Strategic Support for the
Problems That Can't Wait
From access-level retainers to project-based engagements to fractional COO leadership, there’s a legal operations consulting engagement designed for exactly where you are.
You Know What's Wrong, You Just Can't Get to It.
Most companies don’t lack ideas for improvement. They simply lack the time, the outside perspective, and the focused energy to actually implement them. That’s where I come in.
The List Keeps Growing
Every week you add three things to the “when I have a minute” list and cross off zero. The problems don’t disappear. They compound.
You're Running the Company.
Who's Improving It?
Daily operations demand everything. There’s no bandwidth left for the structural work that would make everything else easier.
You Know It's Inefficient. Proving
It Is Another Story.
The workarounds have become the process. Nobody remembers why things are done this way. They just know it takes too long.
Good People, Wrong Systems
Your team is creative and hardworking. They’ve built impressive workarounds with the tools they’ve been given. Imagine what they’d do with the right ones.
How We Work Together
Three engagement models with one clear goal of moving the work forward.
Start where it makes sense for you.
Strategic Advisory Retainer
Ongoing executive-level access, at three levels designed around how much structure and involvement you need. No long-term contract.
Fractional
COO
An intensive, time-limited fractional COO engagement to rebuild systems, align leadership, and hand off a company that runs better without me.
Project-Based Engagements
Defined scope. Clear deliverable. A beginning and an end. For the things that have been on the list long enough.
Our Pricing
From start-ups getting organized to mid-size agencies navigating growth to law firms that need the back office to run itself, I meet you where you are.
Advisory Access
An experienced industry voice in your corner. Quick calls, emails, and texts whenever you need a sounding board.
monthly
Advisory + Strategy
A standing monthly meeting to work on the initiatives and improvements that never make it to the top of the list. Access in between to keep them moving.
monthly
Partnership
Close enough to the business to be useful in real time. Two meetings a month, with direct access for your leadership team.
monthly
Every retainer includes priority scheduling on project work.
Fractional
COO
An intensive engagement to rebuild systems, align leadership, and hand off a company that runs better.
monthly
Project-Based Engagements
Defined scope, clear deliverable, a beginning and an end.
Every retainer includes priority scheduling on project work.
The Operational Overhaul
A full look at every department, new systems, and documentation ready for hand off.
This one was the whole company. I came in to look at every department, work out what each one needed, and then build the structure to support it. That meant organizational changes, new software, and finally getting started on the initiatives that had been sitting on the list for years. I built everything so it could grow with them and documented it so that someone could be trained to run it without me.
- Full company and department assessment
- Organizational structure and roles
- Software selection and implementation
- Getting priority initiatives off the ground
- Documentation written for training and handoff
- Everything built to scale
Rebuilding a Twenty-Year-Old System
One person owning the whole build, so leadership does not have to run it.
They had been on the same proprietary system for over twenty years and decided to modernize and redesign it from the ground up. I helped choose the development partner, and now project manage the entire build, which runs nine months. I met with every department to document how the system is used and what each one needs, and I coordinate testing and the pipeline for what gets built now versus later. The development company does the building. I am the one keeping everyone talking to each other and making sure it gets done. Ownership does not have to oversee any of it day to day.
- Choosing the development partner
- Documenting the existing system department by department
- Translating what each department needs into direction for developers
- Coordinating testing and quality control
- Managing the pipeline of current and future build items
- Single point of contact between the company and the developers
Can I Run Something By You?
Have you heard of this? Can I run something by you? What would you do?
Almost every email, call, and text starts one of those three ways. Someone is in the middle of a decision and wants a read from somebody who has seen it before. Often, I am not even the one with the answer. I ask the questions that get us to the heart of it, and somewhere along the way they find their own way forward. Most calls end with a clear next step instead of another week of going back and forth.
- Email, text, and Teams access between meetings
- A quick read on decisions already in motion
- Codes, rules, and what is normal in this industry
- Light document review when it fits
- The questions that get to the heart of it
- Direction and judgment, not implementation
Payroll, Rebuilt and Handed Back
A job that took most of someone’s week now takes under ten hours a month.
