What is a Law Firm Organizational Chart?
A law firm organizational chart visually delineates the relationships among the various roles, or lawyers, in the law firm. For example, you might be a senior partner, junior partner, and the senior partner may have multiple junior partners, or associates, all of whom report to them . The chart allows you to quickly and easily view the organization at a glance and understand the reporting hierarchy, or who manages whom.
Why a Law Firm Organizational Chart is Important
Law firm organizational charts are a hallmark of good communication and efficient workflow management within a firm. It is a means of visual presentation that reflects the actual internal workings of the firm. The clarity of an organizational chart is its greatest strength. By adding layers of information to the basic abstract diagram, the true relationships within the firm can be documented. Sub-departments of practice groups, practice group hierarchies or associated tasks that reporting to a particular person can all be added. Colors can also be added to represent different physical office locations for those firms which span multiple cities or even continents.
Take for example the firm organizational chart below taken from a 1100+ attorney firm. Simply by looking at the chart it is apparent that there are 10 practice groups, each of which has its own sub-departments. The hierarchies of the practice groups are also clearly visible as are the hierarchies of the members of the firm.
As mentioned above, additional information can also be added to the chart, such as the physical location of the groups and their constituent members. This is sometimes represented by ovals delineating the different locations and then overlaying the organizational chart so that the location of the individual members of the firm is apparent. Sections of the chart are sometimes color-coded according to the physical location. Below is a firm organizational chart showing both the hierarchy of the 10 practice groups and their location in the various offices of the firm.
What are the Components of a Law Firm Organizational chart?
Understanding the components of a law firm organizational chart is easier than you might think. A traditional firm’s chart features three categories of entry-level positions – partners, associates and support staff.
Partners
With the highest individual level of seniority and equity, the partner is typically known as an owner of the firm. Unlike other professionals, the partner has generally invested capital for the right to be an owner, which entitles active partners to dividends and other benefits not available to non-owners. Like junior attorneys, a partner in most larger firms typically earns a base salary plus annual bonuses based on equity targets, firm performance, and personal performance. A partner is almost always selected to become a partner, rather than simply promoted with the title. Partner eligibility often requires the individual to have been with the firm for at least five years, and to have made a significant contribution to his or her practice.
Associates
The associate is typically an entry-level attorney who has joined the law firm as an employee and is not an owner or an equity partner. Though the title is often used interchangeably with junior attorney, associate generally refers to the title held prior to one being elevated to be a junior partner or, in some firms, a senior associate.
The majority of attorneys in most large law firms have the title of associate. With a relatively short days-billed requirement, associate compensation is typically a high base salary. Compensation is subject to frequent review depending on performance. Like a junior partner, a junior attorney generally enjoys a somewhat flexible work schedule.
Support Staff
Support staff personnel are defined as any employee who is not an attorney. This includes paralegals, legal assistants, administrative assistants and other support staff.
What are the Types of Law Firm Organizational Chart Structures?
Law firms come in all shapes and sizes. While the number of attorneys in each firm is highly important to establishing a firm’s identity, it’s how those attorneys are organized internally that matters most when it comes to understanding the firm’s hierarchy. Let’s take a look at the three main law firm organizational structures.
Hierarchical law firm organizational charts
The hierarchical pyramid is the most traditional structure for law firms. This organizational model, as shown below, is an excellent way to visualize how attorneys and staff are ranked numerically. Usually, you’ll only find the top layers of this model in your general law firm organizational chart for a corporate or business law firm. The reason for this is simply because this is where the most change is found. Starting with the bottom layer, there are: As you can see, a large disparity exists between the lowest and highest layers of the hierarchal structure. This can be a major advantage for large firms when it comes to scaling their organization. The next layer of the pyramid includes Associates, Mid-level Managers, and Senior Managers. This is followed by Partners, Senior Partners, and Members. The top layer is reserved for of Counsel and the firm’s Senior Executives. While this model is simple and widely understood, it can present performance and compensation issues in addition to its inherent rigidity. Law firms have been known to fall prey to office politics, and the level of autonomy provided to Senior Partners is often dangerously high. Growth and expansion can also be difficult when the existing hierarchy is too rigid or stagnant.
