Sixty-nine law firms participated in this analysis. McBassi collected data on numerous aspects of leadership, management, and development practices within these firms. Data were simultaneously collected on law firms’ performance relative to their competitors in five separate areas:2

1. Profitability
2. Ability to attract employees
3. Ability to retain key employees
4. Client satisfaction
5. Business development

A statistical analysis was then undertaken to identify the specific aspects of leadership, management, and development practices that were most significantly correlated with law firm performance.

Every law firm can improve each of these factors. The first step toward doing so is to quantify and measure your firm’s current strengths and weaknesses on the factors discussed throughout this paper.

Understand Our Measurement Methodology

The statistical analysis identifies the specific aspects of leadership, management, and development practices that have the greatest impact on law firm profitability, ability to attract employees, and the other success variables noted above.

For the purpose of this analysis, McBassi used a modified version of its Human Capital Capability Scorecard (HCCS). This is a research-based measurement framework that quantifies and measures the quality of the “human capital management” (HCM)—the leadership, management, and development practices—of firms through carefully constructed survey instruments.

The measures that emerge from these instruments are then used to predict key outcomes—both financial and non-financial—of firms. This methodology is used by McBassi’s clients to spot important deficiencies, remedy them, and thereby improve their future performance.3

This framework, which is summarized below in Figure 1, measures five major aspects of firms’ leadership, management, and development practices: 1) quality of leadership practices; 2) practices that foster employee engagement; 3) measures of how accessible knowledge is to employees of the firm; 4) the firm’s ability to optimize its workforce’s productivity, and; 5) measures of the learning capacity of the firm.

Figure 1. Human Capital Capability Framework

A brief synopses of each of the 24 factors included in the framework is provided in Table 1. Those factors that were found to be most significantly correlated with law firms’ success are highlighted in yellow (more detail on these findings is provided in the following section).

Table 1. Description of Factors Measured in Law Firms

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In a typical application of McBassi’s HCCS methodology, all employees within a firm are invited to respond to an online questionnaire (approximately 80 questions) that captures information on specific elements of each of the 24 factors outlined above in Table 1.4. Their responses provide information on the firm’s strengths and weaknesses in each area.

We then examine statistically the relationship between employees’ responses and a variety of measures of “business outcomes.” These outcome measures can be quite varied, including: measures of employees’ engagement and intention to stay with their firm, client satisfaction, business development, and profitability.

Examining the statistical linkage between leadership, management, and development (HCM) practices and the firm’s business outcomes enables a firm to identify those specific practices that are the most critical determinants of the business outcomes that the firm would most like to improve. This provides a foundation for developing fact-based, objective recommendations to help the firm improve its success.

For the purpose of helping the ALA to understand the relationship between leadership practices and firm success across multiple law firms, we modified the process outlined above in order to capture key information from a large number of firms. Rather than developing highly detailed measures based on responses from multiple employees within a single firm, we captured more general information from a single respondent within each firm. Responses were received from a total of sixty-nine (69) law firms, with most individual respondents reporting that they hold senior administrative positions within their firm.5

In addition to assessing their firms’ maturity on each of the leadership and development factors listed in Table 1, the respondents were also asked to assess how well their firm performed relative to their competition on five outcomes:6

1. Ability to attract employees
2. Success in retaining key employees
3. Client satisfaction
4. Business development
5. Profitability

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