How to Save a Failing Law Firm - Case Study Example

How to save a failing law firm Leadership and Management techniques are significant for the development of any successful company. The two terms can be differentiated by the responsibilities carried out by each one of them. Leaders have a responsibility of directing people by inspiring them and providing innovative ideas that they can easily follow. On the other hand, managers s plan, organize and co-coordinate the available resources in a firm, in order to maximize profits. In a firm, the leaders can also be referred to as the administrators. The administration and management are inter-linked and should work hand in hand in order to propel the firm towards the formulated goals and objects (Lapitan, p, 2). To be specific, the administration develops the rules and regulations required to govern all aspects of the company. Therefore, the administration should exercise innovation, in order to provide the company with guidelines that would shape the destiny of the firm in the long term perspective. On the other hand, management takes the established rules and regulations and implements them using the available resources in the firm. The management goals are usually in the short term. The available resources in a firm refer to the factors of production such as capital, labour, and skills. These two responsibilities are very important in running any firm as they define the future position of a company. For this reason, leaders and managers require to possess vast knowledge and skills for any meaningful success in a company. Knight and Day Company is in the verge of collapsing. Hence, there is the need to integrate leadership and management skill so as to revive the economy of this firm, and save it from losing its credibility. A number of critical issues threaten Knight and Day Company in its leadership and management. There are several challenges that these two dockets need to address immediately in order to save the existing situation. One of the potential challenges in this firm is the labour resource. There is evidence of poor management and utilization of the labour force in this firm. To begin with, there is evidence of unskilled labour resource.In any given company, lack of skilled labour force is one of the major drawbacks in the labour resource. Unskilled labour brings out low productivity in the farm. Labour is one of the most significant and scarce resource in any company. Therefore, it is the duty of the management to oversee hiring of skilled labour to ensure that tapped labour resource can be harnessed effectively. This will provide optimum profits for the firm. In addition, there is evidence of loss of the already existing labour facility as the workers quit their jobs and take up alternatives out of this company.This is a major problem that can lead to failure of a company. This is because when the firm loses its laborer, it takes time to replace it through the recruitment process. This contributes to a large extent to the losses in a firm. The problem of labour resource management might require more allocation of resources such as time and money. In the process of reformation, there is the need to reform the labour resource through a recruitment process in order to have the required skilled labour. The recruitment process involves advertisement, interviews and even orientation of new employees. All these activities require financial support to implement. Moreover, skilled manpower requires that the salaries are moderated, and more specifically raised in order to avoid the massive departures of the employees from the firm. In addition, the whole process would require that the management sit in various sessions in order to provide a new set of development policies that would be used to regulate the labour force. This will require abundant time and also the use of money Another factor threatening the success of this firm is the poor co-ordination of the various departments and branches. For instance, the Los Angeles office operates autonomously from the rest of the offices in the farm. This implies that this office operates as an independent entity from the rest of the firm. This is a great threat to the position of the firm. Usually, any organization applies the same mission, vision and objectives. Indeed, possess the same goals, making their coherence fundamental in achieving the set goals. In this view, all departments and sub-departments should work hand in hand so as to accomplish the set goals. In addition, the same set of rules determines the operation of all the branches of the firm. Differentiation of branches as unique entities, or even formulating different standards for different branches generates a weakness in the firm, increasing its chances of failure. Also, there is evidence of flaws in the administration rules and guidelines as well as the implementation of these rules. This can be observed clearly from the response of the Kansas office. There is evidence of sluggishness and untimely response to their duties. This can be attributed to the failure of management to come up with clear guidelines to govern the labour force in all the offices. For example, the Kansas office is always late in handing in their daily reports, which in turn delays the closing of billing cycles and issuing of invoices. This delay interrupts the cash flow process. This portrays failure of management and administration to put in place strict guidelines to be adhered to, and the consequences of failure to follow them. This is a big threat to the success of this farm because all the departments are dependent on one another and the inefficiency of one of them will severely