Helping law firm partners make more profit for their practice

I'm James Markham, and over the past ~15 years I've consistently helped UK law firm leaders increase the profitability and cashflow of their practice groups and firms.

But don't just take my word for it...

“James is an exceptional strategic thinker [...] His attention to detail, ability to obtain data and distil from it what is relevant to support strategic decision making is a significant strength.

Where time is short, risks abound and uncertainty is everywhere, James' skills, insights, abilities and critical analysis provide a needed focus and sharp edge.”

Bryan Johnston
Real Estate Practice Group Leader, Dentons

The pandemic changed everything, and UK Law Firms are struggling

Double digit inflation in core fee earner salaries, but a limited ability to pass on fee increases to cost-conscious clients.

Persistent, low performance practice groups and partners, leading to tension with high performing partners.

Half empty offices, strained culture and disrupted ways of working.

Cheap overdrafts are a thing of the past, but high levels of lockup and working capital are not.

Cut business services until it all blows over won't work here

These are threats to the core delivery model of your legal practice.

Freezing marketing spend (again) isn't going to fix this.

Pushing fee earner utilisation to the point of burnout isn't going to fix this.

An over-stretched management team isn't going to fix this.

But you don't need to do it alone

I can help you diagnose the issues and get to the root cause of poor profitability and cashflow.

I can help you build consensus across the senior partners and business services teams to a way forward.

I can bolster your senior team's capacity and capability to deliver substantive, sustainable improvements to profit and cashflow.

I'm James Markham

Co-author of The Legal MBA, I'm a Chartered Management Consultant (MCMI ChMC) with 15 years' experience working with law firm Managing Partners, COOs and CFOs at law firms such as Hogan Lovells, Dentons, DLA Piper and a range of UK mid-market and independent firms.

I was previously a member of the UK senior management teams at Hogan Lovells and Dentons; with a directorate at Dentons covering Innovation, Commercial Finance, Practice Management and Legal Project Management.

I hold a top flight MBA and am a Fellow Chartered Accountant (FCA). I'm also a certified Lean Six Sigma and Design Thinking Practitioner.

You can find example Case Studies of my work here.

How I can help

If you or your teams are wanting to better understand the Business of Law, check out thelegal.mba for our book and online academy.

Alternatively, if you have a £3m+ fee income UK legal practice or firm where:

Net profit margin is less than 30%, or
Lockup exceeds 130 days

Get in touch via the contact form below and let's see if I can help.

James Markham

Consulting Director

james@markhamconsulting.co.uk