Practice Management: From Support Function to Strategic Driver

By Jessica Lim, National Director Practice Management – Commercial Litigation & Construction at Borden Ladner Gervais LLP (BLG)

Most law firms have a strategy. Fewer have a reliable way to execute it. Partners lead practices, manage client relationships, and carry billing targets—often all at once. Strategic plans get made at offsites and often stall before implementation. That gap, between intention and action, is exactly where Practice Management roles sit.

Before addressing how to make Practice Management roles more effective or whether to introduce them, let’s consider the context and what Practice Management means. Susan Lambreth, Founder and Principal at LawVision and one of the foremost authorities on the subject, defines it as the level of operational management in law firms at the business unit level, driving strategy, financial results, talent management and more. It is the structured system used to organize, lead, and continuously improve business units so the firm can deliver superior client value, enhance performance, and strengthen its competitive position.

Practice Management and the business units can be structured around substantive practice areas, offices, industry groups or client teams. The most common model, however, organizes around practice areas—and it is within that model that dedicated Practice Management roles have become most prevalent.

How Practice Management Roles Emerged

The shift from office-driven to practice-driven firm models created the conditions for dedicated Practice Management roles to take hold. As firms organized around practice groups and appointed senior partners as Practice Group Leaders, those leaders found themselves managing a business unit without the operational infrastructure to do it well. Practice Management roles stepped in to fill that gap—initially as operational support, and over time as something closer to a mini-COO embedded inside the practice.

Susan Lambreth has tracked this evolution over the last 30 years across hundreds of firms and sees one factor above all others that separates the firms that made these roles work:

"Practice Management business professional roles have existed in U.S. firms for more than thirty years. What has changed is how central and empowered those roles have become as firms grew larger and more complex. What distinguished firms that scaled successfully was not whether they adopted Practice Management Professional roles—but whether they empowered their practice leaders and therefore the Practice Management Professionals."

That distinction—between having Practice Management roles and empowering them—is the central question for any firm leader evaluating this function.

What the Role Owns

At high-performing firms, Practice Management roles act as a chief-of-staff or mini-COO to the practice leader. They draft strategic and operational plans, monitor financial results, utilization, client performance, and pricing; facilitate communication across business services; support strategic hiring and associate development; and lead cross-functional initiatives including innovation and technology adoption. Debbie Leitner, Director of Practice Management at Katten Muchin Rosenman, captures the orientation precisely:

"Practice Management roles exist to support the strategic and profitable growth of the practice. In many ways, the role functions as a chief-of-staff—helping leaders advance their goals while taking operational weight off their shoulders."

Practice leaders simply do not have the capacity to manage every dimension of a growing practice. Practice Management business professionals provide the infrastructure that lets them focus where it counts most.

Structure Shapes Impact

How firms position Practice Management professionals within their governance structure has a direct effect on what those roles can deliver and firm alignment. The most effective models feature dual alignment: reporting into the COO, Chief Practice Officer, or Chief Administrative Officer at the firm level, while working day-to-day under the direction of the Department Head or Practice Group Leader. This prevents Practice Management roles from becoming siloed within a single practice and ensures priorities remain connected to firm strategy. The risk of getting this wrong, Lambreth notes, is real:

"In firms where Practice Management professionals report only to the practice leader, authority often depends entirely on that partner's empowerment level and personal style—leading to uneven impact across practices."

On resourcing, leading firms operate at roughly 70 to 100 lawyers per Practice Management professional in highly empowered models. Large practices—groups of 200 or more—typically deploy multi-level Practice Management teams with a director or manager supported by supported by analysts, specialists or coordinators.

Equally important is how the Practice Management professional function connects with business services. The strongest practitioners maintain structured, recurring touchpoints with business development, finance, professional development, knowledge management, and innovation—functioning as a gateway between practice priorities and firm resources. Laurie Mittenthal, Practice Group Director at Ice Miller, describes the rhythm her team uses to make that alignment concrete:

"Our ability to translate and bring clarity to what the practices are trying to achieve is one of our most effective tools. We have an annual sit-down with business services leaders to share our strategic objectives for the year. They, in turn, outline their own priorities and constraints. This kicks off an iterative, collaborative process where we work together to align resources and priorities."

Empowerment Is the Variable That Matters Most

Title and scope alone do not determine whether Practice Management professionals deliver. Empowerment does. Firms that treat these roles as strategic partners—giving them real authority and access—see fundamentally different results than firms that limit it to administrative details, coordination or logistics.

Highly empowered Practice Management professionals include meaningful involvement in strategy, regular C-suite interaction, ownership of practice-level financial performance, a meaningful voice in partner performance discussions, and direct involvement in pricing, staffing, and matter intake decisions. Without that authority, even the most capable practitioners operate below their potential—managing activity rather than driving outcomes. Allie Watkins, Chief Practice Management Officer at Vinson & Elkins, describes how the scope has evolved:

"Over time, Practice Management has taken on responsibilities that partners simply don't have the capacity to manage—so leaders can focus on leading and we can help implement strategy and propel the business forward."

The distinction is cultural as much as structural. Firms that treat Practice Management roles as strategic invest accordingly in the people and authority behind them. Firms that treat them as administrative tend to get administrative results.

Where the Function Is Heading

Across firms, Practice Management roles are moving from reactive execution to proactive leadership. Practitioners are increasingly expected to surface issues before they escalate, identify growth opportunities, and help draft and translate strategic plans into accountable action. At Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, for example, Practice Management Director Leonardo Sanchez developed a framework to guide his practice group through a structured conversation about strategic direction. It shifted the conversation from purely financial results to include strategy - where the practice is going and how it will get there.

AI is accelerating this shift. As AI tools absorb more of the manual data work and drafting —financial reporting, utilization tracking, matter analysis, communications —Practice Management roles will have greater capacity for higher-value strategic work. Sanchez sees the opportunity clearly:

"Law firms will benefit from incorporating Practice Management roles in their AI adoption efforts. Practice Management professionals tend to be 'all terrain'—spanning strategy, finance, business development, and operations—and are well-positioned to drive the adoption of AI and large language models across the practice."

The function is also growing. More firms are adding Practice Management capacity, and existing roles are becoming better integrated into firm governance. The trajectory points toward Practice Management professionals becoming a standard feature of how well-run law firms operate.

The Bottom Line

Practice Management roles, done well, give firms a durable operational advantage. They turn strategic intent into execution, connect business services to practice needs, and free practice leaders to lead. For firms that already have these roles, the priority is empowerment—giving practitioners the authority, access, and alignment to operate as true strategic partners. For firms considering them, the case is straightforward. Kurt Morris, Practice Group Director at DLA Piper, puts it plainly:

"Firms that want to drive profit need sophisticated business managers sitting by their practice leader's side—identifying strategic growth opportunities, operationalizing plans, and monitoring results. They need someone who's paid to think about that all the time."