Resource pay and employee payroll were both done by hand and ate up most of one person’s week. I reviewed both systems and documented what was happening versus what should be happening. For employee payroll, I replaced a punch clock and a stack of Excel sheets with the online time clock from their payroll company, so hours go straight into payroll. For resource pay, I helped design an entire tracking system for all departments to ensure payrolls were met. When the person handling it went on leave, I covered both. After that, I trained one of the billers on resource pay and kept employee payroll as an outside service, which the owner liked for a reason I had not expected. Salary and compensation information stopped living inside the office.
- Audit of reporter and employee payroll
- Tracking system built for resource pay
- Online time clock through their payroll provider
- Interim coverage during staff leave
- Training and handoff to internal staff
- Ongoing monthly payroll as an outside service
Someone for the Team to Call
An upset client, a missing reporter, a tough invoice. None of that waits for the CEO to get out of a meeting.
At the Partnership level, access goes past the owner to the directors, supervisors, and managers running the daily operations. They are the ones with an upset client on the phone, a reporter who has stopped responding to transcript requests, an out-of-state question nobody can answer, a messy invoice, or an employee situation that needs handling today. Owners tell me what they like most is knowing their team has somebody to call, and that the answer they get will be a good one. I have seen most of it. What I have not seen, we work through together.
- Direct access for directors, supervisors, and managers
- Solutions for upset clients and difficult conversations
- Out-of-state codes and practice questions
- Invoice, billing, and rate decisions
- Employee situations
- Coverage when leadership is unreachable
A Reporter Database Schedulers Actually Use
Everything the schedulers knew, finally somewhere you can search.
The system they had could not hold what the schedulers knew. Who covers which counties. Who is good with which job types. Who is licensed where. Who is worth a premium and when. All of it lived in people’s heads and dozens of Excel files. I sat with the schedulers to find out what they needed, looked at project management platforms, and picked one we could customize. Then I built a reporter database tagged by skill, preference, license, area, and rate, with management dashboards and pre-sorted lists for the searches schedulers run all day.
- Sitting with the schedulers to find out what they needed
- Platform research and selection
- Reporter database design and build
- Tagging for skills, licenses, and coverage areas
- Dashboards for tracking
- Pre-sorted lists for everyday searches
Growing Into a New Service Line
Monthly sessions through an expansion, covering the big picture and the next step at the same time.
Growth is when you find out what does not scale. Through monthly sessions, we work through what it actually takes to add a service line or move into a new state. The codes and practices that are different. What the rates should look like. Where the current setup is going to strain. What has to be in place before the first job comes in. We talk about the growing pains while they are happening instead of after. If something needs real build work, we scope it as a project. Everything else is part of the retainer.
- Monthly strategy sessions
- Adding a service line
- Moving into a new state: codes, rates, and practices
- Growing pains as they come up
- Goals and how to actually get there
- A clear line between what is included and what becomes a project
What the Sales Team Actually Costs
What each rep costs and what each one brings in, side by side.
Ownership knew what the sales team brought in and what it spent. What they did not have was how those two things connected person by person. I pulled every expense, categorized it, and lined it up against revenue and margin by rep and by territory, then built it out over time so the trends were actually visible. They ended up with a straight answer on what each rep costs, which territories were carrying which, and where to make changes.
- Expense categorization and cleanup
- Revenue and margin by rep
- Territory and region comparison
- Trends over time
- Cost per rep
- Written recommendations
Writing Down What Only Lives in People's Heads
Written down after the process was fixed, not before.
Almost every company I walk into is missing training guides and written procedures, and it is always the thing nobody has time for. This one started as a documentation project and turned into something more useful. I spent time watching how the work was actually being done, which surfaced a handful of things worth changing before anything got written down. We tested the changes, and then I documented the version that worked. They ended up with procedures their team could follow and reference material for the people already there. If I had just written down what I found on day one, they would have made the broken version permanent.
- Watching how the work is actually done
- Suggestions for what to change
- Testing the changes in practice
- Written procedures and SOPs
- Training guides by role
- Reference material for the people already there
When an Owner Starts Thinking About Selling
A sounding board and an introduction. I am not an M&A advisor.
I want to be clear about this one. I am not an M&A advisor, and I do not do valuations. What I can be is the person an owner talks to before any of that starts. What do you actually want out of this? What is the timeline? What is going to come up that nobody warns you about? A lot of that is emotional and does not get said out loud anywhere else. From there, I connect people with the M&A attorneys, financial advisors, and valuation specialists who do the actual work. For one client, I knew of parties looking to acquire and made the introduction. That is the honest extent of it.
