth, and exceptional value to clients. It all begins with aligning people, strategy, and execution with a laser-like focus on core priorities. 

Targets (3-5 Years) and Goals (1 Year) 

Three-to-five-year targets for your one-page strategic plan should be on measurable and specific outcomes, like whether it’s hitting a revenue milestone, expanding into new markets, or scaling your firm size. One-year goals, by contrast, are execution-focused. The one-year goals should break down the three-to-five targets to follow the venerable SMART goal format (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound), ensuring the team knows exactly what needs to be accomplished to stay on track. Regular review and adjustment of these short-term goals is essential to build sustainable momentum toward your long-term vision. 

Key Performance Indicators 

There are a couple more gradations of breaking down the plan into smaller blocks that eventually land at identifying your key performance indicators (KPI). These key metrics are the one or two most important numbers that drive your firm forward. These are the numbers that you look at every day to deliver the most mission critical information. In your car, this is the speedometer. It’s not that other numbers (looking at you, gas gauge) aren’t important – they certainly are. But they just don’t need the constant vigilance that the KPI/speedometer requires.  

If you’re not clear on where to start with figuring out your KPI, you can use your firm’s gross revenues as a starting point. This is almost assuredly an important, possibly the most important, number in your firm, so it makes for a safe place to begin. Keep looking at other numbers, though, to search for the less obvious but equally important metrics that give you a clear line of site into the performance of your firm. 

By the time you work through the one-page strategic plan for your firm – a process that will take several hours and shouldn’t be attempted in one sitting – you will know your firm a ton better than you do now. You’ll have a clear sense of your most important priorities and how they connect to your annual goals and how those connect to your daily numbers. You won’t have broken the bank on consultants (sorry, MBAs) and you will have some raw material to make these next 12 months an evolution on these last 12. 

Best of luck and let her rip.