What does a fractional COO do for a law firm?

A fractional COO manages operations so the managing attorney can focus on practicing law and growing the firm. At XPRTS this means monthly operational reviews, staff performance management, system optimization, KPI tracking, and identifying the next bottleneck before it becomes a crisis. Bay Legal's 400% growth in 2025 was enabled by this model.

How is XPRTS Fractional Operations different from a law firm consultant?

A consultant delivers a report and leaves. XPRTS Fractional Operations is an embedded ongoing relationship — XPRTS stays in the firm's operations month to month, owns the outcome, and adjusts as the firm grows. The engagement ends when the firm is ready to hire a full-time COO, not when the project is delivered.

What size law firm benefits most from fractional operations?

Firms between $500K and $5M in annual revenue are the primary fit. Below $500K, the firm often needs systems and staffing first. Above $5M, a full-time COO is usually justified. The sweet spot is a firm that has outgrown the founder doing everything but can't yet support a full-time operations hire.

An Embedded Operations Partner

Someone Watching
Your Numbers So
You Don't Have To

You've built a foundation. You have systems, staff, and processes. But without someone watching the metrics, adjusting workflows, and catching problems early — firms drift. Clio goes out of alignment. Staff ratios get out of balance. Small inefficiencies compound into expensive problems.

Request a Free Strategy Review → How Engagements Work

Attorney relaxing — the 48-hour test, firm running without founder

Monthly

Operational reviews covering financial performance, staffing utilization, and workflow efficiency

Pro-active

Bottleneck identification — we find problems before they become expensive to fix

24hr

The 48-hour test — your firm should run without you. Fractional Ops ensures it does.

Continuous

The same optimization cadence running at Bay Legal — refined and improved every quarter

Who This Is For

Firms That Have Built
a Foundation But Need
Someone Watching It

Fractional Operations is for firm owners who have built the infrastructure — systems, staff, SOPs — but need an ongoing operational partner to keep it calibrated and improving.

Without ongoing attention, systems drift. Staff ratios get out of alignment. Clio stops being used correctly. The intake pipeline loses stages. The 97% collection rate slides back to 88%. The firm that took 6 months to build can unravel in 3 months without someone watching.

This is not a coaching program

XPRTS doesn't meet with you monthly to share observations and assign homework. We embed as your operations partner — we watch your firm's metrics, we adjust your systems, we make recommendations before small issues become expensive problems. The distinction matters.

You need Fractional Ops if…

You've completed a prior XPRTS engagement and want ongoing support
You have systems in place but no one is responsible for maintaining them
Your collection rate has been sliding without a clear explanation
You're adding staff and want operational oversight during the growth phase
You want quarterly operational reviews but don't have a COO

What's Included

Your Monthly Operations Review

Monthly Operational Review

Financial performance (revenue, collections, AR aging), staffing utilization, workflow efficiency metrics, and pipeline health. Every month, in writing, with specific action items.

Bottleneck Identification & Resolution

Proactive, not reactive. We monitor your systems between reviews and flag emerging issues before they show up in your P&L. Most problems are preventable when caught early.

Staffing Ratio Optimization

As caseload grows, staffing ratios shift. We monitor attorney-to-support ratios, identify where capacity is being wasted, and make role realignment recommendations before the firm feels the strain.

Systems Maintenance

Automation audits, dashboard updates, integration health checks, and Clio/Lawmatics configuration adjustments as the firm evolves. Systems drift without maintenance. We prevent the drift.

Operator-Level Advisory

Guidance on tool adoption, hiring sequencing, KPI setting, and growth strategy — from operators who run a law firm, not consultants who study them.

The 48-Hour Test

Does Your Firm Run Without You?

The ultimate measure of operational health: if you were completely unreachable for 48 hours, what would happen? For most firm owners, the honest answer reveals the work that still needs to be done.

The goal

The firm runs normally. Systems handle intake. Staff execute their SOPs. Billing continues. Clients are served. You return to no fires, no backlog, no crises.

The reality for most firms

Things pile up. Leads fall through the cracks. Staff wait for decisions only the founder can make. The firm is operationally dependent on one person — which caps every growth ceiling.

What Fractional Ops delivers

Monthly reviews that keep systems calibrated, staff performing, and the firm moving forward — whether or not the founder is in the office today.

Common Questions

About Fractional Operations

Do we need to complete another XPRTS engagement first?+

Not necessarily. Fractional Operations works best when a firm already has functional systems and staff in place — either built by XPRTS or independently. We'll assess your current operational posture in the Strategy Review and tell you honestly whether Fractional Ops is the right starting point or whether a prior systems or staffing engagement should come first.

What's the difference between Fractional Ops and a COO?+

A COO is a full-time hire at $150K–$250K+ annually, typically appropriate for firms above $5M revenue. Fractional Operations gives you operator-level attention — the same strategic oversight, monthly reviews, and systems management — at a fraction of that cost. For firms between $500K and $5M, Fractional Ops delivers more value than a full-time hire because it draws on XPRTS's institutional knowledge from running Bay Legal and dozens of client engagements.

How often do we meet?+

Monthly operational reviews are the core cadence — typically a 60-minute call with written findings and action items delivered within 48 hours. Between monthly reviews, XPRTS monitors your key metrics and flags anything that needs attention. Emergency issues get same-day response.

Is there a minimum engagement length?+

We structure Fractional Operations engagements in 3-month increments, with a review at the end of each period. Most firms find the value compounds significantly in the second and third quarters as XPRTS develops a deep understanding of the firm's specific patterns and growth constraints. Month-to-month arrangements are available for firms that prefer flexibility.

Someone WatchingYour Numbers SoYou Don't Have To