Financial Analyst

WilmerHale is a leading, full-service international law firm with 1,000 lawyers located throughout 12 offices in the United States, Europe and Asia. Our lawyers work at the intersection of government, technology and business, and we remain committed to our guiding principles of providing quality, excellent legal and client services; developing diversity among our lawyers and staff and cultivating an environment that promotes an ambitious spirit, collaboration and collegiality by drawing on the extraordinary talents and dynamic experience of our lawyers. Our goal is to reflect the diversity of our clients and the communities in which we practice.

What You Will Be Doing

Help develop budgets/estimates in support of client requests and/or alternative fee pricing.  Monitor budgets, identify overruns, alert partners, and recommend solutions.  Maintain and update budget database.  Provide client rate arrangement analyses.  Assist in creation of practice-specific budget templates, analysis of comparable data, and development of standardized task pricing for all legal matters. 

Provide firm, practice and office focused profitability statistics, modeling, and analysis under the general direction of a PBA Manager and/or a PBA Director.  Prepare and distribute weekly and monthly financial reports in approved formats, analyze results, and prepare observations for firm management.  Provide statistical support for attorney compensation processes.  Assist in preparation of submission of firm financial information for survey and publication purposes.

Proactively support client service.  Provide quality service to internal members/ departments of the firm as well as external clients and vendors by displaying professionalism via electronic and print correspondence, over the telephone and in-person and by encouraging an atmosphere that rewards a "can do" attitude.

About This Role

• Assist with development of hourly budgets or Alternative Fee Arrangements for legal matters in collaboration with Partners / matter team to meet client requests; budgets to be based on matter scope and staffing assumptions, as well as phases of engagement; provide quality assurance in the budget process.
• Assist in development of budget templates; compile and analyze entries to create database of comparable matters by practice for use in generating budgets/estimates; assist in development of standardized task pricing averages.
• Leverage warehoused budget metadata for statistical intra & post matter analysis and for comparable matter budgeting.
• Incorporate Outside Counsel Guidelines (OCGs); provide notification of deadlines to Partners and update budgets to meet client requirements; update OCG budget database with new/updated OCG requirements.
• Monitor actuals against budgeted fees and update budgets in light of actual work performed; submit reports to Partners as requested. 
• Participate in firm-wide matter management program including, but not limited to theorizing, review, and validation of matter management reports and collaboration with Legal Project Managers and Client Accounting on matter specific needs.
• Analyze impact of client rate arrangements including financial modeling and impact analysis of alternative rate scenarios on the firm and client. 
• Participate in the annual billing rate budgeting process that supports the firm’s revenue objectives; includes supporting and contingency recommendations; includes updating our billing system with firm standard rates and firm level variations; prepare annual office and practice group revenue budgets; includes financial modeling and risk and opportunity analysis related to revenue.
• Provide support for Attorney Compensation review processes, including Partner Compensation and Capital process; provide information related to revenue generation and management components for Partners and individual productivity statistics of partners and other attorneys; includes maintenance of revenue FTE variations.
• Assist in preparation of firm financial information for survey and publication purposes; analyze results and prepare observations for firm management.  Work to be accomplished under general supervision.
• Provide decision-support to Chief Financial Officer, Managing Partners and Practice Leadership as assigned, ensuring information approved prior to release; decision-support includes monthly statistical reporting, issue/problem definition from both a business and financial perspective, developing, analyzing, and quantitatively modeling feasible/realistic alternatives, and presenting recommendations.
• Assist in developing financial and operational presentations for Finance Management to Partners, Senior Administrators and Firm Management as assigned.
• Look for opportunities to improve processes and activities by using/leveraging business technologies and other resources.
• Participate in special projects and other duties as assigned.
• Contributes to the firm's Service Matters initiative to consistently improve its image internally and externally; displays professionalism, quality service and a "can do" attitude to internal members/departments of the firm as well as external clients and vendors via electronic and print correspondence, over the telephone and in person