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...

Continuous Improvement in Law Firms: A Jargon-Free Guide to Lean, Six Sigma, Tackling Waste and Streamlining Client File Opening

Published by a LexisNexis Practice Management expert

Practice notes

The principles of continuous improvement can be applied in law firms to boost Efficiency. This Practice Note aims to cut through jargon and explain the ideas with a case study...

What is CI?

CI is often made needlessly complex, but it simply means continually seeking ways to refine processes, methods and procedures.

The aim of CI is to:

eliminate bottlenecks
streamline workflows as far as possible and thus
save time and reduce costs

Improvements need not be sweeping. A series of modest, well-judged tweaks quickly accumulates. CI tools and techniques help you fix processes that no longer deliver, and review those that appear adequate but could be refined for greater efficiency and cost savings.

Above all, CI is about:

involving people and gathering ideas
questioning entrenched, habitual practices
establishing measures to judge the success or failure of new initiatives

Is CI relevant to law firms?

Many of the methodologies used within CI are based on the work of W...

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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 21/05/2026

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