- A sounding board before the process starts
- Talking through what you want out of an exit
- Introductions to M&A attorneys and financial advisors
- Referrals to valuation specialists
- Connecting owners with interested buyers when I know of them
- Telling you plainly when you need someone else
Onboarding That Does Not Start From Scratch Every Time
One path for employees, one for freelancers, both written down and ready to use.
Onboarding usually lives with whoever did it last, so every new person gets a slightly different version, and it never gets any better. I looked at what they already had and built proper systems for both employees and freelancers. A step-by-step path, the emails that go with each stage, an expectations document, and the checklists and forms that keep anything from getting missed. New people get the same start every time, and whoever runs onboarding gets their week back.
- Review of what already existed
- Step-by-step onboarding path
- Email templates for each stage
- Expectations and welcome documents
- Checklists and forms
- Separate tracks for employees and freelancers
Choosing Software Without the Sales Pitch
Demos run, prices compared, and a recommendation with the reasoning behind it.
Picking new software is one of those jobs nobody has time for, so it usually comes down to a vendor call and a gut feeling. I work out what the system actually has to do, build a shortlist, sit through the demos, and compare pricing on the same terms instead of however each vendor wants to present it. I have done this for video syncing software, payroll systems, CRMs, task management, and accounting. You get the recommendation and the reasoning, so it holds up when somebody asks why.
- Working out what the system has to do
- Vendor research and shortlist
- Running and sitting through demos
- Like-for-like price comparison
- A written recommendation with the reasoning
- Help with rollout
Are Your Rates Where You Think They Are?
Where your rate sheet sits in the market, without me telling you anybody else’s numbers.
Twenty years in this industry and a lot of contacts means I know where rates are going. Send me a rate sheet and I will tell you if you are low, average, or high for your market, and whether anything bigger is shifting, like agencies moving from per page to hourly. What I will not do is tell you what another agency charges. That goes for clients and non-clients both. I give market context in ranges, which is enough to make a decision without anybody’s private information getting passed around.
- Rate sheet review
- Where you sit against the market range
- Pricing structure trends
- What your margins look like by rate tier
- Reporter rate and compensation comparison
- Written findings and recommendations
The Deck They Did Not Have Time to Build
You tell me the theme. I handle the talking points, the slides, and the design.
Some of the best projects are the small ones. A client has a presentation coming up, knows roughly what they want to cover, and has no time to build it. I take the theme and the context, work out the talking points, and build the slides. This has been everything from a sales meeting to a client training on scheduling best practices to a session on what AI actually means for a legal services business. Because I know the industry, I am not just formatting someone else’s content. I can write the substance too and am quick to pick up your company’s voice.
- Talking points built from your theme
- Slide design and build
- Content written, not just formatted
- Marketing pieces and flyers
- A revision round
- Materials you can reuse
The Template That Saves an Hour a Day
A quick estimate that used to take fifteen minutes now takes two.
Most of the templates a company actually needs are the small operational ones nobody gets around to building. Quick client estimates. Rate comparisons. Scorecards. The thing somebody rebuilds in Excel from scratch every single time because no one ever saved a clean version. I build them to match how the work really happens, with the formulas and logic already in place so the person using it just fills in what changes. They are small projects, and they tend to pay for themselves faster than anything else I do.
- Quick estimate and quote templates
- Rate and margin comparisons
- KPI scorecards
- Intake forms and checklists
- Email templates and scripts
- Built to match how the work actually happens
The Website They Kept Meaning to Redo
Copy written, proofed, and carried all the way through to launch.
The site had been on the list for years and kept getting pushed for whatever was on fire that week. I worked with the owner to settle what they wanted to say, wrote the copy for the whole site, then edited and proofed it. I stayed on through the build, working with the developer, reviewing pages as they came together, and doing the final proof before it went live. The owner made all the decisions without having to run the project.
- Messaging and what they wanted to say
- Copywriting for the full site
- Editing and proofreading
- Working with the web developer
- Page-by-page review through the build
- Final proof before launch
Stop Adding It to the Bottom of the List
Book a Discovery Call and we’ll figure it out together.