I hate it when people talk about dysfunctional families. That suggests there are functional ones, but I sure haven’t seen one yet.
Smokeball, a cloud-based legal practice management software provider, today released its 2024 State of the Law Report. It reveals some pretty scary findings about smaller law firms and their lack of knowledge of fundamental business principles. The Report also shows a certain lack of consistency between what these firms believe is happening in the market and what they are doing about it. The Smokeball study suggests that many legal professionals in smaller firms are not rushing to adopt technologies, like Generative AI that could help them better serve their clients and be more profitable.
Smokeball surveyed some 775 legal professionals worldwide. The Survey was designed to get a handle on industry shifts and emerging trends impacting firms of less than 30 employees. It’s basically a survey of small firms and solo lawyers. That’s important since most lawyers in the US are in small law firms or practice solo, according to recent statistics.
Business Acumen
The Study reveals a startling lack of business sense:
A full 50% of those surveyed have no clue whether their billings declined or grew last year. Only 30% of the firms think their highest priority for the future is growing and maintaining their client base. 30% have no clue what drives their growth. A full quarter of the firms have no marketing plan to achieve that growth. And despite not knowing what drives growth, 52% somehow believe their profits will increase.
Focusing on growth is a hedge against future risk
Think about those stats. Half of the firms don’t know if they lost business last
