Your firm outgrew its back office. I fix that.
- The processes that run it live in people’s heads — I map, streamline, and automate them — freeing up time and capacity for more cases.
- You overpay for technology and benefits you underuse, and that don’t help you attract and keep talent — I right-size the spend so you fully leverage both your tools and your people.
- You’re sitting on a mountain of untapped data — I put it in your leaders’ hands and make it part of regular decision-making.
Project-based help for law firms — defined scope, a fixed fee, and a finished deliverable you own.
Most growing law firms hit the same wall.
Caseloads climb, headcount climbs, and the operational scaffolding — the handbook, the payroll setup, the vendor contracts, the case-management configuration — was never built for the size the firm is now. The work still gets done, but on workarounds, tribal knowledge, and the managing partner’s evenings.
Few firms can truly map their own processes. The processes that run the business and enable growth live in people’s heads, not on paper — where no one can see them, question them, make them better, or automate them. And what can’t be mapped can’t be automated — so work that could be running itself keeps eating the hours and capacity a firm could be spending on more cases.
And most are sitting on years of data they never use. The fees, the cases, the referral sources, the attorney numbers — it’s all in the system, but it stays locked there, because no one has the bandwidth or the tools to pull it out and turn it into something that actually guides a decision. They’re not short on data; they’re short on a way to use what they already have.
And the firm’s biggest costs tend to run on autopilot. After payroll, the largest checks it writes — benefits, and case-management software that quietly re-prices and upsells every year — rarely get a hard look, so the firm overpays for coverage that isn’t competitive and for features no one uses.
That’s the work I do: I’m a sitting chief operating officer of a plaintiff PI and workers’ comp firm, and I take on defined projects for other law firms facing the same operational problems — without adding a full-time executive to the payroll.
Three points in a firm’s life where I come in.
Your firm outgrew its back office? I fix that.
Processes that only live in one person’s head. Benefits and vendor contracts nobody’s revisited in years. Data you’re paying for but not using. I step in for a defined project — audit it, fix it, hand you a system you keep — without adding another salary to the payroll.
Starting a firm? Build the back office right the first time.
Forming the entity, opening the trust account, picking a malpractice carrier, choosing the tech stack — the decisions in a firm’s first year are cheapest to get right before habits and vendor contracts set in. I help new firms build the operational foundation once, correctly, instead of retrofitting it three years in.
Thinking about what’s next? Make sure the firm outlives the decision.
What’s the firm actually worth, who carries it forward, and what does the next generation inherit — dependable systems, or problems with your name still on them? I help founders and senior partners get the operational house in order before a sale or succession, so the transition reflects the firm you built.
Project-based, not open-ended.
Fixed scope
Every engagement starts with a written statement of work: what I’ll deliver, by when, for how much. No open-ended retainers, no subscription you forget to cancel.
A deliverable you keep
You walk away with the actual thing — the rewritten policy, the migrated payroll system, the vendor contract repository, the revenue dashboard — not a slide deck of recommendations.
Built by someone who’s done it
I’m not advising from theory. I run these systems day to day inside a working law firm.
Six ways I help a firm run better.
Data, Analytics & Dashboards
This is the work I’m known for. I build the dashboards and trackers that show where your fees come from, how revenue is trending, and which attorneys, referral sources, and case types actually drive results — fee tracking, revenue-growth tracking, referral-source and case-data analysis, and analytical tools your firm can keep running long after the project ends.
Typical project: a fee-and-revenue dashboard, or a referral-source and case-type performance analysis — and it’s where my free snapshot below begins.HR & People Operations
Performance-review systems backed by real employee metrics and dashboards, so managers manage on data instead of gut feel. And because benefits are one of a firm’s largest expenses, a full benefits review — are yours competitive, economical, and right for attracting and keeping talent? — with vendor options and selection assistance. Handbooks and PTO and leave policies that hold up to the FLSA, USERRA, and state wage-payment laws. And the job descriptions that anchor all of it.
Typical project: a full benefits review with vendor options, or a role-based performance-review system with the metrics dashboard to run it.Payroll, Benefits & 401(k)
The payroll and 401(k) landscape is more competitive than most firms realize, and the provider you settle on shapes everything from employee satisfaction to retirement-plan participation. I analyze what the firm actually needs and recommend a rightsized system — or systems — that fits, rather than continuing with a setup the firm has outgrown. When it’s time to switch, I manage the transition end to end — vendor selection, data mapping, parallel runs, and the participant-record cleanup most firms don’t know to check for — so it happens without a fire drill. The result is a back office that nearly runs itself, freeing up time for the bookkeeping and financial work that genuinely needs a person on it.
Typical project: evaluating and optimizing your current payroll and 401(k) systems, or determining the need to switch and managing the migration to a new provider.Legal Technology & Case Management
Most firms underuse the case-management system they already pay for, and overpay for tiers and add-ons promising an efficiency they never capture. I audit what you actually use versus what you’re billed for, right-size the system and the cost, and make sure your team can actually use it — leaning first on the training and reference the system and vendor already provide, and building quick-reference cards or custom modules only when a project calls for it. The skills get easier to learn and transfer between people, so the system gets run consistently, new hires ramp faster, and the firm frees up capacity for more cases. When you do need new software — case management, intake, phones, document handling — I run the selection, configuration, and rollout, and provide guidance on where AI can enhance operations and increase production — where it genuinely fits your practice, and where it doesn’t. To be clear, that’s a look at AI for general operations, not the legal work your firm does.
