| This sector is governed primarily but not exclusively by the SRA Code of Conduct for solicitors and relevant codes for other professional practices.The unique nature of the sector, where partnerships are often of considerable long-standing and continue to observe traditional – and thus occasionally outmoded – management practices which often fall some way short of regulatory requirements, necessitates a bespoke approach.
This is exactly what Genius Methods provides  on a firm by firm basis.
The tasks are numerous, labour intensive and often appear pointless to the overworked employee.
Nevertheless they should never be performed to less than the highest standards; correctly and fully every time to ensure compliance, and defence if needed.
Processes and actions need to be evidenced and readily retrievable. Systems need to be provided that offer alerts, instant visibility of controls and progress, dynamic reporting, clear coded results and escalation on non-performance.
Examples of current applications in the professional services sector include, but are by no means limited to:
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| ∗ Management Diagnostic Assessment |
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- A risk assessment aimed at professional services firms or partnerships dealing with day-to-day business activities, compliance and management issues.
- Covering sixteen business areas that impact the full cross-section of the firm
- Deals with communications, people and infrastructure issues as well as impacts from external sources.
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| ∗ Management Diagnostics |
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- We provide assessments to enable management, in a non-confrontational way, to address and bring to the fore some of the issues that may arise from a long-standing and traditional culture (the nature of many professional partnerships).
- Assessments are tailored for each specific firm and its needs.
- It addresses the practice areas, their structure and inter-relationships and the departments that cross the practice areas.
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| ∗ Process Implementation / Practice Management |
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- One of the idiosyncrasies of professional firms is built into the nature of their structure- being partnerships of professionals.
- This often creates a shortfall in quality or standardisation of processes within the firm.
- This shortfall impacts negatively on costs, time and resources.
- Workflows that ensure efficiency within the practice areas are tailored for each firm and partner, within the overall objectives of the firm.
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| ∗ Compliance Reviews |
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- Our statistics on compliance reviews show that virtually every firm is non-compliant in up to 7 of 13 areas checked.
- This is mirrored by the SRA statistics that show most firms are not totally compliant.
- We provide checklists and processes to implement and address these partnership compliance issues.
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| ∗ Client Care |
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- This is totally understood and supported but is not carried out correctly in terms of the Code.
- If it is not correct the financial risk to the firm is high.
- We provide the required checklists and processes tailored for your firm to address these requirements.
- Calendar and workflow processes can control this engagement effectively.
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| ∗ File Opening and File Closure |
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- These currently tend to be manual processes and therefore handled to differing degrees of efficiency.
- We provide checklists which allow for all steps to be evidenced, progress monitored and business statistics to be distilled.
- File closures are a legacy within firms and systems need to be put in place to deal with the backlog and to address current file closures in a competent, compliant manner.
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| ∗ Wills Management |
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- We provide a diary system with information about specific clauses or conditions within a will.
- We allow proactive review with a client and proactive response to legislative or tax condition changes.
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| ∗ Document control |
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- A document reminder system based around the date and review date of a document to ensure proactive control of documents such as visas, passports, practice certificates, lease agreements, client agreements, service agreements, etc.
- The savings by meeting break clauses and the improved revenue due to client service are both benefits of moving from current diary systems to a more robust date and document management system.
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| ∗ Decision evidence |
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- There are times when a practice makes a decision not to take on a certain job.
- Standard systems do not allow for this information to be readily captured.
- Workflows can begin from the time of a telephone call and monitor the engagement before a decision to engage is taken, after which case management or other systems take over.
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