How a 400+ Lawyer Firm Streamlines Commission Management with NocoBase

Background

This law firm remains anonymous at the request of its clients and specializes in civil and commercial law, intellectual property, and related fields. Offering both litigation and advisory services, the firm has grown to a team of over 400 members and handles more than 10,000 cases annually. However, rapid business growth has brought challenges to managing lawyer commissions:

Complex case categorization: Cases are split into 8 main categories and further subdivided into 16 subcategories, creating intricate calculation rules;
Refined lawyer ranking system: The firm employs a detailed five-level hierarchy, each with distinct commission standards;
Frequent rule adjustments: Commission policies change at least annually, making traditional management tools like Excel inadequate for handling frequent updates.

Traditional compensation management tools can no longer keep up with the rapidly expanding business needs of law firms, highlighting an urgent demand for a more lightweight and flexible solution.

The dilemma with traditional management tools

Phase 1: Excel falters under complex data management

Initially, Excel served the law firm’s finance team adequately for calculating lawyer commissions when case volumes were relatively low. But as monthly case numbers surpassed 800, Excel’s limitations rapidly surfaced. The team had to maintain 12 intricate templates, managing up to 45 dynamic parameters with deeply nested formulas, making ongoing maintenance extremely challenging.

Consequently, even a minor error could have severe repercussions. For example, in 2023, a finance employee accidentally hid a crucial linked table in Excel, causing commission calculation errors for three lawyers. Rectifying this single mistake required 32 hours of emergency work.

Moreover, management faced another headache: new hires needed at least two months of training to become proficient with these complex templates, during which the error rate reached a staggering 17%, significantly increasing both workload and operational risks.

Phase 2: Building an in-house system leads to a digital standstill

To escape Excel’s growing difficulties, the law firm invested nearly 200,000 yuan to develop its own dedicated case management system. However, this initially promising solution quickly revealed deeper issues.

The system’s initial design failed to adequately anticipate frequent and complex changes to business rules. Every time new rules emerged—such as the introduction of a “cross-region collaboration rule”, the tech team had to rewrite fundamental parts of the code. Even minor adjustments required up to two months of development work, greatly exceeding initial budgets.

Worse yet, the in-house system couldn’t sync data in real-time with the firm’s existing OA system, forcing staff to manually export and cross-check more than 40% of case data. As the system became increasingly unwieldy, fragmented data created additional workloads and heightened the risk of manual errors.

Instead of the smooth digital transformation originally envisioned, the firm found itself trapped in a costly digital standstill.

Hidden risks: Data security and chaotic management

Both Excel and the self-built management system phases shared a common, yet overlooked critical issue: data security risks combined with chaotic management.

Because finance and business teams maintained commission data separately, a single case could result in three conflicting calculations, causing not only accounting confusion but also distrust among lawyers. Furthermore, due to the absence of unified data management tools, sensitive information—especially regarding partner commissions—was frequently shared through unsecured channels like WeChat, significantly raising the risk of data leakage.

What appeared to be a minor data management problem was, in reality, creating serious risks, undermining internal trust and operational efficiency.

Adopting NocoBase

To break free from these challenges, the law firm adopted NocoBase and immediately started optimizing their commission management workflow.

1.Dynamic rule configuration without writing a single line of code

Using NocoBase’s visual workflow engine, the law firm transformed previously complicated calculation rules into intuitive, drag-and-drop visual nodes, entirely eliminating the tedious coding process.

The system automatically selects and applies relevant calculation rules based on case type. For instance, if a case is identified as an “Intellectual Property” matter, the “Technical Value Additional Coefficient” is applied automatically, eliminating the need for manual input. Moreover, seamless integration with the firm’s existing OA system ensures real-time synchronization of lawyer rankings, guaranteeing accurate calculations every time.

A typical commission calculation might look like this:

Base commission × [1 + (Subject amount coefficient × 0.3)] + Cross-region collaboration bonus × Lawyer participation weighting

By leveraging no-code configuration, modifications to rules that previously took weeks can now be completed 90% faster, delivering unparalleled flexibility to support the firm’s ongoing business innovation.

