Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Key definition

Efficiency definition

What does Efficiency mean? Efficiency, in legal practice, means delivering the same or better outcome with fewer resources (time, money, people), or increasing outputs from the same inputs. It is a descriptive term used across public law, procurement, regulation and litigation rather than a single statutory concept, though it features in Best Value and audit frameworks that emphasise the “three Es”: economy, efficiency and effectiveness. In England and Wales the Local Government Act 1999 imposes a Best Value duty; Scotland has the Local Government in Scotland Act 2003; Northern Ireland has the Local Government (Best Value) (Northern Ireland) Order 2006. In Ireland, the Public Spending...

Measuring and sustaining process improvements in law firms: control charts, metrics and financial outcomes

Published by a LexisNexis Practice Management expert

Practice notes

Improving efficiency in a continuous improvement context typically follows five core steps:

identify (define) which process requires enhancement
measure the issue
analyse the information
improve the process
control, ie embed the revised process so it becomes business as usual

Management consultants often describe this as the DMAIC framework. This Practice Note underscores the need to measure the impact of the changes you have introduced to raise efficiency (through steps 1–5) and to demonstrate the degree of success. Also see Practice Notes:

Continuous improvement—law firms—step 1—identify and define the problem
Continuous improvement—law firms—step 2—measure the problem
Continuous improvement—law firms—step 3—analyse what's causing the problem
Continuous improvement—law firms—step 4—improve the process
Continuous improvement—law firms—step 5—embed the process—making changes firm-wide
Continuous improvement—law firms—step 5—embed the process—anticipating the response to major change

Construct a simple control chart

Control charts can be complex and heavily mathematical, yet in their most basic guise they let you monitor how progress is unfolding...

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Beth Pipe , FCIPD

OnLive Learning

Beth is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (FCIPD) and has spent over 25 years specialising in Learning and Development. During that time she has worked across a broad variety of different industries and has, for the past 15 years, worked closely with a number of well known law firms; this has involved putting in to place systems and structures to encourage, enable and track the effectiveness of learning activities. Adept at face to face course delivery, and always enjoying excellent feedback, Beth is also accomplished at online delivery and created OnLive Learning in response to the challenges presented by the 2020 Covid-19 restrictions.Beth has written extensively for LexisNexis on subjects such as Performance Management, Managing Change and Stress Management. Away from her training delivery she is a published author writing about local history, hiking, wildlife and the outdoors and is...

Web page updated on 22/05/2026

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