Cut working capital, Cobbetts' finance director tells firms

Law firms need to concentrate on reducing their working capital in order to raise themselves to the top level of profitability, the director of finance at top Manchester firm Cobbetts said this week.James Boyd says he has cut his firm's working capital by 25% through implementing innovative financial management techniques.'We aim to let fee-earners manage themselves,' he said.

'By dropping management down to the lowest levels and reducing team leaders' administrative work, firms can cut out a lot of bureaucracy and simplify their management techniques.'Mr Boyd said that by 'cutting out the middle man' and allowing fee-earners to manage themselves, deals are processed and completed faster, thus reducing the life of a file and releasing more working capital.

'The working capital that is freed up through faster processing of a file can be reinvested in the fee-earners themselves, giving them better IT tools and thus producing improved delivery to clients,' he said.Mr Boyd will be speaking next week at a seminar held in Salford by Otterburn Legal Consulting.

Victoria MacCallum