Lawyers USA Your Business Partner

At the 13-lawyer firm of Butz, Dunn & DeSantis in San Diego, Patricia Groff can do just about everything except sue.

As the firm’s chief administrator, Groff is a jack-of-all-trades, handling marketing, finances, administration and hiring. She also participates in the firm’s strategic planning and shareholder meetings.

“The only thing I don’t get into,” Groff says, “is the practice of law.”

Facing an increasingly competitive market, a growing number of small and mid-sized law firms are handing over their management reins to professionals such as Groff, who has a background in finance and experience in administration.

While large law firms for years have hired nonlawyers to run their business and office operations, smaller firms traditionally have considered hiring, finances and HR the responsibility of the partners.

“What’s happening is that as law firms have become more sophisticated, and partners realize they have to spend more time generating more business or paying attention to their current business, they don’t have the time to take care of their day-to-day activities,” says Joel A. Rose, a law firm consultant in Cherry Hill, N.J.

Between 2003 and 2007, membership in the Association of Legal Administrators (ALA) increased 10 percent, to 10,534. More than a third of the members work for firms with one to 14 attorneys; 2,195 are employed by firms with 15 to 29 attorneys; and 2,328 work for firms with 30 to 74 attorneys.

Pat Yevics, director of law office management at the Maryland State Bar Association, says firms with 10 to 30 lawyers often have the greatest need for a professional administrator.
“They’re at that cusp – they’re too big for their partners to be doing all this stuff,” she says. “They struggle.”

Unfortunately, lawyers at mid-sized firms are often so busy they don’t have the time to hire a full-time legal administrator, she says. In addition, some attorneys may be unwilling to let non-lawyers run their offices.

“Lawyers are control freaks, and they are reluctant to give up control to anybody about anything,” says Ed Poll, a law practice management consultant and owner of Law Biz Management in Venice, Calif.

Those firms that do make the leap, however, find it is beneficial to leave the day-to-day operations to someone with business expertise.

Joseph J. Rucci Jr., founder and managing partner of a 22-lawyer firm in Darien, Conn., recently hired Gabrielle Ferrera as full-time legal administrator and office manager. Rucci says he isn’t concerned that Ferrera, a human resources professional with administrative experience, has never worked for a law firm.

“I can teach her that,” he says. “The idea is to expand her engagement in all sorts of things having to do with the administrative side of the firm, from IT supervision to insurance to employees to the marketing.

“The lawyers want to practice law,” he says. “The world has gotten very complicated with all the government regulations and reporting requirements. It’s important to have someone do this piece.”

A past president of the ALA, Groff says many law firm administrators – especially at small and medium-sized firms – started out as legal secretaries. As the firms grew, their responsibilities increased.

Increasingly, however, college graduates with business backgrounds are choosing legal administration as a career, according to Groff.

“It’s still a relatively small niche, but it’s growing,” she says.

Salaries vary widely, from about $60,000 to $115,000 for administrators at 25-lawyer firms.

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