Global Law Firm - BOM/Capabilities

It is essential for those charged with the support, management and delivery of technology capabilities for an organisation to be fully conversant with its Business Operating Model (BOM).

BOMs, as one would expect, are not standard across industries. They evolve when the organisation transitions and develops as is the case in dynamic service-based industries, such as professional services, where organisations are constantly looking to repeat and generate new revenue streams.

The current state of BOMs for professional service firms, although dynamic in nature, do exhibit mutual patterns across industries and using the global law firm example we highlight how capabilities across these firms are quite common.

Law firms that have a global footprint can serve large global organisations that require advisory and legal services across multiple jurisdictions.  

The Business Operating Model (BOM) for the majority of the global law firms is quite unique, primarily due to specialties of the fee earning partners, the dynamic nature of the global regulatory markets they operate in and generic market forces.

Although unique, there are common segments found in current global law firm BOMs as depicted below.

Global Law Firm Business Operating Model (BOM)

Each of the above eight BOM segments are described below, with a few examples of typical capabilities, which when orchestrated, deliver the desired outcome of the BOM.

1. Stewardship and Operational Management

Firms are often directed by a managing ‘equity’ partner who is supported by senior leaders and internal bodies that set the strategic direction and establish the organisational mission, its values and any commercial priorities the firm will pursue.

As well as defining the organisational ‘North Star’, the managing partner/s will define and focus resources for the chosen business model and subsequently outline the sectors and areas of law they will focus on.

Managing partner/s will also agree opportunities that return the greatest value and any additional products, often legal technology, the firm will offer. 

The managing partners are both accountable and responsible for ensuring appropriate structures are in place to support and drive the operating model of the organisation.

Typical high-level capabilities leveraged by the stewardship and operation component of the BOM are briefly listed and described below.

• Business Model Management – The analysis, design and implementation of all primary and secondary capabilities that are executed to achieve the organisational North Star.
• Strategy Realisation – refers to the capabilities required to define, agree and execute a strategy which I will explore further in my new book.
• Opportunity Management – refers to the cradle to grave pipeline management of new and existing opportunities including any bids in process and encapsulating any panel tracking.
• Manage Assets – as custodians of the organisational resources it is the responsibility of the partners to manage physical (buildings) and nonphysical assets which also includes human capital.
• Compliance and the Risk Frameworks processes adopted by the organisation require non-standard capabilities as both relate to the conduct and integrity of the firm and its employees, which can be further ordered, as follows;
• Implementation – defining, deploying and validating both risk and compliance frameworks.  
• Management refers to operational use, both internal and external, for the governance forums, risk registers and interaction audits with any regulators.
• Enforcement of the associated capabilities associated with the realisation of the control objectives. 

2. Client Management 

There are two lenses in which to view this portion of the BOM; one with a focus on the client relationship/s and the second the client matter related activities.

Typical high-level capabilities leveraged for client management are briefly listed but not limited to those and described below.

Typical Capabilities 

• Relationship Management both formal and informal require strict controls and appropriate walls to protect the integrity of the firm and its partners. However, relationships require nurturing on a personal level and supported by technology enablers to keep communication lines open.
• Client Onboarding requires various know your customer (KYC) checks, contractual agreements put in place, time recording initiated etc
• Outreach refers to the connecting with potential and re-connecting with existing clients and building the organisational brand and generating potential leads.

3. Matter Management 

This is the ‘bread and butter’ for all law firms , denoting anything which requires legal attention e.g. disputes, advisory, contracts, affidavits, wills, dispositions etc

Typical Capabilities

• Collaboration on the creation of matters is commonplace, where the capability requires technology enablers, which not only act as driving forces but also as tools for an audit mechanism of decision making especially on complex or sensitive issues.
• Approvals will be orchestrated by workflows that facilitate the authorisation of a matter and its subsequent release on behalf of clients 
• Version Control is mandatory, as the matters will change as they are reviewed and accepted. 
• Security for the above capabilities and the associated workflows is necessary to ensure that 

4. Marketing / Networking 

Marketing is key for any organisation; however the focus for professional service firms has a slight bias towards the people and associated networks. 

The standard 7Ps (product, price, place, promotion, people, process, physical evidence) of marketing remain important, however for global law firms the ‘who knows who’ is crucial in generating potential leads and winning new business, due to the nature and size of the deals.

For global law firms, both hosting and visibility at events is crucial to promote their brand, allowing them to share industry insights and promoting recent successes. The list of attendees from these events is a valuable contribution for potential business leads and the compilation and management of ‘list’ becomes crucial when chasing new opportunities

Data is treasure, where even simple data collected from incoming emails can be harvested for potential clients by analysing and extracting from email signatures the job titles, organisation names and contact details 

When all the data from the above is aggregated into Marketing Technology (Mar Tech) systems e.g. within Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems, they can be analysed to provide possible lead generators and follow ups to generate and close leads.

