Business Portfolio 2026
Six documents. One owner each. One plan for the year.
Word and PDF · 49 pages · 66 KB Word, 1.1 MB PDF
Six documents.One plan for the year.
The Business Portfolio from Chapter 3 of The Law Firm Operating System: Law Firm Goals, Project Plan, Marketing Plan, Hiring Plan, Business Plan, and Budget. Each carries a named Directly Responsible Individual, and each produces a figure the next one needs, so the six are worked in order.
Word and PDF · 49 pages · Free to download. Part of The Law Firm Operating System Implementation Workbook.
What is inside.
Sixty-one pages. A front section on how the documents connect and who owns them, then the six documents in the order the book sets them out.
The six documents
| Step | Document | Owner in the System | What It Produces |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Law Firm Goals | Director of Operations | Three to five goals, one of them the revenue goal |
| 2 | Project Plan | Director of Operations | The initiatives that serve those goals, divided into quarters |
| 3 | Marketing Plan | Marketing lead | Spend, strategy and channel allocation |
| 4 | Hiring Plan | Human resources lead | Net new, current cost, anticipated hires and hiring budget |
| 5 | Business Plan | All leaders | The eleven part written plan for the year |
| 6 | Budget | Financial department lead | The financial representation of everything above |
Three rules
Write a goal in every category, then narrow
Draft a goal in every one of the eleven categories, then narrow to three to five you will pursue wholeheartedly. One must be the revenue goal.
Every figure is derived, not guessed
The revenue goal sets the case count, the case count sets the marketing spend, the net new case count sets the hiring dates, and the hiring plan sets the payroll budget.
One owner and one review date
Every document has one owner and one review date. A portfolio with no named owner is a stack of worksheets.
The arithmetic
- Cases required
- Revenue goal divided by average fee per case.
- Marketing spend
- Cases required multiplied by cost of acquisition.
- Net new cases
- Cases signed less cases resolved, adjusted for attrition.
- Hire trigger
- Net new cases divided by the caseload one position can carry.
- Payroll budget
- Current human capital cost plus anticipated hires, gated by hire month.
The front section also records where the portfolio is reported: the four cadences of Chapter 7, yearly, quarterly, monthly and weekly; the three questions of a quarterly review; and the fifteen-minute leader report against three headings. A plan is not held by the document, it is held by the meeting that reads it.
How to use it.
Work the documents in order
Each document produces a figure the next one needs. Law Firm Goals first, the Budget last.
Draft eleven goals, keep three to five
Write something in all eleven categories before choosing between them, then narrow. Record which were set aside and why; next year that column is the fastest way back into the exercise.
Derive every figure
Nothing in the portfolio is guessed. A change in one document forces a change in the next, which is why the cross-document reconciliation page at the end exists.
Name the owners, then review
One Directly Responsible Individual and one review date per document. Share the portfolio with the leadership team, a coach or a mentor before launch, so it can be fed back on rather than only filed.
Download the portfolio.
One document holds all six. The Budget page on this site describes document six in more detail.