Ad Litem Consulting, Inc.

Heirarchy

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Every business—and in this book, Litigation Support is viewed as a business-- needs a hierarchy. If your department includes just one or two people, then each person may need to fill multiple roles, covering all aspects of the business.

For example, let's look at accounting roles. Your law firm has an Accounting Department or at least a CPA firm on contract. They are responsible for tracking finances on both case and firm levels. The Litigation Support accounting role makes certain everything billable, and potentially billable, goes into the accounting books. If the department created 200 CDs in January, the person filling the finance role makes certain the $5,000 charged for media creation appears in the firm's accounting books. The Accounting Department provides the Litigation Support Department and firm with reports charting spending and other trends. This information is an important index of your Litigation Support Department and Litigation Group activity. Even more important, the best way for Litigation Support to get the firm to spend money on additional people, hardware, and software is to use accounting numbers as the basis for business decisions.

It is interesting to note that, in the chat below, the top position in the hierarchy is traditionally the "shareholders." As the lawyers are the only “shareholders” in the firm, this is not so far from the truth. Partners are lawyers who are shareholders. Associates are attorneys who aspire to become shareholders. As such all attorneys appreciate a department which helps them win their cases while reducing and recovering costs for both the client and the firm.

Let’s take a look at the traditional business hierarchy and see how it applies to the Litigation Support Department.

Heirarchy

Services