Typical Marketing capabilities.

• Client Relationships Management is a generic term that encapsulates;
• Contact and lead management,
• Sales automation which is enhanced when using AI Agents to perform repeatable mundane tasks,
• Marketing automation with the ability to target leads with specific insights or updates
• Customer service tools such as list management
• Campaigns require multiple capabilities especially when managed in-house
• Link / Connection Analysis refers to the mapping of connections to show relationships e.g. x knows y and y knows z where they can be leveraged to follow up leads and generate new business.
• Alumni Coordination while can fall under human capital management but has a focus on maintain relationships with individuals who are connected to previous or new business opportunities.

5. Financial Operations 

As with all organisations, the financial management , recording, audit, controls and reporting are standard operational features. However, with a majority of global law firms adopting a practice of billing for time and materials then time recording per matter becomes a critical capability to manage. 

Typical Capabilities 

• Banking i.e. managing the bank accounts and associated facilities.
• Accounting – management and control of the various ledgers, chart of accounts this also encapsulates auditing.
• Invoice / Billing – Issuing and managing remittances.
• Reporting – both internal and regulatory reporting. 

6. Human Capital Management 

Global law firms, operating in multiple jurisdictions tend to have high head counts, for example the Chinese firm Yingke, ranked as the world’s largest law firm by lawyer headcount was reported to have more than 16000 lawyers in 2024 . 

It should be noted that human capital at global law firms, can be segmented into three distinct divisions which is an important factor to consider when designing systems to service them, the three segments are;

• Fee earners, usually lawyers , partners, para-legal i.e. those working on billable matters.
• Non-fee earners are typically admin and support staff. 
• Bench which refers to lawyers available to take on new assignments and can also include alumni members who can at short notice represent the firm on matters. This could also include any other contingent workforce to service the gaps.

With large headcounts comes several issues that require well defined processes and capabilities, typically; 

• Recruitment refers to the ability to recruit new partners, lawyers, trainees and other admin staff.
• Performance management – once recruited and in post, indicators need to be established to determine performance and discover any areas that require improvement or training in general.
• Development capabilities for individuals to enhance their marketability, skillsets and cross-training so that they are able to fill in or deputise for each other as and if needed.
• Time Recording is a mandatory capability for law firms especially when partners, lawyers and para legal staff are working on matters require the time to be accurately recorded.
• Training capabilities and systems.

7. Knowledge Management (internal/external)

Global Law firms will use multiple digital channels to promote their credentials and expertise to win new business and promote their podcasts, blogs, videos and  insights each requiring specific capabilities leveraging their internal knowledge base.

Professional service firms require resources that can capture and share internal knowledge information and insights to the markets and potential clients.

Research undertaken by the firm and the associated library services require analysis, curating and presenting, all of which could leverage some if not all of the following capabilities;

8. Technology Management

Technology at the current pace continues to rapidly transform law firms, especially with capabilities that automate the production of matter related products and the emergence of these new capabilities now requires stricter controls over data and its use.

The day to day operation of the business requires standard IT service management capabilities found in most organisations such as;

• Helpdesk and desktop support capabilities
• Operation of the existing platforms hosting systems such as document matter management, time recording, signature etc
• Device Management which supports the BYOD model of operation as well as the printer, laptop and api ecosystem.
• Security including firewalls, patch management and other updates 

The above capabilities are focused on the delivery and use of technology within the firm , however many large global law firms are now offering ‘legal technology’ to complement their services with innovative solutions and toolkits which extends the technology management capabilities to those found in Software as a Service providers model.

Capabilities for the additional value added services ;

• Innovation funnels 
• Horizon scanning
• Funding Support 

Above, we introduced the Business Operating Model for a majority of global law firms and listed some common capabilities which can be found servicing the BOM . Below the above is summarised in a set of reusable cure cards .

Global Law firm BOM with Sample Capabilities listed

There are many forces attacking the current BOM for Global Law Firms, the move from time based to a more outcomes based charging model and the brisk emergence of AI Capabilities , all of which will disrupt the market and ultimately change the organisational BOMs – something to consider ?  

We have kept the above conversation generic to global law firms and highlighted the importance and recognition of capabilities, which when further mapped to technology components provide value through support and management to the organisation (see previous blog). This framework to consider is depicted below.

BOM to Service / Enabler Mapping

The above touched on the 'capability to BOM mapping' and will be further explored in my new book and is presented for the purpose of illustration and sharing – hope you found it useful  !