I was scrolling through LinkedIn this week and came across someone calling themselves a fractional CFO for law firms. I clicked through, because I always do. Their law firm experience was administrative. Good work, important work, but not the work of a CFO. They had never held the seat.
I am not going to name anyone, and this is not a post about one person. It is a post about a title. There is no license for “fractional CFO.” Anyone can type it into a profile, and more people are doing exactly that every month. So if you are a managing partner starting a search, the burden is on you to sort it out, and most firms are not sure what to ask.
I will say this up front: I am not writing this to tell you to hire 3sixty. These are my suggestions for finding the right fit, someone who will get the job done right, written from my own experience and what I have seen in the industry.
1. The title is doing more work than the resume
Ask one question: have you ever been the CFO of a law firm? Not supported one. Not reported to one. Sat in the seat, built the budget, stood in front of the partners and defended it.
Supporting a finance function and running one are different jobs. A firm administrator, a paralegal, a bookkeeper, even a controller at a big firm sees part of the picture. The CFO is the one accountable for the whole thing, and that is the experience you are paying for. If the answer is anything other than a plain yes, keep looking.
2. A plan before they have seen your numbers
When a prospect asks me for a 60-day roadmap on the first call, I know I am probably not the right fit for them, and I tell them so. I cannot tell you what I am going to do in your firm because I do not know your firm yet. I do not know your culture, how your partners make decisions, or whether I can trust the reports your bookkeeper is producing.
Anyone who promises specific outcomes before they have been inside your books is selling a canned product. That product was built for the last firm, not yours. Be cautious with it.
3. Bronze, silver, and gold
Tiered packages tell you something about the provider, and it is not good. A fee should follow the work. I have seen smaller firms that need an intensive engagement and larger firms that need far less time each month. A flat monthly fee is a good thing, because partners like to budget, but it should be set after the provider understands what the firm actually needs. If the price is on the website before the conversation happens, the conversation is not going to matter much.
4. They never ask what kind of firm you want to be
This is the first thing I ask on every call, and the answer tells me more than any financial statement. A fractional CFO is supposed to help you get somewhere. If they do not ask where that is, they are not planning for it.
Watch for a provider whose questions stop at the books. Your firm’s structure, the personalities around the partner table, how you want to grow, what you will not compromise on: all of that shapes the financial plan. Someone who only wants to talk about your chart of accounts is a bookkeeper with a bigger title.
5. They have not lived inside a law firm’s economics
Law firms make money in a way that most other businesses do not. Realization, origination, timekeeper productivity and profitability, trust accounting, partner compensation. A generalist CPA can keep clean books and still hand you reports that do not tell you what you need to know, because the reports were not built for a law firm.
Ask them to walk through how they would evaluate profitability at your firm. If the answer sounds like it could apply to a dental practice or a construction company, they likely do not have deep knowledge of law firm economics. There are factors beyond the numbers that influence profitability.
6. They are at the mercy of someone else’s numbers
A CFO is only as good as the information they get. If the provider has no control over who closes the books or when, then neither do you. I have watched good engagements stall for exactly this reason: the advice was right, but the numbers arrived too late to act on.
Ask who produces the monthly numbers, when they land, and what happens when they are wrong. A provider who can answer that directly has thought about it. One who shrugs and says “we work with your current bookkeeper” has not.
7. Guarantees
No one can, or should, guarantee outcomes from day one of an engagement. If someone promises you a profit margin or a revenue number on a sales call, they are either guessing or counting on you not following up. The best thing a fractional CFO can promise on a first call is a straight answer about whether they are the right fit.
What to do with this list
Take it to your first call. Ask the questions plainly. The good ones will not be offended; they will be relieved, because they get asked about price far more often than they get asked about experience.
And if you want to talk through where your firm is and where you want it to go, I am happy to do that. Thirty minutes, no pitch deck, and no pricing until I understand your firm. If I am not the right person, I will tell you that too.