The Lawyer has published interesting research that says that the optimum ratio of fee-earners to business service staff is 0.71:1. It would be interesting to see how firms structure their business service teams, particularly the marketing and BD teams.
Structuring a marketing team can be quite a challenge. We see very different team structures in firms that on the face of it look quite similar. Some still have marketers who are able to do a little bit of everything, and others with more specialist roles.
PR teams will quite often work across the whole firm, bringing in agencies (like ours) to work alongside individual teams needing greater levels of support. Where there is no in-house PR function a good agency can take on that role.
Perhaps marketing and BD teams need to be fluid and able to change quickly to meet shifting demand.
The optimum ratio of fee-earners to business services staff for UK-headquartered firms is 0.7:1, exclusive new research by The Lawyer has revealed. The data, which forms the basis of the new UK 200: Business Services report, highlights how firms across the market are finding ways of working more efficiently, including examining staffing ratios. It includes a raft of benchmarking data both at a firm-wide level and across six core business services teams: HR, IT, marketing, PR and BD, finance, facilities and secretarial/document production.