destabilize the whole organization. To add to that, there are no clearly established process of promotion of the workers as well as the compensation schemes. Consequently, the management finds it hard to assign permanent department heads in the Denver office because they fear that this action would alienate the partners who are not assigned such positions. Such a situation results from the failure of the leadership to come up with clear and sensible guideline regarding promotion of employeesand company partners. The management has a responsibility of providing a clear criterion of determining the merit for which workersor partners should be promoted or demoted. This will prevent any negative reaction from the other employees as they are all aware of these procedures. This firm has failed to recognize the need for flexibility in the market. In the business market, the external factors that influence the productivity of a firm vary from time to time. This leaves the management and administration of the firm with a responsibility of adjusting their strategies and policies according to the demands of the market. These external factors include the government policy, the shifts in demand, competition from similar business firms and many more. Stagnancy in a business will attract a low demand, hence attracting poor revenues for the firm. This greatly puts the future of the company at risk of declining. In response, the leaders are supposed to revise their policies and review their quality of services so as to meet the dynamic standards reflected in the market. In Knight and Day, this has led to the slipping of the company, putting the future of the company at risk. Consequently, the problems in this company should be approached in a chronological manner; starting with the top level positions. It would be important for the administration and management to identify the weaknesses present in their roles. This step will help them to trace their responsibilities. For instance, they have failed to formulate and implement clear guidelines regarding the labour force, discipline and criteria for promotion. The reason why this reform should take this route is because the management is responsible for shaping and coordinating the whole organization; its failureaffects whole organization.Next, it would be important to address the problem of labour force. Labour is one of the most important resources in any firm, given that it islimitedandscarce. Therefore, it is important to harness this resource effectively. This would result to optimization of the revenue. After this, co-ordination between the departments should be addressed, which is one of the basic roles of management. The management should establish a mutual relationship in the various departments to ensure that they are all driven towards the same goals. It is the sole responsibility of the administration and management toorganize all the resources of the firm. The administration should formulate clear rules and regulations to govern the actions of every worker; their relationship with one another, their duties and responsibilities, their rights and even their relationship with the administration. In Knight and Day Company, it would be significant to restructure the laws governing labour and discipline. Such laws should dictate the skill and experience required for the various levels of labour, theresponsibilities of the workers, their criteria of promotion, their salary, overtime and any other issue relating to the labour force. The management should come in to implement these laws. For instance, the human resource management should follow the stipulated laws while carrying out their roles of hiring the labour force. They should look for the skills and qualification specified in the so formed rules. These rules should be based on principles of management and should be relevant in the dynamic market. Another organizational role is to coordinate the various departmental offices. A mutual relationship between the departments should be established in order to define their inter-dependence. The various departments should be able to share responsibilities equally and step in for one another in time of need. This will ensure that all the departments are harnessed to achieve the general objectives of the firm.As anadministrator in Knight and DayCompany, it would be important to over-whole and revise the policies in place and coming up with new policies regulating the employees. For instance, it would be wise to institute new strict discipline measures against any delay in the work process as well as attendance of meetings in order to eliminate these problems in the firm. In turn, this would leave the manager with the responsibility of ensuring that these rules are followed strictly and to the letter. In addition, the management should interact with the middle and low level employees so as to establish the possible reasons why the workers are departing from the firm. This would ensure that the workers problems are known and hence effectively addressed. As a manager in Knight and Day, it would also be important to address the problem of leadership in the firm. Leaders include all individuals who head a group of employees under them. The virtues of leadership can be instilled through training; this involves holding educative seminars in the firm, or even attending educative forums within the country. This would ensure that all the leaders are fully equipped with the skills of leadership required to co-ordinate those under them. In this firm, it would also be important to address the issue of hierarchy. This pertains to the chain of commands that dictates the flow of information and responsibility