Problems › We Need a Business Plan for the Bank › Law Firms
A lender checks whether the fee-earner model still produces cash to service debt once utilisation slips and lock-up lengthens. Law firms carry a specific bind here — 19 of 28 equity partners aged 55 or over with no formal lateral hire programme or associate-to-partner track for eight years. Until that is priced, 82 % realisation will keep moving for reasons nobody can attribute, and the debate about debt service coverage will stay a matter of opinion.
A lender checks whether the fee-earner model still produces cash to service debt once utilisation slips and lock-up lengthens. Law firms carry a specific bind here — 19 of 28 equity partners aged 55 or over with no formal lateral hire programme or associate-to-partner track for eight years. Until that is priced, 82 % realisation will keep moving for reasons nobody can attribute, and the debate about debt service coverage will stay a matter of opinion.
A submission that shows only the £24.8 m revenue line without separate runs for 68 % utilisation and 82 % realisation gives the reader no arithmetic to test repayment when five practice groups lose matters.
The version that withstands review states the base assumptions for fee-earner hours and billing rates, then applies a lower utilisation case that still meets interest and principal from the resulting profit per equity partner after lock-up moves to 112 days.
A further defect appears when headcount and billing projections do not match: the revenue total cannot be reconciled to the listed fee earners, so the movement in working capital cannot be verified against the same utilisation figure.
These three together are the signature. One on its own usually points somewhere else.
✓ Monthly lock-up reports show days outstanding rising while billed hours per fee earner stay flat.
✓ The latest partner meeting minutes record no new lateral hire discussions and list the same 19 equity partners over 55 with no associate promotions scheduled.
✓ The cash-flow forecast in the shared spreadsheet applies the same realisation rate to every practice group without a separate column for reduced collections.
The move that usually makes it worse. Framing the plan around the single revenue target rather than the cash bridge from utilisation to debt service, so the document cannot be checked against the actual billing and collection mechanics.
It is for you if you run or finance a law firm and you need the document by a deadline set by someone else. It is the situation where the numbers are available but nobody has put them in an order that produces a decision.
It is not for you if Percision is the wrong tool if you already know the answer and only need execution capacity, or if the business is pre-revenue — then the constraint is evidence about the market, not analysis of your own figures. Percision is not a lawyer, tax advisor, auditor, licensed appraiser, clinical or regulatory filer, or an AI implementation shop. It does not do HR casework, creative-only brand work, or impersonate a named consulting firm. It is a strategy analysis engine — not a template library. Also wrong if you need facilitation, politics, or someone to sit with a lender or buyer. Those are human jobs.
Percision is not a lawyer, tax advisor, auditor, licensed appraiser, clinical or regulatory filer, or an AI implementation shop. It does not do HR casework, creative-only brand work, or impersonate a named consulting firm. It is a strategy analysis engine — not a template library.
Below is an excerpt from a real run of this analysis on a law firm. It is a sample profile rather than a customer, and it is unedited engine output — this is the format you get, on your own numbers.
The subject is Ashgrove Legal LLP, a sample company profile used for testing rather than a customer — £24.8 m gross revenue from five practice groups.
Excerpt from a real Percision run · Competitive Positioning · sample company profile
The move. Scale the only practice hitting 88 % realisation to fund its own growth and close the succession gap.
| Investment required | £240 k (remaining FY2026 discretionary cap after £180 k IT commitment) |
| Expected return | 1.4–1.6× cash-on-cash within 24 months at current realisation rates. |
| Revenue, year 1 | £25.4–25.7 m firm-wide (+£0.6–0.9 m incremental) |
| Revenue, year 2 | £26.5–27.1 m firm-wide (+£1.1–1.3 m incremental from B&F segment) |
| Revenue, year 3 | £27.8–28.6 m firm-wide (+£1.3–1.5 m incremental) |
| Exit criteria | Strategy must be reversed if, within 18 months, segment revenue has not reached £2.4 m annualised OR cumulative net profit contribution is below £150 k, OR if any lateral hire’s personal billings fall below 1 200 hours in any rolling 6-month period. |
This is one move out of a full analysis. Read a complete report — every page, no email required.
This question routes to Business Plan Studio, one of 29 engagements the platform runs. For law firms it works through 82 % realisation, 68 % utilisation, £184 k profit per equity partner and 112 lock-up days, then produces the sequence rather than a list of options — which move first, what it funds, and the observation that would say the sequence is wrong.
You watch the analysis get built before paying anything. Read a complete report here if you would rather see the depth first.
Short enough to be read and complete enough to be tested. The financials and the assumptions behind them carry the decision; narrative beyond what is needed to explain them adds risk rather than confidence.
Whether the cash flow services the debt under a case that is not the good one, and whether the numbers reconcile internally. Almost everything else is context for those two.
Match the term of the facility, monthly for the first year. Detail beyond the horizon of the loan signals unfamiliarity rather than rigour.
Materially, yes. 19 of 28 equity partners aged 55 or over with no formal lateral hire programme or associate-to-partner track for eight years — which changes both the diagnosis and the order of the fixes. The metrics that decide it here are 82 % realisation, 68 % utilisation, £184 k profit per equity partner, and an answer built on industry-general benchmarks will usually point at the wrong one first.
Less than most people expect. Your last twelve months of revenue and cost split the way you already split it, plus whatever you hold on 82 % realisation and 68 % utilisation. The analysis is explicit about what it is assuming where your data stops, which is more useful than waiting for numbers you may never have.
Percision is the wrong tool if you already know the answer and only need execution capacity, or if the business is pre-revenue — then the constraint is evidence about the market, not analysis of your own figures. Percision is not a lawyer, tax advisor, auditor, licensed appraiser, clinical or regulatory filer, or an AI implementation shop. It does not do HR casework, creative-only brand work, or impersonate a named consulting firm. It is a strategy analysis engine — not a template library. Also wrong if you need facilitation, politics, or someone to sit with a lender or buyer. Those are human jobs.
Percision is not a lawyer, tax advisor, auditor, licensed appraiser, clinical or regulatory filer, or an AI implementation shop. It does not do HR casework, creative-only brand work, or impersonate a named consulting firm. It is a strategy analysis engine — not a template library.
Describe the situation in your own words and we will tell you which analysis answers it — before you sign up for anything.
Describe my situation →Prefer to skip ahead? Go straight to the free diagnostic.
English · Español · Deutsch · Português · Français · Italiano · Nederlands · 日本語 · 한국어 · 中文 · Polski · Svenska · Türkçe · العربية · Tiếng Việt · ไทย · हिन्दी · עברית