Michele Margetts

I am the firm's Chief Operating Officer. I work on the systems behind the legal work: how a file comes in, how it moves, how the firm knows where everything stands. The lawyers handle the law. I handle everything that lets them get to it.

I work as a fractional COO, which means I do this for a small number of firms rather than one. Before that I was Chief Operating Officer of a law firm in New York, and before that Vice President of Operations for a multi-state franchise group. I have spent more than forty years in operations leadership, most of it in legal and real estate.

Most of what I do never reaches a client, and that is the point. When intake runs properly, when a file moves without anyone chasing it, when nobody has to ask for the same document twice, that is the work showing up as an absence of friction rather than as anything you notice.

When I work on your files

• I build the intake and file-handling systems, so nothing sits waiting for someone to remember it
• I keep the firm's reporting current, so leadership sees real numbers rather than last month's
• I bring in automation where it removes repetitive work, and I train the team to run it
• I am not on your file, but the way your file is handled is largely my doing