Aligning technology with strategic goals for SME law firms

For IT leaders in mid-size law firms, improving profitability is not simply a project to support finance with. It is also a data, reporting and technology challenge. Disconnected matter and financial information can prevent partners, fee earners and business leaders from seeing where profit is being lost. By the time scope creep, budget overruns or falling realisation become visible, it may be too late to protect the margin.

Law firm leaders generally feel well informed. In our research with LPM, Mind the Delivery Gap, 80% say leadership has sufficient visibility into performance, while 79% believe their legal management information supports effective decision-making.

Law firms have never had more data. The challenge is making sure the right people can access the right information at the right time. Our Mind the Delivery Gap research, produced in partnership with LPM, found that 79% of firms believe their management information supports decision making effectively, and 80% say leadership has sufficient visibility into firm performance. However, there is a significant disconnect. Only 14% of respondents said the information they need is always available, and 29% believe providing better insight to fee earners should be an essential investment priority.

They appear as a report that needs to be manually reconciled before it can be trusted. A user raises another support ticket because two systems show different information. A spreadsheet quietly becomes essential to a core process. A member of the IT team is asked to extract, reformat and move data between applications because there is no reliable way for it to flow automatically.

Every pricing decision, hiring decision and growth plan depends on understanding one thing: which matters actually make money. Yet our Mind the Delivery Gap research, produced in partnership with LPM, found that only 18% of firms are completely confident in their ability to assess matter profitability. A further 38% say their view is inconsistent or inaccurate, while 67% of leaders report that users experience frustrations with their core systems.

Growth is firmly on the agenda for mid-size UK law firms. According to Mind the Delivery Gap, our research completed in partnership with LPM. 44% expect moderate organic growth, 33% are pursuing geographic growth and 20% anticipate growth through mergers and acquisitions.

When law firms replace their legal practice management software, accounting is increasingly becoming part of the same conversation. Our recent discussions with law firm buyers show firms looking for systems that combine practice management, legal accounting, billing and client money management, rather than treating finance as a completely separate technology decision.

The legal sector is entering a new phase of digital transformation. What was once considered a gradual shift toward cloud technology has now become a clear industry movement.

Choosing legal practice management software is one of the most important technology decisions a law firm can make. Yet many firms still evaluate systems based on feature lists alone.

Recruiting and retaining talent remains a persistent challenge for mid-size law firms. They are competing with larger firms that can often offer higher salaries, structured career progression, and more established remote working options.