The flat organizational structure
Being less hierarchically rigid than the traditional pyramid model doesn’t mean that a flat structure allows anybody and everybody to make decisions. While this model is egalitarian in nature, members of the same designation at a flat organization often have to negotiate amongst themselves to make decisions regarding the entire organization. That said, every member of a flat organization has a say and a stake. It’s a more democratic way of engaging decision-making, but it doesn’t work for every law firm. When everybody has a voice and each voice is equally weighted, it can be extremely difficult to come to a consensus. In addition, when every lawyer is almost equally responsible for making top-level decisions, their overall job satisfaction can lead to high turnover.
The departmental model
A third model that’s gained ground in recent years is the departmental model. This structure, which looks relatively like the traditional pyramid model, is highly specialized…. The departmental model’s huge advantage is that it allows a high level of specialization to occur. Each department can be autonomous to a degree by appointing a committee to oversee overall progression. Typically, the heads of each small department meet with the partners and higher ups to establish a good synergy among the departments in terms of the firm’s whole vision.
How to Create an Effective Law Firm Organizational Chart
An effective law firm organizational chart needs to be presented clearly and accurately so that it can be followed easily by the people who too often become lost in it. If you have eighteen lawyers and thirty or more professional and business staffers, all of whom report to one another in several different divisions, it’s easy for them to get confused. So, you need to help them and others understand relationships in order to become more productive.
A clear and accurate law firm org chart can also help you identify and then delegate authority and responsibility, which is key to productivity. Without that process, nobody wants to step up to take on new or larger responsibilities, and that makes growth and progress difficult . And, you need an org chart when you are on-boarding new employees, who you need to be productive from Day One.
That’s why a well-designed law firm organizational chart is such a powerful administrative tool. So, if your law firm doesn’t have a good org chart – or if your current one is outdated and inaccurate – you need to create a new chart now. Here’s how to do that.
First, determine who is responsible for what in your law firm, as that will help you choose the optimal org chart for you. For smaller firms, a flat structure is usually best, but a large firm might benefit from a multi-level hierarchy that conveys authority more clearly. A flat org chart is generally the simplest, most straightforward option, and is the format that most people are already used to. An example of this is below.
Mistakes to Avoid in a Law Firm Organizational Chart
This is a mistake law firms frequently make – usually entirely in good faith to try to mirror the hierarchy of a law firm. This is, in fact, a common practice in smaller or medium sized law firms. The reality though is that hierarchy changes over time as firms grow, which makes this a less than helpful form of chart for a firm to maintain long-term. Customer teams, if contracts are large enough to require one, can grow and change to include a larger group of people in various roles as needed. A flat line is a much more accurate depiction of the way contemporary law firms are structured. There are partners, associates, staff attorneys, paralegals etc. Some hold more senior roles than others, but this is far better illustrated with a hierarchy-free chart than one that tries to rank roles from top to bottom. This is a tough one to avoid, because most firms are aiming to create a clear picture for new hires and for their clients. The solution here is the same as for the mistakes listed above – flat line your structure, and make it clear who is in the management role and what they are responsible for. Otherwise, you risk representing the thin line between order and chaos incorrectly, and you may confuse or alienate those you mean to assist the most.
Change is Constant: Updating Your Organizational Chart
For those who have worked on the assignment of creating a law firm organizational chart, you can fully appreciate what I mean with "becoming comfortable with change." There is nothing that brings out the unknown more than creating an org chart. The process usually forces a staff person to go retrieve information from the heads of practice or department who are more than happy to share their knowledge, normally for the first time. It requires change. Something many struggle with and fight against.
Now let’s take that "bump" process and drag it out over time. That period when you are faced with constantly making incremental change. Constantly updating the org chart as new attorneys are hired, retired, promoted or depart.
