What should be taught in a legal practice development and management course?

We are working on a breakthrough course curriculum at LawSikho that I really want to shout about from the rooftops. That’s how excited I am! You will understand why once you go through this.

We are very close to relaunching our Legal practice development and management course in a fresh new format. 

We are getting top lawyers who have built successful brand name law firms to teach in the course, sharing from their experience and helping a new generation of legal entrepreneurs. 

We are planning 15 sessions with these top lawyers for you to learn the trickiest parts of building successful law firms and chamber practices. We would include enough lessons for solo practice too.

I am sure you can imagine why we are this excited. I believe this will be a gamechanger for you, us and the legal industry.

India has a lot of amazing lawyers, but not as many law firm managers and legal entrepreneurs as we need! That’s where many lawyers with great skills get stuck.

We want to cover all the pain points of developing a profitable law practice, from business development to hiring and building a winning culture.

We have some thoughts on what to teach on the course, of course, and we have been offering this course over the last two years. However, this is a fresh new opportunity for us to relook at what are the real things that you would want to learn in such a course.

So here it goes. An open invitation to participate in our course design process. Tell me what you think should be taught in the most amazing practice development course that actually helps lawyers to succeed in practice. 

We are consulting industry giants on what should be included in the course, but I know from experience that sometimes the best ideas and inputs come from the people who actually need the product. That’s the rule we have always followed and listening to customers have given us some of the biggest breakthrough ideas, such as our very popular Master Access program.

So we want to hear from you.

After all, knowing the law and procedure is only one part of the legal profession, the other part is the business side of it. This does not end at finding clients, but also building a powerful organization.

I have a list below that is crowdsourced from lawyers I have spoken to so far. And here is the previous avatar of the course for your reference: https://courses.lawsikho.com/courses/legal-practice-management-online-course/#collapseOne

Of course, the course curriculum is in for some major changes, but you can get a sense of what is already there by looking at the syllabus on that link. 

So what are the things you would want us to teach in that course?

Here are suggestions we have received so far that we are considering:

How to price legal services

How to plan the finances for the growth of your law practice

How to develop a business plan for a legal practice and execute it

How to go about expanding a law firm - adding new partners, practices and cities

How to hire right across different levels

Full service v. boutique - how does it work

How to build the brand of your law firm

How to use technology for efficiency, competitive advantage and growth 

How to manage relationships with big corporate clients

Importance of knowledge management practices and systems in a law firm

How to get international clients and creating global alliances

Getting empanelled as a lawyer or a law firm - how does it work

Digital presence of law firms and partners - is it important?

Client service: how to build a seamless system for awesome client experience

How to avoid disappointing clients

How does referral arrangements work in the legal world

How should a law firm partner go about business development

Networking for law firm partners and boutique law firm owners: how to do it right

Profitability v. Expansion - how to balance 

How to retain the best talent and manage attrition rate

How to identify, cultivate and attract the best talent

How to identify new and emerging areas to grow your practice in

How to plan and build the underlying support organization for your law firm

How to find the first 3 clients when you are starting your practice

How do you find a partner to work with when you are starting a law firm

How to ensure high quality of work as your firm grows bigger

Nightmares of a law firm partner

Service delivery: effective document control practices