A litigation or claims practice lives by hearing dates and case volume, and its people carry heavy caseloads. The people side here is mostly about cover, so that no hearing depends on a single advocate or a single clerk's memory.
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Share your requirementsA litigation or claims practice handles a high number of matters at once: civil suits, motor accident claims, consumer cases, insurance and recovery claims, or similar volume work. Each matter has hearing dates, filing deadlines and papers to collect from clients, hospitals, police stations or insurers. Senior advocates argue the important hearings, while junior advocates, clerks and field staff cover the rest across several courts and forums. The practice may also depend on referral sources, such as insurers or agents, for new cases. Success depends on knowing what is listed tomorrow and who is attending. See also HR for professional services.
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
If nobody attends a hearing or files on time, a client can lose ground, and the practice's reputation takes the damage.
Some advocates carry far more matters than others, and the person who is reliable ends up with the most.
They spend days travelling between forums and waiting in court, with little supervision and no record of where they were.
When an advocate leaves, the history of dozens of matters leaves with them unless files are well kept.
People collecting records and serving notices move alone through the day, with attendance and expense claims hard to verify.
Fees arrive late and unevenly, which makes salary planning and incentives unstable for staff and the practice.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Employee Administration; Compensation, Payroll and Benefits; Performance Management. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for professional services, not in general.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
The pieces a litigation and claims law practices business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
A single shared calendar of every listing, with a named advocate and a backup for each, reviewed the evening before.
What this coversHideA single shared calendar of every listing, with a named advocate and a backup for each, reviewed the evening before. GullyHR software can sit alongside it for attendance and leave.
A regular count of matters and upcoming hearings per advocate, with allocation decided on the numbers and not on who answers first.
What this coversHideA regular count of matters and upcoming hearings per advocate, with allocation decided on the numbers and not on who answers first.
A short daily record of courts visited, tasks done and expenses claimed, which supports both pay and accountability.
What this coversHideA short daily record of courts visited, tasks done and expenses claimed, which supports both pay and accountability. The attendance and leave process can include it.
A fixed note for each matter showing status, next step and key documents, so another person can pick it up without a long briefing.
What this coversHideA fixed note for each matter showing status, next step and key documents, so another person can pick it up without a long briefing.
A pay structure with a stable base and a variable part tied to outcomes the firm can measure.
What this coversHideA pay structure with a stable base and a variable part tied to outcomes the firm can measure. The compensation and rewards strategy work covers it.
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirementsConfirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
A record of who was where, covering court days, field work and leave.
A pay mix that works when fees are delayed and outcomes take years.
Standard formats for case notes, handovers and employee records that survive staff changes.
Fair measures of advocate and clerk performance that go beyond who has the most files.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in professional services, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
Why associates and managers leave consulting, accounting, legal and advisory firms, and how to ask about progression, workload and partners at exit.
6 min readRead article
Payroll says one joining date, the personal file says another and the manager remembers a third. How to establish a single trustworthy employee record and keep it that way.
7 min readRead article
Most salary structures grew one negotiation at a time. How to build grades and bands from what you already pay, without repricing everybody at once.
8 min readRead article
A review can only judge what was agreed beforehand. How to set expectations that are specific, written and revisited, so the review stops being a surprise.
5 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Keep one calendar, give every listing a named person and a backup and check the next day's list each evening. Relying on individual memory fails at volume.
Count matters and upcoming hearings per person and allocate on the numbers. The most reliable person should not become the default destination for everything.
Use a short daily record of tasks and places, and a brief check-in at a fixed time. It is more useful than checking on them repeatedly.
Standard case notes and shared access to files mean another person can continue. Write them as you go, not at exit.
They can if the base pay is steady and the variable part is tied to milestones you can measure, not only to fees received.
Our opening conversation would cover how hearing dates are tracked and who backs up each advocate, how matters are spread across the team, and how field staff who serve notices and collect documents are supervised. One shared hearing calendar or a fairer caseload split is often the first useful job. Scope and cost are agreed in writing afterwards, not on the call.
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