From ROI to Results: How to Finish the Year with a More Profitable Law Firm

TLTurner Group Marketing
Aug 13
5 min read

You’ve crunched the numbers. You know your Employee ROI — how much revenue each role in your firm generates for every dollar they cost.

But here’s the real question: What are you going to do with that information?

Because ROI on its own is just a number. The power comes when you use it to make smart, strategic moves before year-end that actually show up in your bottom line.

Why Acting Now Matters

We’re heading into the final stretch of the year — a time when small, targeted changes can make a surprisingly big impact.

Think about it this way: If you can make a few precise adjustments to staffing, workloads, or pricing now, those changes will keep producing results every single week for the rest of the year. Over the next four months, that compounding effect can mean:

A bigger year-end profit
More cash flow to invest in marketing, tech, or hiring
The ability to pay year-end bonuses without stress
Or simply the peace of mind to take a real holiday break without worrying about finances

That’s the difference between finishing the year with a tight margin… and finishing with breathing room.

A Quick Refresher: What Employee ROI Really Means

If you missed our last post or newsletter, here’s the short version:

Employee ROI measures how much revenue each staff member generates for every $1 they cost your firm (including salary, benefits, and taxes).

For example:

A paralegal who costs $80,000/year and generates $320,000/year in billable work has an ROI of 4x.
This means for every $1 you spend on them, they bring in $4 in revenue.

Why it matters: When you understand this number for every role, you can:

Identify under-performing positions before they drain profit
Make informed hiring decisions
Ensure your payroll dollars are producing the return you need
Align workload and pricing for maximum efficiency

Industry benchmarks tell us:

Below 3x ROI is under-performing compared to industry norms
3x–4x is healthy
Above 4x is high-performing

3 Ways to Turn Staff ROI Into Action

Knowing your Employee ROI is step one. Here’s how to put it to work:

1. Re-balance Workloads

The problem: Many law firms unknowingly waste thousands each month because high-cost roles are doing lower-value work.

Example: If your senior associate spends five hours a week drafting routine contracts at $400/hour, that’s $2,000/week in potential billable value. A paralegal billing at $150/hour could handle the same task, freeing the associate for more complex work.

What to do:

Identify the top ROI roles in your firm.
Review the tasks they’re doing that could be delegated.
Assign high-value work to high-ROI roles, and lower-value tasks to lower-cost staff.

Quick Win: Shifting just five billable hours/week from a lower-ROI role to a higher-ROI role can add over $40,000/year in revenue without increasing workload.

Case Study: A mid-sized family law firm found their managing partner was spending 8–10 hours/week on initial client intake calls. By training a senior paralegal to handle intake, they freed the partner to focus on high-value litigation work. Result: a $96,000 increase in annual billable revenue — with zero additional hires.

2. Adjust Your Pricing or Case Mix

Sometimes, low ROI isn’t about the person — it’s about your pricing structure or the types of cases you’re taking.

For hourly billing firms:

Are your rates competitive for your experience and market?
Are you discounting too often?
Are you writing off more time than necessary?

For flat fee or contingency firms:

Are you accepting too many low-value matters?
Are you spending too much time on cases with low payout potential?

Case Study: A contingency-based PI firm realized their average slip-and-fall settlement was $8,500, while auto accident cases averaged $14,000. By shifting marketing spend toward higher-value auto cases and away from low-value matters, they increased overall firm ROI from 2.9x to 3.6x in one year.

Quick Win: If you can’t raise rates across the board, target increases for the highest-demand services or for new clients only. Even a modest 5–10% rate increase can push a borderline ROI role into the healthy range.

3. Hire Strategically

Before you add another salary to your payroll, ask: Can this role hit at least a 3x ROI within the first 12 months?

If the answer is no — or if you’re not sure — it’s time to:

Rework the job description to focus on revenue-producing or revenue-supporting activities.
Delay hiring until you can free up budget or workload through efficiency gains.

Pro Tip: Always pair ROI projections with your budget forecast to avoid payroll bloat that eats into profitability.

Case Study: A boutique litigation firm considered adding another associate. ROI projections showed they’d need to bill 1,300 hours/year at $350/hour to hit a 3x ROI. Realistically, based on current caseload, the role would max out at 1,000 hours — putting projected ROI at only 2.3x.

The firm decided to delay the hire, instead redistributing work to existing staff and outsourcing overflow to a freelance attorney.

Why ROI Is Like Your Firm’s GPS

Numbers tell you where you are — but they won’t get you where you want to go without action.

Employee ROI works the same way. It’s your profitability map. When you make route adjustments now — reallocating work, refining pricing, or making strategic hires — you avoid bottlenecks and arrive at your year-end targets with less stress.

The Tools to Help You Act

Download the free Employee ROI Calculator It’s designed for both hourly billing and flat fee/contingency models, with built-in benchmarks so you can see where you’re ahead, on target, or falling behind.

Watch the Employee ROI Calculator Walk-through on YouTube

In under 7 minutes, you’ll see exactly how to:

Plug in your numbers for accurate ROI
Identify your top-performing and under-performing roles
Model scenarios to see the impact of workload shifts, pricing changes, or case mix adjustments

The sooner you run your numbers, the more time you have to act — and the bigger the payoff you’ll see when you close the books in December.

Going Deeper: ROI in Hourly vs. Flat Fee Firms

Hourly Firms:

The ROI calculation is straightforward: billable rate × billable hours ÷ total cost. The focus should be on increasing utilization (billable hours as a % of total hours worked) and minimizing write-offs.

Flat Fee/Contingency Firms:

The ROI calculation is based on total case volume × average case value ÷ total cost. The focus should be on optimizing case selection and reducing time spent on low-payout matters.

Your Next Step

Don’t wait for year-end financials to tell you if your team is profitable.

📥 Download the Employee ROI Calculator now and see exactly where your team stands this month.

Download Now

Finance Tip of the Week:

Think of ROI as your “staff performance dashboard.” If the numbers are green, you’re in good shape. If they’re red, don’t panic — you now know exactly where to focus to fix it.