Our client had success in growing their business but struggled to adjust and align their staffing levels as well as roles and responsibilities to the new firm size, as well as come up with a hiring plan for additional growth.

We were engaged to:

1. Identify the appropriate role structure, reporting relationships and job descriptions for the firm’s current needs.

2. Create a hiring plan for the next two positions as the firm grows.

3. Create a growth plan for high-potential employees in the department.

4. Map key processes, leverage technology to improve department operations.

5. Train employees on their new roles.

We accomplished all of the above and set up the department to support the growth of the firm by an additional 25% without adding headcount. We also improved employee satisfaction (as reported by employees involved) with quality role alignment and training which empowered them to contribute at their best and highest abilities, and understand the role they play in the bigger picture.

Our client was a small but high-potential firm which got a unique opportunity to acquire a practice whose owners were well known in their niche field and were looking for a succession plan. We were engaged to evaluate the financial merits of the opportunity and advise on the contribution of this potential acquisition to our client’s existing practice.

We reviewed the opportunity from the perspective of:

1. Financial contribution modelled to how it could fit into our clients’s infrastructure.

2. Actual strategic fit within our client’s growth plan.

3. What changes might be made to the deal structure or integration of the practice to improve the deal’s contribution (financial and operational).

4. What further questions our client needs to get answered by the target firm as they relate to clients, HR matters, the seller’s plans and compensation structure, etc.

We brought a well-rounded, integrated and efficient assessment that spanned finance, operations, HR, deal structure, integration considerations, and market positioning, allowing our client to make a confident decision.

We are often brought in to help expand the ownership structure from a single owner to a multi-owner model (partnership) and ensure that it is culturally appropriate, operationally sustainable, that incentives are aligned with firm goals, and that the new owners are operating at their highest and best.

We customize our approach to the engagement’s needs, depending on the number of potential ownership entrants and the specific outcomes our client wants.

In this case, our client wanted to introduce one additional partner-owner to their firm. We engaged in a co-creative process with them to determine:

1. What role the new partner will play operationally and strategically in the business.

2. What responsibilities the founder owner will need to relinquish to either their incoming partner or others on their team.

3. Redrafted roles and responsibilities for the two owners.

4. Communication plan for their team.

In this process we highlighted additional knock-on effects of introducing a new partner and provided recommendations to ensure all dots connect across functional areas.

Our client was expanding into a new service area and wanted to set up a new operational department. They wanted to start with a greenfield approach and targeted strategic hires.

We worked with them to draft a succinct plan and timeline for launching this service area including HR, finance, marketing, operations and admin considerations.

This included key personnel, key metrics, market positioning and process alignment. It also included partnering with them to hire additional subject matter experts and integrating their work in the firm’s overall structure and culture.

We helped them successfully implement the plan, advising on opportunities and issues that arose along the way. We assisted with onboarding new strategic hires and integrating them into the existing culture.

We also served as a creative sounding board to ideate new ways of approaching a saturated market in order to achieve a return-on-investment on the expansion.

Our client had grown rapidly and was relying on vague employee surveys to establish salaries.

We were engaged to:

1. Ensure that employee compensation was appropriate to their roles and experience.

2. Design a compensation structure that aligns with firm culture, goals and would be fair and motivating to employees.

3. Identify a succession plan for the team which would consider employee aspirations and competencies with a view to the firm’s goals.

We engaged employees in a highly participative process where they were open and an integral part of providing honest and direct feedback, that allowed us to ideate and then successfully implement recommendations that reduced friction among the team and allowed our client to be confident in their compensation aligning with their strategy.

We also went above and beyond to recommend a team structure that was operationally sound and favourable to our client, and were further engaged to implement it.

Our client was navigating their business’ finances using a budget and monthly reporting from their accounting system. They were concerned that their earnings showed one thing but their bank account another, and they couldn’t get on top of how much money they actually had and how to get ahead of cash crunches.

