It takes a lot of work to keep a law firm running smoothly. Every day you and your team undertake essential actions like client communication, progressing project work, raising invoices etc. Without these taking place, your business would soon grind to a halt. But what happens if the people responsible for those tasks take holiday, are off sick or leave the business?
Those tasks still need to be done and done well, to keep your business running – that’s where a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) comes in.
What is a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP)
A SOP is simply a guide to an important process in your law firm. It sets out, in a simple and easy-to-follow manner, the steps required to fully complete a process. Think of it like a how-to guide or instruction manual on a process required by your business. This process will likely consist of multiple smaller tasks or actions that, when done together, complete the process.
Examples of processes that might require an SOP include:
- Onboarding a new client to your business.
- Raising and sending an invoice once a piece of work is completed.
- Asking a client for feedback or a customer review.
- Gathering information for, and sending out, a regular internal newsletter.
A good SOP is…
- Easy to follow (anyone in your business should be able to pick up your SOP and use it to complete the process from the steps provided).
- Complete and comprehensive, covering ALL the steps required.
- A practical document, using screenshots, videos, file paths, passwords and any other technical information required to communicate the steps in the process.
- Reviewed regularly, to ensure that the steps remain current and accurate.
How creating SOPs will help your business
We admit that sitting down to create a process document may not be everyone’s idea of a fun day at the office. But you’d be surprised how much your business will benefit from having SOPs in place. We call these benefits The Four C’s!
- Continuity – A SOP protects your business in the event of staff absences or changeover, as anyone can complete your critical processes using the guide.
- Consistency – Creating and working to a SOP means that your business will operate more consistently. Documents will be filed correctly, templated emails will be sent out on time, CRM systems will be updated and so on.
- Continuous improvement – SOPs are refined over time as people respond to current processes and find better ways of doing things. This process of reviewing and updating the SOP means that the processes they describe become more efficient over time.
- Customer satisfaction – The culmination of these benefits is an improvement to your customer experience. When your business operates more consistently and efficiently and work can continue regardless of staff absences, your customers are the ultimate beneficiaries of this.
How to create an SOP in five easy steps
- Make a list of your processes
You can either ask your team to complete a form or spreadsheet to record your processes or get together in a meeting to discuss it as a group. You’re trying to identify the important high-level procedures that power your business.
You should end up with a list that might look something like this:
- Onboarding clients
- Filing client documents
- Tracking time on client work
- Invoicing clients
- Closing matters
- Requesting customer feedback
- Record the steps required for each process
Each process will likely be made up of multiple steps, actions or tasks. These will often be completed by different members of the team and at different intervals or milestones.
You should record:
- What actions are required to complete the process.
- Who is responsible for completing each action.
- When an action is required (this could be after a specific trigger event or an elapsed period of time).
- Identify duplications, inefficiencies, gaps & relationships and refine your steps
If you’ve not reviewed your processes before it’s likely that you’ll spot a few issues, such as…
Duplication: Are multiple people doing the same or similar tasks?
Inefficiencies: Could some processes be achieved more effectively? Are there unnecessary actions or better ways of working?
Gaps: Are there missing steps in your processes that need to be added in?
Relationships: Are some actions in a process interrelated or sequential, so that Step C is dependent upon Steps A and B having been completed first?
Use this information to refine the steps that you recorded at point 2 by…
- Removing duplications,
- Recording additional or improved steps that fill gaps or remove inefficiencies.
- Noting any interdependencies between tasks.
- Define HOW each step of your process is completed
By this stage, you have a refined list of actions, responsibilities, interdependencies and the time point at which each action is required. However, to create the SOP you will need to break this down into a more granular level of detail.
Imagine you have a step in your process that looks like this:
| Action | Usually responsible… | When |
| Save invoice to client file | Michelle | After sent to client |
It’s clear what needs to be done, by who and when, but not how. In this case, there are likely to be a series of sub-tasks that need to be done to achieve the overall action. This might look like this:
💡 Action: Save invoice to client file
How:
- Use filename structure DATE (DDMMYY) CLIENTNAME e.g. 021822 Greenways.
- Save document in invoice folder of client file.
- Record invoice due date in CRM tracker.
- Set a reminder in calendar to chase up invoice payment if not received by due date.
You will need to do this for every step of every process. It’s a good idea for colleagues to work collaboratively in reviewing the steps to ensure they are accurately and clearly explained.
- Organise, add detail and format your SOP
Once you have all your steps of a process recorded, your goal is to add clarity and remove uncertainty. You want your SOPs to be presented consistently and clearly with actions and sub-tasks clearly explained and responsibilities and interdependencies noted.
Some top tips to achieve this…
- Use visuals (screenshots or quick videos) to help with complex steps. Loom and Tango are excellent tools for this.
- Use examples for steps that require more accuracy (e.g. how to name documents when saving).
- Create templates for sub-tasks that are repeated regularly (e.g. a client email sent at matter close).
- You could nominate process champions who can offer additional advice on completing the steps in a process if questions arise.
- Review your SOPs regularly (quarterly to six-monthly) to ensure they remain fit for purpose.
- Save your SOPs in a central location or add them to your handbook/operations manual.
More on SOPs, process mapping and organising your law firm
Creating SOPs is a great way of improving how your business operates and helping you to be more organised. In this blog post, we’ve set out the key steps involved in mapping your processes and translating this into an SOP. However, we have even more tips, advice and detail on process mapping and SOPs in our eBook 11 Essential Actions to Make You and Your Law Firm More Organised.
You’ll also find plenty of other actions to help you and your law firm to work more efficiently and effectively in the eBook, including:
- Filing and folder structures for law firms.
- Legal CRMs, tools and technologies.
- How to work with assistants and delegate.
- Creating templates and precedents.
- Time management techniques.
- Compiling an operations manual for a law firm.
The eBook is FREE and full of practical advice and recommendations that you can follow to help you get more organised at work.
Download: 11 Essential Actions to Make You and Your Law Firm More Organised.
Get help with your law firm processes and SOPs
We work with busy legal professionals to help them manage their workloads. We understand the legal world, its pressures, requirements and operating practices. Having worked with many law firms of different sizes and practice areas, we have the experience and knowledge to know what works well and how firms can work more effectively. If you need help reviewing your processes, creating SOPs or refining a process such as client onboarding, we can help.
☎️ To find out how we could support your law firm, contact our founder, Kellie Simpson, today.
