The admin around client work is not a small problem
In most professional practices the administration that surrounds a matter is not a rounding error. It takes up a large part of the day, and it belongs to nobody in particular.
Ask a partner where the week went and you will usually get an answer about client work. Ask the same partner to walk through yesterday hour by hour and a different day appears: the enquiry that needed qualifying, the engagement letter that needed redrafting, the identity check that came back unclear, the file note written from memory at half past six, the fee narrative that took three attempts because nobody could remember what the second call was about.
None of that is client work. All of it is necessary. In a firm of thirty people it is the equivalent of several full-time roles that nobody has ever budgeted for, because the work is spread thin across everyone rather than sitting in one job description.
It is invisible because it is shared
The reason this goes unmeasured is structural. Administration in a professional practice is not a department. It is a tax levied in small amounts on every fee earner, every day, and small amounts do not show up in the management accounts.
| The task | Who ends up doing it |
|---|---|
| Replying to a new enquiry | Whoever opens the inbox first |
| Drafting the engagement letter | The fee earner, from a template nobody trusts |
| Chasing the missing document | Three different people, twice each |
| Writing the file note | The fee earner, later, from memory |
| Preparing the fee narrative | The person least able to remember the work |
Every row in that table is a real cost. None of them appears as a line item.
A practice does not lose its margin in one place. It loses it in six-minute pieces, all day, in work that no client would ever agree to pay for.
Why more tools have not fixed it
Most firms have already bought software for this. A practice management system. A document store. A time recorder. A CRM that somebody set up enthusiastically in 2019. The tools are not the problem. The problem is that each one holds a fragment of the matter, and the job of carrying context between them has quietly become a human job.
That is the work we mean. Not typing, but carrying. Knowing that the call on Tuesday changed the scope, that the scope change needs to reach the engagement letter, that the engagement letter needs to reach the file, and that the file is what the fee note will eventually be written from.
Buying a seventh system does not help, because the seventh system also needs a human to carry things into it.
What we think the answer looks like
An operating system for a practice has to do three things that a tool does not:
- Hold the whole matter, from the first email to the final fee note, rather than one stage of it.
- Act on what it holds. Draft the letter, run the check, chase the document, write the note, prepare the narrative.
- Stay legible. A fee earner has to be able to see what was done on their behalf, and change it, before it reaches a client.
That third point is the one we care most about. Professional services runs on personal responsibility. A solicitor signs the advice. An accountant signs the accounts. Any system that produces work in a firm has to produce work that a named person is willing to put their name to, which means it has to show its reasoning and accept correction without a fight.
Where we are
BarakahX is being built with a small number of firms, one at a time, because the only way to learn where the day actually goes is to sit with the people losing it. There is no sign-up yet and no free trial.
If you run or work in a practice and any of this is familiar, we would like to hear how your week is really spent. Write to us at hello@barakahx.com and tell us the size of the firm, the work you take on, and the part of the week you would most like back.