We quickly noticed they didn’t do any cash flow reporting and their monthly reporting ignored major accruals.

We implemented quick and simple reporting that their controller could manage with little effort and the owner could interpret without having an accounting degree.

We helped them shift the orientation of their reporting from a backwards focus to a future focus, so their monthly financial review became less of an examination of what happened and more of what one or two things were different than expected. This saved considerable time and stress so the team could focus on their clients as opposed to financial operation questions which were easily solved with the right expertise.

We also upgraded their management reporting packages to be produced more efficiently without significant manual manipulation, and to support confident decision making.

Our client had named a new managing partner (MP), who was previously a client service partner with limited exposure to the ins-and-outs of leading a firm’s strategy and operations.

While the incumbent MP was still able and willing to train the incoming MP, they recognized the role will require an experienced and confidential ‘sounding board’ and ‘lighthouse’ as the firm navigates changes and the new MP finds their footing. They also wanted to ensure that the new MP has the space to navigate this role independently, with counsel from the outgoing MP as needed.

We provided this support, first on a weekly recurring basis then on a bi-weekly recurring for individual coaching sessions, with specific strategic and operational reviews taking place in support of assisting the new MP with taking a fresh look at their leadership structure, senior administrative team, key processes and partner communication.

The result was a confident leader and a practice that is set up for a new era of the firm, while each of the firm’s partners and leadership could keep focusing on operating at their best and highest focus.

Our client was struggling with being able to find case information quickly and make updates to their Assets and Debts / Scott Schedule on the go.

We resolved this issue and increased the team’s acumen in using digital tools by:

1. Creating a case master sheet that was implemented across the firm, standardizing how case data is logged and managed.

2. Developed and delivered a series of interactive training sessions for the attorneys and paralegals to entrench use of the case master.

3. Integrated excel-skills training to collectively increase the legal team’s skills and knowledge base with core firm technology.

Our client was able to significantly improve efficiency while setting up their team to be more effective in negotiations and mediations by leveraging technology effectively. They were also able to streamline their intake process with the team’s increased comfort level with digital tools.

We worked with our client to scale their practice from an owner-managed firm to a size where they were ready to delegate authority and establish a leadership team.

We worked with them to design a leadership organizational structure, create new role descriptions, align compensation and incentives to the new roles, and draft a communication and training plan for the new leadership team.

We also assisted the founder in changing how they communicate and show up with their team, to better support the newly established individuals in their leadership roles. This created significant space for the founder to pursue more strategic and growth activities while the new leaders had space to establish themselves in the role.

Our client had a rockstar on their team who grew with the firm and into a Chief Operating Officer role. The CEO wanted them:

1. To get mentorship on any substantive knowledge they are missing to start in their role confidently.

2. To get coaching to ensure they are growing in confidence at the leadership table.

3. To cover any strategic or operational blind spots they are not seeing.

We delivered a hybrid approach in taking them through our organizational audit, reviewing findings and working with the COO on prioritizing implementations. We supported the COO with recurring consulting sessions where they were able to ask questions, receive mentorship and coaching depending on the need at a given time.

This flexible and content-rich approach allowed the new COO to be confidently positioned to lead and support the CEO independently without being pulled back into unresolved or undetected issues.

As our client’s firm grew, they outgrew their partner compensation model. It became clear it wasn’t achieving the results it was set out to do. We were engaged to:

1. Review partners’ roles and responsibilities, and align them with the future vision of the firm ensuring best and highest purpose for each individual.

2. Recommend alternative approaches to partner compensation, with a view to aligning incentives and fairness.

3. Ensure that the compensation structure is attractive to up-and-coming partners.

We provided a straightforward and comprehensive gap analysis of the current compensation structure against the firm’s goals. We recommended alternatives along with financial modelling of the impact on the firm and the individual partner. We also recommended changes to the partners’ roles and responsibilities that better aligned with expectations of the firm as well as individual partners, allowing each to contribute alongside their strengths and interests.