How to Run Effective Meetings in Your Law Firm

“There are too many meetings in this firm – we’re wasting valuable fee-earning time!”

I’m sure we’ve all heard comments along these lines from partners over the years – after all, a partner’s time is a valuable commodity.

In some law firms, meetings are unfortunately unstructured “talking shops”; without actions or outcomes, they become a waste of time for the partners and a drag on productivity for the firm.

To illustrate the point, according to McKinsey, 61% of executives said that at least half the time they spent making decisions – much of it surely spent in meetings – was ineffective.

Done well, meetings can provide clarity and direction; done poorly, they can become timewasters and a source of demotivation.

To ensure your partners’ and team meetings are effective, follow the steps identified below.

• Ask yourself whether this should be a meeting at all. Ensure there is a compelling reason and purpose to meet – avoid meetings for meeting’s sake.

• What is the meeting for? Meetings can be assigned to one of three categories – decision-making meetings, creative solutions and coordination meetings, and information-sharing meetings. If the purpose of the meeting is unclear, meetings can seem frustrating at best and futile at worst.

• Check in with stakeholders to ensure that the meeting schedule frequency is right – weekly meetings could be changed to monthly.

• Ensure an agenda is prepared and circulated with any supporting documents ahead of the meeting, allowing sufficient time for attendees to read the documents. Taking your time to prepare your agenda beforehand can help you get your priorities right and keep decisions on the right track, so you do not miss important points to be discussed.

• Adhere to time allocation. Meetings should start and end on time as it will show that you respect other people’s time, and it will also save the business from lost productivity.

• Involve and engage everyone present – ensuring everyone has a role ensures their attention and involvement. Build in opportunities to energize and challenge the team.

• Ensure discussions end with clear outcomes and be result-oriented. Be 100% clear as to who will do what, by when, with a note of the outcome circulated to attendees.

• Start your next meeting by reading the Action Points from the previous meeting to make sure progress is being made.

If you would like to discuss how to change the current culture of management meetings in your firm and shift towards a structure and style of meetings that help you drive your firm forward, deliver continuous improvement, and energize your people in the process, please contact me at ih@hopkinslegalconsulting.co.uk or give me a call on 0791 666 9095. I would be delighted to have a free, no-obligation, and of course, confidential chat.