Before you close on a law firm, your lawyers tell you about legal risk. This tells you about operations.
The Jakovenko Group conducts pre-acquisition operational diligence on law firms for private equity professionals and strategic acquirers. Each engagement delivers a scored audit across six operational areas, a detailed next-steps breakdown, and a live working session to walk through the findings before close. Below is a sample report for a fictitious estate planning firm.
Meridian grew by accident and has coasted on a strong referral network for 15 years. The referral base from financial advisors is real, durable, and the actual asset in this deal. Everything built around it is fragile.
Billing and collections are a mess — not because the staff is incompetent, but because the founding partners have never built a system around either. The collection rate is 74% against a practice that should collect 90%+. That gap is $806k annually in billed revenue that doesn't reach the bank.
The pro forma case is straightforward: fix billing, fix collections, consolidate two redundant staff positions, and migrate off end-of-life case management software. On the same revenue base, normalized net income moves from $435k to $750–900k.
Sample Engagement · Meridian Law Group is a fictitious firm · All data is illustrative.
Fictitious firm. All figures illustrative.
| Metric | 2025A | YoY Trend |
|---|---|---|
| Gross Revenue | $3.1M | +4% |
| Collected Revenue | $2.3M | -2% |
| Realization Rate | 82% | -5pts |
| Collection Rate | 74% | -3pts |
| Revenue per Attorney | $383k | -6% |
| Overhead Ratio | 71% | +2pts |
| Net Profit Margin | 19% | -3pts |
| # | Area | Score | Key Takeaway |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Revenue & Billing Operations | 55/100 | The billing rhythm exists but the process is partner-bottlenecked. WIP averages 67 days to invoice. Uncapped write-down authority is costing the firm $250k+ annually in realization leakage. |
| 2 | Collections & Accounts Receivable | 50/100 | $806k in billed revenue not collected in 2025. No written collection policy, no escalation protocol, $180k in AR over 180 days. |
| 3 | Staffing, Compensation & Overhead | 65/100 | Overstaffed at 2.5:1 staff-to-attorney ratio. Overhead at 71%. Two solid associate billers with no production incentive to grow. |
| 4 | Technology Stack & Infrastructure | 58/100 | PCLaw is end-of-life, QuickBooks Desktop integration is manual, no CRM, no dashboard. Data portability at close is the highest-risk item. |
| 5 | Client Intake & Pipeline | 63/100 | 11-day average time to engagement. No CRM. Non-referred leads convert at 22% with no data on why. Referral concentration risk in 8 advisor relationships. |
| 6 | Financial Health & Profitability | 70/100 | Profitable every year since 2010 with no debt. But 19% net margin on a practice that should run 28–35%. Pro forma at corrected billing and collections: $750–900k net on the same revenue base. |
A scored audit across six operational areas — billing, collections, staffing, technology, intake, and financial health. Written findings with specific risks, opportunities, and a prioritized next-steps breakdown with impact ratings and implementation timelines.
Every report is delivered in a live working session, not dropped into an inbox. We walk through the findings together, answer questions on the data, and build a shared picture of what's in front of you before you close.
If you close the deal, the same operator who wrote the diligence report can run the 90-day integration. The work doesn't stop at the deck.
Your lawyers tell you about legal risk. This tells you about operations — billing, collections, staffing, technology, intake, and whether the firm can run without its founders. Engagements typically take 2–3 weeks from kickoff to delivered report.
john@jakovenko.io · jakovenko.io
Sample Engagement · Meridian Law Group is a fictitious firm · All data is illustrative.