Operational tools for
law firm founders
Three free operational diagnostics for law firm founders — covering collections discipline, structural health, and the hidden cost of leadership drag. Each takes under five minutes.
Operational health check
Eight questions across the areas where structural gaps most consistently cost law firms money and leadership capacity. One at a time — no partial credit.
Collections gap calculator
Enter your monthly billing and current collections rate. Move the slider to your target and see the annual revenue impact in your own numbers.
Want to know if this is achievable for your firm?
Book an operational clarity call →“We love working with David. It may end up being the most impactful decision we have made in our business.”
Owner · Seven-figure legal services firm, American SouthPartner time audit
Estimate how many hours per week you spend on tasks that shouldn’t reach you. At your billing rate, see what that costs annually — and what recovering half of it would mean.
Hours per week spent on tasks below your level
Be honest. These are the operational demands that shouldn’t reach you.
Structural correction typically recovers this — and more — within months.
Book an operational clarity call →A well-run law firm should target 90–95% collections consistently. Rates below 85% typically indicate a structural problem — inconsistent follow-up, reactive rather than disciplined collections management, or a lack of visibility into outstanding invoices. In a comparable founder-led firm, collections moved from a pre-engagement average of 79% to 93% sustained within five months of installing a disciplined collections rhythm.
A firm billing $300,000 per month at 80% collections is recovering $240,000. At 93%, that becomes $279,000 — a difference of $39,000 per month, or $468,000 per year. Use the collections gap calculator above to model your own numbers precisely.
A fractional COO installs the operational structure a founder-led law firm needs to grow without chaos — collections discipline, leadership meeting rhythm, financial visibility, decision authority frameworks, staff performance systems, and SOPs. The goal is a firm that runs with clarity rather than depending on the managing partner’s personal bandwidth.
In founder-led firms without operational structure, managing partners typically spend 8–15 hours per week on decisions, collections chasing, people problems, and process gaps that should be owned below their level. At $350 per hour over 46 working weeks, 12 hours per week represents over $193,000 in annual billing cost — before accounting for the strategic cost of that time not being spent on the firm’s future.
Ready to talk through what you found?
45 minutes. A direct read of where your firm stands operationally — and whether what I do is the right fit for where you are.