A Message from the President
Kara Vincent
“So Long… Farewell” This is my final article for the Tulsa Lawyer and the title says it all. I hear the tune from the Sound of Music running in my head. This has been a great year and it’s flown by. So much activity in such a short period of time, and my efforts are insignificant when considered in comparison to the efforts of the TCBA’s Members. They have volunteered, contributed (financially and physically), and supported this organization to expand its influence by educating, assisting and empowering the membership and the larger community. I’m proud and honored to have served this past year, and I thank each of you for the support you’ve given to me. 20222023 is going to be an excellent year under Phil Hixon’s leadership, and I’m excited to see his plans implemented. Here’s to the continued success of the Tulsa County Bar Association! While most of my articles this past year have covered topics dealing with the larger community and our role in it, this month I’m going to provide some information that solo and small firm attorneys can use for themselves in navigating the process of planning. Understanding how revenue and expenditures relate is critical to success in business. As with all areas of life,
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if you don’t know where you are, you can’t plan your path forward. My hope is that this tool will help you plan – which will lead you to success. I also hope that it’s not as boring as it may first appear. Additionally, for those of you in larger firms, you may not be involved in the planning for the whole business, but this information can be extremely helpful in setting personal production and generation goals for the year. I’d like to say that I came up with this while diligently combing through resources, but I can’t. The concepts and numbers presented here have been with me since my auditing days and have been used by many for a long time. They are also applicable for any profession in which revenue is tied to a billing rate and the tracking of time worked on a project. Several years ago, I led a class for the Women In Recovery participants on budgeting. Because of the circumstances which led them to become part of the program, I was sure some of them believed that they were being shown concepts that they somehow missed or just didn’t pick up. I made sure to point out that these concepts might be new to them, but they were new to many people because they just aren’t taught in our schools. The same holds true for the information below. It’s not a matter of intelligence or ability to learn. Any kind of planning and budgeting related to financial matters is all really just a product of calculations, but if you’ve never been introduced to the concepts or the information, planning will be a challenge. My hope is that if you fall into that category, this information will help you better plan for yourself and your practice.
