19/08/2026
Your team thinks you're rich. Here's the maths.
This is not one firm. It is the shape we see over and over at Lawganised, built into one anonymous example.
For every $100 this firm earns:
$45 goes to the team. Wages, super, on-costs.
$20 keeps the doors open. Rent, insurance, tech, compliance.
$7 is client costs paid out and recovered.
$28 is left before tax and before the owners take a cent.
That $28 is not the owner's pay. Tax comes out first. Then reinvestment, new hires, systems, a buffer for the quiet months. What survives all that is the owner's return for the capital and the risk.
And here is the part most people miss. This is money in the bank, not money on an invoice. To keep the doors open, this firm has to receipt $50,000 a week. That is $217,000 a month, or $2.6M a year, before it makes a single dollar of profit. Invoicing it is not enough. It has to land in the account.
So two things.
Owners: if you are flat out and not seeing it hit the bank, this is why.
Teams: your principal is not sitting on millions. The bit that looks like profit is mostly everyone's wages.
Show your team the numbers. It builds more trust than any pay conversation ever will.
Where your money goes is one small piece of the picture. The Lawganised team can help you understand what is really driving the numbers in your firm. It is one part of our Comprehensive Firmwide Review, where we look at the whole firm and what is behind your results.