2.Integrated and connected data, eliminating data silos

Previously, the firm’s case data was fragmented across multiple systems, requiring manual export and verification for each commission calculation—an inefficient and error-prone process. With NocoBase, the law firm successfully integrated its data, creating automated connections between previously isolated datasets.

Now, when finance staff view a case, all relevant information instantly appears on a single page, including:

Invoice Information: Automatically displays invoice amounts and status updates in real-time;
Commission Breakdown: Clearly illustrates the detailed calculation steps and final commission results for each lawyer;
Cost Details: Lists associated case expenses such as travel costs and appraisal fees at a glance.

Additionally, NocoBase’s powerful filtering tools enable finance teams to quickly access commission data categorized by status, such as “Pending Payment,” “Disputed,” or “Archived,” greatly enhancing efficiency.

Using NocoBase’s workflow version control, the firm retains historical calculation rules and data permanently. Whenever commission rules change, a new workflow version is created by duplication, preserving past rules and calculations intact, ensuring they remain unaffected by subsequent updates.

3.Workflow automation for smarter risk management

After implementing NocoBase, the law firm significantly strengthened its risk management through intelligent workflows:

Automatic Compliance Checks: The system monitors commission data in real-time, automatically validating compliance criteria—such as ensuring commission amounts remain within permitted limits—and immediately alerts staff when anomalies occur, effectively preventing errors and risks.
Proactive Risk Alerts: If the system detects unusual commission fluctuations or overdue case statuses, it proactively issues alerts, enabling quick intervention to prevent issues from escalating.
Data-driven Decision Making: Through comprehensive data analysis, the firm can clearly understand correlations between case types, lawyer seniority, and revenue contributions, enabling management to optimize case assignments and improve overall team efficiency and profitability.

4.Management dashboards providing real-time insights into team operations

Previously, law firm management had to manually extract and painstakingly analyze data from multiple systems to evaluate financials and team performance. With NocoBase’s dashboards, management can now instantly access essential operational data, enabling quicker and more informed decision-making.

Instant visibility into cash flow: Partners reviewing case details can immediately view clients’ payment statuses and related lawyer commission payouts, eliminating the wait for financial reports.
Real-time cost tracking and alerts: Dashboards clearly highlight expenses exceeding budgets—such as travel or appraisal fees—allowing timely corrective actions.
Transparent team performance insights: Dashboards automatically rank lawyers based on case efficiency and revenue generation, helping management quickly pinpoint high-performing teams and exceptional lawyers to streamline team structure and better allocate resources.

Results and Benefits: A Transformational Improvement in Law Firm Management

With NocoBase, the law firm quickly experienced substantial enhancements in commission management efficiency and quality, finally resolving long-standing management challenges:

Significantly Improved Efficiency: Monthly commission calculations that previously took 3 full days now only require 4 hours—a 6-fold increase in efficiency, freeing finance staff from repetitive calculation tasks.
Greater Accuracy in Calculations: Since adopting NocoBase, the firm has maintained a flawless record for commission accuracy, completely eliminating past conflicts caused by manual errors.
Rapid and Flexible Rule Adjustments: When faced with policy changes, lengthy code modifications are no longer necessary. For example, introducing a quarterly case subsidy policy took only 2 hours from initial rule creation to implementation.
Reduced Management Risks: Through precise data management and strict risk-control processes, the firm effectively prevented potential labor disputes, saving an estimated $70k+ in potential losses.
More Transparent and Accurate Decision-making: With real-time data dashboards, partners gain immediate insight into team revenues and cost structures, allowing swift adjustments to case assignments and staffing, greatly enhancing the quality of management decisions.

Conclusion: Professional management empowered by no-code flexibility

At its core, managing lawyer commissions means continuously adapting to complex rules and changing data. NocoBase offers a simpler, more flexible, no-code solution that turns previously challenging rule adjustments and complicated data calculations into easy, routine tasks without coding.

By embracing the no-code approach, the law firm can refocus its energy on core business activities rather than being bogged down by tedious calculations and system development. NocoBase simplifies management complexities, enabling the firm to adapt to business changes with greater ease, accuracy, and confidence.

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