Greensboro Bar Association
  • About Us
    • The Greensboro Bar Association
      • About The GBA
      • GBA History
      • GBA Leadership
      • GBA Bylaws
      • GBA Committees
      • Contact Us
    • The GBA Foundation
      • About the GBA Foundation
      • GBA Foundation Leadership
      • GBA Foundation Grants
      • GBA Foundation Bylaws
    • The 24th Judicial District Bar
      • About the 24th District Bar
      • 24th District Bar Leadership
      • 24th District Bar Bylaws
  • For The Public
    • Member Directory
    • Complaints Against Attorneys
    • Useful Links
  • For Members
    • Membership
      • Member Directory
      • GBA Creed
      • Benefits of Membership
      • Join the GBA
      • Member Account Login
      • My Account
    • Get Involved
      • Member News
      • Sections
      • Young Lawyers Section
      • Committees
      • GBA Events
      • Newsletter
      • Legal Community Events
      • GBA Foundation Fellows
      • Board of Directors Portal
    • Member Resources
      • BarCARES
      • Awards
      • Memorials
      • Sustaining Members
      • Lessons from Legends
  • Join
  • Login
  • Find a Lawyer
  • Click to open the search input field Click to open the search input field Search
  • Menu Menu

Stell: Strategic Planning

December 1, 2019/in December 2019

Camille Stell
is President and CEO of Lawyers Mutual Consulting & Services. Continue this conversation by contacting Camille at camille@lawyersmutualnc.com or 800.662.8843.

Strategic planning is hard. It is so much easier to talk about improving your client selection skills or to hope that a budget appears on your desk than to spend the time thinking strategically about how to improve your law practice. The reality is that no one can manage your practice but you. However, if you rethink strategic planning, perhaps you can do some before the end of the year.

Most of us think about starting a strategy session outside of the office, preferably poolside in a resort location.  While that sounds fun, it isn’t going to happen between now and December 31. So how about if you walk down the hall to your conference room to escape the phone and email and devote a few hours to thinking about your business.

A popular exercise as part of strategic planning is a SWOT analysis. Why not give it a try on your own? Get out a white board, a yellow pad, or your laptop. Start by listing your strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps resolving client problems is your strength and getting new clients in the door is your weakness. This is actually a good problem to have. Client referrals are a great source of revenue for many lawyers and, if you are successful at resolving their problems, they are probably willing to refer work to you. You just need to make sure that you ask them to do this. It may seem difficult at first, but the more you practice, the easier it will get. Continue through identifying strengths and weaknesses until you feel you have identified enough items to set goals around.

The next two pieces of the SWOT analysis are to identify opportunities and threats. What is getting in the way of having a successful practice or taking your practice to the next level?  Write the threats down and think through solutions. Unfortunately, it is often easier to identify threats. Don’t get bogged down and don’t get discouraged. It’s helpful to know what your challenges are, this can help you identify goals to work towards.

As you begin listing opportunities, don’t forget to include current clients and referral sources. Who’s on the list? Other attorneys, your banker, your CPA, other professionals, your clients, your friends, people you do business with, people you went to school with, those in your neighborhood, your faith group. Get the idea?

Look at your calendar and start setting up breakfast, lunch, coffee or telephone calls to talk to these people and formalize the referral relationship. Perhaps you do it by asking them what their target client looks like so you can offer referrals to them. Don’t look at your referral list as a one-way meal ticket. The best way to get something is to give something. Share information. If you’ve used a great vendor, pass along that information. If you’ve found a wonderful web resource or a great article, send it along.

After going through the SWOT analysis, begin to identify some strategic objectives and set some tactical goals that will allow you to meet those objectives. For the purpose of the exercise, feel free to have three to five strategic objectives and dozens of goals.

You have arrived at the most important part of the exercise. Look at the strategies and decide how to prioritize for the coming year. At this point, you have to have a real conversation with yourself about what you can accomplish. You should keep the number of strategic objectives between one and three, with about three to five tactical goals for each objective. Don’t get rid of the remainder, as you succeed in meeting your goals, these leftover goals are added to your strategic plan for next year.

Now that the goals are identified, you have to fit them into your budget and establish time frames when the goals should be reached. You can’t reach out to 50 referral sources in January. Decide on a realistic plan, put it on your calendar and be accountable to yourself.

I’m not suggesting that strategic planning is painless. However, the end of the year is a great time to strategize about ways to improve your law practice.

Camille Stell is the President of Lawyers Mutual Consulting & Services. Continue this conversation by contacting Camille at camille@lawyersmutualnc.com or 800.662.8843.

Share this entry
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on X
  • Share on Pinterest
  • Share on LinkedIn
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Share on Vk
  • Share on Reddit
  • Share by Mail
https://www.greensborobar.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/GBA-Logo-2.png 0 0 Greensboro Newsletter https://www.greensborobar.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/GBA-Logo-2.png Greensboro Newsletter2019-12-01 00:05:532019-12-03 13:35:14Stell: Strategic Planning

NEWS CATEGORIES

  • COVID-19 Updates
  • Frontpage Articles
  • Newsletters
    • January 2021
    • December 2020
    • November 2020
    • October 2020
    • September 2020
Search Search

RECENT COMMENTS

    TAGS

    annual meeting food fun gba judicial district 18 members monthly meeting picnic special event

    The information contained in this website is for general information purposes only. The information is provided by the Greensboro Bar Association and while we endeavor to keep the information up to date and correct, we make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the website or the information, products, services, members, legal professions featured or related graphics contained on the website for any purpose. Any reliance you place on such information is therefore strictly at your own risk.

    Find Us

    Physical Address:
    Greensboro Bar Association
    24th Judicial District Bar
    122 North Elm Street, Suite 805
    Greensboro, NC 27402
    (336) 378-0300

    Mailing Address:
    Greensboro Bar Association
    24th Judicial District Bar
    PO Box 1825
    Greensboro, NC 27402

    Contact Us

      Your Name:*

      Your Email:*

      Your Message:*

      @2025 Greensboro Bar Association | All rights reserved | Design by Grow Fish | Hosted by Powered By Fish
      • Link to X
      • Link to Facebook
      • Link to Mail
      • Join
      • Login
      • Terms of Use
      • Privacy Policy
      Link to: Williams Receives Distinguished Service Award Link to: Williams Receives Distinguished Service Award Williams Receives Distinguished Service Award Link to: Pro Bono News for December 2019 Link to: Pro Bono News for December 2019 Pro Bono News for December 2019
      Scroll to top Scroll to top Scroll to top

      This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.

      OKLearn More

      Cookie and Privacy Settings



      How we use cookies
      Essential Website Cookies
      Other external services
      How we use cookies

      We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.

      Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.

      Essential Website Cookies

      These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.

      Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.

      We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.

      We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.

      Other external services

      We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.

      Google Webfont Settings:

      Google Map Settings:

      Google reCaptcha Settings:

      Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:

      Accept settingsHide notification only