Jon Whittle Consulting Ltd

This Practice Note provides guidance to law firms on how to formulate a strategic plan. It explains the difference between a strategic plan (also called strategic aims) and a business plan. A strategic plan sets out the law firm’s strategic aims for a defined period, usually anywhere between one and five years. This Practice Note also sets out a structured process for formulating your firm’s strategic plan, including how to prepare and execute an effective strategy away day.

This Precedent can be used to create an agenda for a strategy review meeting to review progress against your strategic aims. It is recommended that you have dedicated strategy review meetings at least quarterly.

Business planning is often a consideration when starting a new business. However, you should think of business planning as an evolving process which should be reviewed regularly in order to measure progress and encourage others to invest time and effort in the business. This Precedent can be used to record your review.

This Precedent Competitive landscape exercise is intended for use at a strategy away day. It will encourage delegates to think about a variety of factors that impact on the competitive environment in which the firm operates so you can identify challenges and opportunities.

This Precedent should be completed at the end of your strategy away day to record what you have agreed to be the firm’s key strategic aims. The headings are suggestions only but cover most critical areas of the business. Once the document is agreed it can be dated and the word ‘Draft’ removed. There is also a sample version to give you some ideas of what the final document might look like.

This Precedent indicates the key information you should consider collecting when undertaking external market analysis. Before developing a business development and marketing plan you should conduct a marketing audit to gather relevant information about your own firm and the external market.

This Precedent can be used to at the start of a strategy away day. It is intended to encourage delegates to think more creatively right from the start of your strategy away day. Without such an exercise, delegates tend to focus on obvious and immediate issues.

This Precedent is an example of a final strategic aims document for a law firm. It is intended to be a a maximum of two pages long and will be implemented by and dovetail with a separate business plan. A blank version of this Precedent is also available.

This Precedent encourages you to structure the way in which you implement your strategic aims. It requires you to set specific objectives and actions, assess resources and feasibility, appoint someone to take responsibility for each area and impose deadlines to ensure you move forward. The other key way of implementing your strategic aims is via a more detailed business plan.

This Precedent business plan is designed for commercial firms to set out how they might achieve their business objectives.

This Precedent business plan is designed for consumer firms to set out how they might achieve their business objectives. It is intended for law firms.

This Precedent presentation is for use at a strategy away day. It is presented as a PowerPoint document. There are separate Precedents for various exercises referred to in the presentation. The presentation follows the same running order as the Precedents for the strategy away day programme and index for the strategy away day pack.

This Precedent encourages you to conduct a review and analysis of your key clients and referrers so you can have an informed discussion at a strategy away day.

This Precedent sets out an itinerary of key date, timing and venue information for participants attending an off-site strategy review day.

This Precedent is designed to help you to deal with the logistics involved in arranging a strategy away day. It links to relevant Precedents for each step and dovetails with a more high-level Precedent covering the entire strategic review process.

This Precedent will help you to prepare a structured, indexed pack of documents for a strategy away day. Where relevant, links to Precedents for the enclosures are provided. Alternatively, we have indicated how the enclosure should be prepared.

This Precedent is a suggested programme for a law firm strategy away day. There are Precedents available to help you with each session in the programme and for a strategy away day presentation.

This Precedent allows you to collect the opinions of your staff in advance of a strategy review day. There are similar Precedents for partners, operational heads and legal team leaders, plus a Precedent to help you collate the responses and identify key themes.

This Precedent allows you to collect the opinions of your legal team leaders in advance of a strategy review day. There are similar Precedents for partners, operational team leads and all staff, plus a Precedent to help you collate the responses and identify key themes.

This Precedent allows you to collect the opinions of your operational team leads (Finance, L&D, business development etc) in advance of a strategy review day. There are similar Precedents for partners, team leads and other staff, plus a Precedent to help you collate the responses and identify key themes.