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Young, Martinez, and Cheung (YMC) is a law firm in Chicago.

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Young, Martinez, and Cheung (YMC) is a law firm in Chicago. The firm has had a very loose and relaxed management style that has served it well in the past. However, more aggressive law firms had been winning new clients faster than YMC has. Thus, the managing partner, Jerry Martinez, recently attended an ABA seminar on performance measurement in law firms, where he learned about the balanced scorecard. He thought it might be good tool for YMC, one that would be allowed the firm to keep its culture yet still more aggressively seek new clients.

Martinez identified the following strategic objectives that fit with the firm's core values and provide a framework for assessing progress toward the firm's goals:

Financial
a. Steadily increase the firm's revenues and profits.

Customer
a. Understand the firm's customers and their needs.
b. Value customer service over self-interest.

Internal Business Process
a. Encourage knowledge sharing among the legal staff.
b. Communicate with each other openly, honestly, and often.
c. Empower staff to make decisions that benefit clients.

Organizational Learning
a. Maintain an open and collaborative environment that attracts and retains the best legal staff.
b. Seek staff diversity.

1. Develop at least one measure for each of the strategic objectives listed.

2. Explain how YMC can use this balanced scorecard to evaluate staff performance.

3. Should staff compensation be tied to the scorecard performance measures? Why or why not?

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Solution Summary

Young, Martinez, and Cheung (YMC) is a law firm in Chicago. The firm has had a very loose and relaxed management style that has served it well in the past. However, more aggressive law firms had been winning new clients faster than YMC has. Thus, the managing partner, Jerry Martinez, recently attended an ABA seminar on performance measurement in law firms, where he learned about the balanced scorecard. He thought it might be good tool for YMC, one that would be allowed the firm to keep its culture yet still more aggressively seek new clients.

Martinez identified the following strategic objectives that fit with the firm's core values and provide a framework for assessing progress toward the firm's goals:

Financial
a. Steadily increase the firm's revenues and profits.

Customer
a. Understand the firm's customers and their needs.
b. Value customer service over self-interest.

Internal Business Process
a. Encourage knowledge sharing among the legal staff.
b. Communicate with each other openly, honestly, and often.
c. Empower staff to make decisions that benefit clients.

Organizational Learning
a. Maintain an open and collaborative environment that attracts and retains the best legal staff.
b. Seek staff diversity.

1. Develop at least one measure for each of the strategic objectives listed.

2. Explain how YMC can use this balanced scorecard to evaluate staff performance.

3. Should staff compensation be tied to the scorecard performance measures? Why or why not?

Solution Preview

1. Develop at least one measure for each of the strategic objectives listed.

a. Steadily increase the firm's revenues and profits. - measured as percentage of change from one year to the end of the next year as the change in revenue, and the percent change in net income.

a. Understand the firm's customers and their needs. - determine based on survey or other measurement tool if customer needs are being more effectively handled from one period to the next period.

b. Value customer service over self-interest. - metric would be the increase in customer satisfaction, indicative by the percentage change in customer retention and satisfaction from one period to the next.

a. Encourage knowledge sharing among the legal staff. - ...

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