Regularly updated org charts are invaluable tools for keeping track of the attorneys, but it is just as valuable when it comes to managing your staff. By assigning people – something as simple as a color highlighting the name on the chart – to being responsible for keeping track of who is who as well as maintaining staff records related to a person’s departure, promotion, etc. Now you can become comfortable with the process of change.
It is the same process as above only this time there are multiple staff members involved with the task so change occurs, but the moment is no longer new, its not a big deal, and the org charts become a living document.
Conclusion: The Future of Law Firm Organizational Charts
As organizations continue to grow in size, law firms are no exception. Organizations of all types are becoming increasingly more complex, and their structuring is evolving right along with that complexity. In the past, a law firm’s org. chart might have looked somewhat similar to the organizational structure of a department like accounting. Writing in the "Organizational Chart" article on Mindtools.com’s website, Mindtools contributor Caroline Forsey explained the "tall organizational structure":
"People in tall hierarchical structures report to a large number of managers. Managers have many subordinates, which means they can supervise them closely. The number of management levels is high, so there is a long chain of command. Tall organizational structures tend to work best for large organizations."
However, according to Forsey, a "flat organizational structure," (i.e., a structure with few management layers), is "common in smaller businesses," in which teams "must collaborate, learn, and adapt quickly to achieve their goals," and may therefore need "to spend less time on hierarchy and processes as they do things."
In contrast to that traditional approach in the past, a next generation org. chart might instead convey something much more horizontal, but no less complex, with employees organized by practice area, perhaps by physical location, or by client industry sectors.
As technology continues to revolutionize how we do work, these changes are likely to play out on law firm org. charts, as all team members, including administrative support staff, embrace these same technologies and use them to work together and collectively accomplish the firm’s goals.
Organizations that previously had a lot of administrative support staff performing a wide array of functions might be cutting those staff, and instead have their employees using increasingly sophisticated tools to do much of that work for themselves – or at least collaborating with their teammates on using those technologies to do the work and achieve the goals.
Conveniently enough, as firms face the pressures of the current economic climate and start making these corrections to their overall organizational structure, closing the doors to the physical office and having most of their employees work from anywhere, including from home, the org. chart will shrink down to just what it should always be: a simple, easy-to-understand depiction of how an organization is structured. Most firms still use org. charts for the purpose of orienting their visitors on who works where in the firm , and how they work together. And, yes, those things are still important, but in the age of remote working, is it really that critical? Many of the suggestions we provide in Chapter 5 of this blog post, to help law firms and their designers create better org. charts, serve to further those purposes.
The good news is that authors and organizations that are familiar with organizational structure theory have anticipated this evolution. As Jeff Bezos explains in a memo he wrote to his Amazon.com shareholders, about his company’s Day 1 vs. Day 2 organization. Bezos, who is the founder of Amazon.com, shared what he considers to be the three steps Amazon must take to maintain a Day 1 organization: focus on the long term, hire and promote people who hold these same Day 1 values, and maintain a discerning eye on operations that are wasteful. Notably, Bezos’s Day 2 definition includes siloed teams, unnecessary processes and bureaucracy. What he explains in there sounds remarkably similar to what many law firms currently do, as well as what firms are consequently struggling to overcome.
If big organizations, including law firms, actually want to find a way to get back to the best elements of the Day 1 structure, they will take a serious look at how they can structure their organization to stop the old ways of doing things in order to encourage new, more effective practices. They will also look at how they can become a more agile and more collaborative organization, particularly given that they already use these same technologies in their everyday work lives. Whether that means creating a flat structure with some type of overlay by practice group, geography, or client industry sector, or any other manner of using their technologies to get things done at a relatively small organization size that no longer needs to (or even can) be structured like a king-sized firm, that is for them to determine.
On the other hand, no matter how they choose to do it, as far as law firm org. charts are concerned, a reduction in the number of administrative staff, with a concurrent reduction in the workspaces that those people occupied, and a much more flexible approach to work, will necessarily result in a significant reduction of the number of org. charts.
And so we will reach the point where – whether for economic or other reasons – the org. charts will finally and hopefully be at least half of what they were when the decade began.