Typical project: a case-management audit that right-sizes the system, the cost, and staff training — or a full selection and rollout.Vendor & Contract Management
Every firm runs on vendors — accounting and banking, IT, case management, records retrieval, down to printing and supplies. The biggest usually carry real contracts — what’s worth checking is whether they’re actually on file, and whether they spell out what the vendor promises and what happens when service slips. The riskier gaps hide in the oldest, most critical relationships — a vendor the firm has leaned on for years, on no formal agreement or one too general to define what’s expected. Specific, measurable standards keep vendors accountable to the same bar the firm sets for itself. I audit the full roster, close the gaps, and pull every agreement into one central repository — so commitments get a regular review instead of resurfacing only when something breaks. And it’s a low-risk place to start — quick to run, and the audit usually turns up real money: seats no one’s using, renewals no one renegotiated, and prices that quietly grew.
Typical project: a full contract audit across your key vendors, delivered as a single repository the firm can keep current.Process Mapping, Evaluation & Optimization
Intake, case handling, settlement, billing, hiring — the processes that run the business and enable growth usually live in people’s heads, not on paper, and no two people run them quite the same way. I map what your firm actually does, step by step, find where work stalls, doubles back, or falls through the cracks, and redesign it into clear, standardized procedures. The military runs on standard operating procedures for a reason — they keep execution on target and let an organization scale without consistency breaking down, so new hires get up to speed quickly and the work holds together as you grow. A clearly mapped process also opens the door to automation: once the steps are defined, today’s tools can take over the repetitive ones — cutting time and cost while making the work more consistent, not less. Plenty of firms would love that, but you can’t automate a process you’ve never mapped, and few have the bandwidth to do either.
Typical project: mapping and optimizing a core workflow — intake, case management, or settlement — from end to end, with an eye to where it can be automated.Accountability drives performance — and accountability starts with data: seen clearly, reviewed on time, and monitored regularly.
Process drives capacity — and capacity starts with work that’s mapped, documented, and where possible, automated.
A free fee & revenue snapshot.
Data-driven decisions start with actually seeing the data. As a no-cost way to begin, I’ll set up fee tracking and a revenue-growth view for your firm — so you can see where your fees really come from and how the firm is trending, before we ever discuss a paid project.
Six steps, fixed scope, a finished deliverable.
Every project is defined up front and on a clock we both agree to — no ambiguity, no open meter.
Discovery
free, 30 minProposal
scope + fixed feeKickoff
access + milestonesThe work
delivered in milestonesHandoff
+ team walkthroughSupport
follow-up windowHow I scope
One problem at a time, around a single concrete deliverable you can point to and call done. Before I quote anything, I confirm what the deliverable is, what I’ll need from your team, and what’s explicitly out of scope.
How fixed-fee pricing works
I price the project, not my hours. Once we agree on scope the fee is fixed — if the work runs long, that’s my problem to solve, not a bigger invoice for you. No retainer, no meter, and scope changes are agreed in writing first.
Every engagement is a fixed-fee project.
No hourly billing, no retainers. Three project tiers — plus a low-commitment diagnostic to start.
Operational Diagnostic
- Best for
- A low-risk read on where time and money are leaking — before committing to a larger project.
- You get
- A focused review of one area and a written findings-and-recommendations memo with a prioritized action list.
- Timeline
- 1–2 weeks
- Investment
- $2,500 for firms of 10 attorneys or fewer; $5,000 for larger firms — larger firms typically have more systems in place and more people to interview to build a complete picture.
Focused Project
- Best for
- One clear, contained problem with a defined fix.
- You get
- A single finished deliverable — a PTO policy rewrite, a vendor contract audit and repository, or a fee-and-revenue dashboard.
- Timeline
- 2–4 weeks
Standard Project
- Best for
- A larger build or migration across systems or people.
- You get
- A managed project from scoping to handoff — a payroll or 401(k) migration, a case-management right-sizing and rollout, or a core-process mapping and redesign.
- Timeline
- 4–8 weeks
Comprehensive Engagement
- Best for
- A full operational reset across several connected areas.
- You get
- A phased program — assessment, prioritized roadmap, and execution on the highest-value projects, in stages you approve.
- Timeline
- 8–16 weeks
What every engagement includes
- A written statement of work before any money changes hands.
- A single point of contact — me, doing the work, not a junior associate.
- A finished deliverable you own outright.
- A walkthrough so your team can run it without me.
- A defined support window after handoff.
What’s not included
- Third-party costs — software, vendor fees, subscriptions — are yours and quoted separately, so there are no surprises buried in my fee.
- Scope changes are agreed in writing before I do the work. You’ll never get an invoice you didn’t see coming.
