Question

(a)     Suggest suitable measures of productivity for a law firm.

(b)    Is it feasible to utilize the measures indicated in (a) for assessing/improving the quality of services provided by the firm? Why?

(c)     Why is it difficult to measure productivity of a law firm?

(d)    Can single-factor productivity measures provide a better insight than a multi-factor productivity measure? Justify your argument.

(e)     Why an increase in production might not yield an increase in productivity?

(questions can be answered in forms of bullet points)

Answer 1

a. Measures of productivity for a law firm are as follows:

· The number of cases open (on going)

· The number of cases finished successfully(closed)

· The average time take to complete a single case.

· The actual amount of time spent on individual case to study and prepare.

· Increase in staff efficiency and knowledge base.

· Excellent paperwork and very less or zero errors.

b. The above said measures directly indicates how productive a firm is and picking up with these strategies to assess/improve will definitely work. For example, if at all we increase the number of cases successfully finished in less time, builds enormous brand image. As productivity increases it improves quality of the service been provided.

c. It is quite difficult to measure productivity of a law firm because of the following reasons:

· Lack of evidences or client support makes it difficult to give best service.

· Court proceedings take lot of time and out of bound.

· Staff efficiency needs on job training which affects work.

d. No, single factor productivity measures cannot provide better insight than a multi-factor productivity measure. As we can see there are many factors that affect and a law firm and its productivity measuring is quite difficult with multi-factors itself. Thus, single factor measurement would give partial insights and very less of it, which is never solely applicable for anything.

e. As we know when the focus shifts from productivity to increase in production, the efficient way with which the workers used to work is deviated to increasing number of products manufactured. i.e.. quantity takes place of quality which is usually compromised.