from the top level position to the bottom most one. For instance, the heads of all the offices in a region should be answerable to the regional head. This will foster a sense of responsibility for every person in the leadership position. Given the idea of merging with the Seattle law firm, Presser Coughman Logan (PCL), Knight and Day should approach the ideacautiously before getting into this deal.Prior to considering the due diligence factors, Knight and Day Company should evaluate several factor about the firm. First, they should ask themselves whether their employees would be comfortable with the merger. This will ensure that the employees are comfortable and co-operative after the merger. Otherwise, the merger might end up unsuccessful. Another question is; what are the motives of the merger? This would help in setting up clear objectives that need to be achieved through the merger. After these questionsare answered, the company management should consider the due diligence factors. This means evaluating the financial position of PCL for at least three year. Another due diligence factor to consider is the properties and equipment owned by the company in question. This will help to establish the fixed assets and maintenance expenses of that company.Finally, it is important to consider the liability issues of the company for the last few years.All these factors will assist the management to evaluate if it is worthwhile to merge with this company (Lobina). Although it is difficult to satisfy equity partners, allocation of compensation should be guided by the principle of fairness. Each partner should be compensated proportionally to the profit they earn the company by carrying out their responsibilities. The best way to compensate them is by considering their seniority, their experience, their responsibilities, as well as their hardships in the job. To make this process effective, a compensation team should be formed in order to evaluate the factors to be put in place while carrying out compensation. In the hot and cold areas where employees work longer hours than others, compensation should be based on the number of hours worked. This can also be treated as a hardship condition, necessitating a higher compensation. Client origination is another factor that the compensation committee can consider. It can be done by giving a permanent origination credit to partners who originate business from new clients. This is an important factor and should be given the necessary weight. By taking a position on these critical problems facing the Knight and Day Company, there are various risks that the administrator must be prepared to face. This is because the whole process of reformation requires the factors of time, resources and co-operation from the company fraternity. To a large extent, the administrator would be faced with the challenge of co-operation from the Knight and Day fraternity. As a new administrator, it is impossible to implement reforms without the help of the other members. It is a process that requires people to join hands in order to save the existing situation. However, it is likely that some employees would be opposed to the whole idea. This is based on the fact that this process requires the introduction of strict measures as well as new rules and regulations. Therefore, it requires an employee friendly approach in case any achievements are to be realized. The consequences of this opposition can mean more departures of the employees. Again, the process may require laying off of some employees, which could result to a negative attitude from the employees to the new administration. This can result to a go slow in the job, leading to more losses to the company. Another challenge of the organization would be the constraint of financial resources. This is due to the already existing financial situation in the firm. The administrator might require resources to finance the new compensation schemes and in the establishment of new policies. Therefore, the initial stage of this process should be financed by the firm. In the long run, the viability of this process would see the company rise to a higher competitive edge and result to a higher revenue. Therefore, the process requires that the managing director is co-operative in financing the transformation process. Due to the financial crisis in this company, the process will be limited by shortage of finances, and in extreme cases the process may be turned down. In conclusion, the Knight and Day Company hasa number of management issues that need to be dealt with as a matter of urgency. The solution to these problems is critical for the survival of this law company. This company has a slackening leadership, which has led to neglecting of standards and codes of labour. As a result, the labour force has become inefficient, leading to low productivity. Infact, the company is in the verge of losing its future, forcing the shareholders and associates to depart for more promising opportunities in the market. However, all is not lost; the company has chances of recovering from its situation if the necessary measures are put in place. The process of reformation involves adjustment of the organizational structures, formulation of new rules and regulations and the revival of the labour force. In this process, the administration and management must be ready to encounter various challenges. This is because the process requires co-operation from the workers and financial support from the company. Works Cited Lapita, J. Principles of leadership and management. Retrieved from: Lobina, D. Consider due-diligence factors when buying, selling, merging businesses, 2011. Retrieved from: Read More