What audits like this actually find.
A routine vendor audit uncovered a $78,000-a-year “lead generation” contract — signed at a conference two years earlier, never vetted, never monitored. The “featured firm” placement it promised turned out to be a broken link pointing back at the firm’s own abandoned website. Terminated within the week.
A weekly fee-tracking report, sent to every attorney rather than just the partners, replaced a bank statement and an occasionally-updated spreadsheet as the firm’s only view into its own performance. The simple act of visibility drove an 18% increase in fee revenue — a little over $1 million — in a single year.
A client-expense process that once ate 90-plus minutes per run — manually reformatting an export, then attaching every expense to the right client by hand — had forced check runs down to twice a week, with urgent requests stopping everything else. Automating it in two phases, the last one built entirely on tools already included in the firm’s existing software licensing, cut that to next to nothing: new clients sync automatically, expenses are coded the moment they’re entered, and by the time the bookkeeper logs in each morning, the checks are already sitting there ready to print.
An operator, not a consultant.
I run operations for a plaintiff personal injury and workers’ compensation firm, and I help other law firms fix the operational problems that come with growth.
My background isn’t traditional consulting — it started in the United States Coast Guard. The Coast Guard runs on operations that have to work the first time, under pressure, with people’s safety on the line, and that standard never left me. It’s the same standard I hold a law firm’s back office to: build the system right, make it dependable, and don’t hand over work that isn’t finished.
Before law, I sat on the executive team of a hospital, leading decision support and operations in one of the most data-intensive and tightly regulated environments there is. I led the due diligence that carried the hospital through a sale to new ownership, ran its accreditation transition from The Joint Commission to DNV Healthcare on ISO quality-management principles, and was the executive lead on its electronic medical record implementation during the federal HITECH mandate. That’s where the data-driven side of how I work was sharpened — and where I learned that a sale, a quality overhaul, or a system-wide rollout only lands when the operations and the numbers underneath it are sound.
As a chief operating officer, my work is the machinery that keeps a firm running: hiring and HR, payroll and benefits, the case-management and phone systems the whole firm depends on, vendor relationships, and the firm’s finances. I’ve rebuilt PTO and leave policies to close real compliance gaps, run a 401(k) recordkeeper transition end to end, built performance-review systems from scratch, evaluated and onboarded legal technology, built the dashboards and fee-and-referral analyses that show a firm where its revenue actually comes from, and worked through the financial and ownership questions that come with running and growing a firm.
I started McArtor Operations Advisory because most firms my size can’t justify a full-time COO — but they have COO-sized problems. A project-based engagement gives them the expertise without the overhead.
Plain answers, fixed scope, and work that’s done right the first time.
Before the first call.
What if you don’t finish the project?
The fee is tied to a finished deliverable, not to my time, so the risk sits with me. The statement of work spells out exactly what “done” means before I start, and I deliver in milestones. If I don’t deliver what we agreed to, you don’t pay for what wasn’t delivered.
How is this different from hiring a consultant by the hour?
An hourly consultant is incentivized to take longer; I’m incentivized to be efficient. You approve one fixed number up front and that’s what you pay — no meter running, no quarter-end surprise. When the deliverable is done, billing stops.
Do you sign an NDA?
Yes, without hesitation. I work with sensitive firm information every day — payroll, personnel files, financials, case data. I’m happy to sign your NDA or put a mutual confidentiality agreement in place before you share anything.
Will you do the work, or will it get handed to a junior associate?
Me. This is a solo practice by design. When you hire me, I’m the person scoping the project, doing the work, and walking your team through the result.
What size and type of firm do you work with?
Small to mid-sized law firms — large enough to feel real operational strain, but not large enough to justify a full-time COO. If your firm isn’t a fit, I’ll tell you on the first call rather than take the work.
Do you work remotely or on-site?
Most of the work happens remotely, which keeps engagements efficient and your costs down. When a project genuinely benefits from time in the office, I can arrange on-site time and I’ll account for it in the scope up front.
You’re a sitting COO at another firm — is that a conflict?
For most firms, it isn’t. My own firm is a plaintiff personal injury and workers’ compensation practice, so a real conflict would only arise with a direct competitor — another plaintiff PI/WC firm in the same market — which rules out very few of the firms I work with. I screen for it before taking on any engagement, decline anything that competes with my firm’s interests, and talk it through honestly if there’s ever a question. My day-to-day operating role is also exactly why the work stays grounded in current practice rather than theory.
I need ongoing help, not a one-time project. Can you do that?
I don’t sell retainers, but ongoing needs usually break down into a series of defined projects, and many firms come back for the next one. I can also map a phased program where you approve each stage as it comes.
How do I get started, and what does the first call cost?
Nothing. The first call is 30 minutes, free, and low-pressure — you describe what’s slowing your firm down and I give you a straight read on whether a project makes sense and roughly what it would take. If it’s a fit, a written proposal follows.
Let’s talk about the project.
Tell me what’s slowing your firm down. The first call is 30 minutes, costs nothing, and you’ll leave knowing whether a project makes sense — and roughly what it would cost.