Skills for Legal Technicians - Financial Models

Having honed the first weapon in your arsenal (the ability to do simple calculations at lightning speed) you can permit yourself the use of a pencil and a piece of paper. That is all you will need to carry out the next level of task, which is to trace how something evolves numerically over time, and under different circumstances. In other words: modelling.

Before you get intimidated by the word "model", let me assure you that I just mean getting the numbers down on paper in a clear grid, so that you don't have to hold them all in your head. To get you started, here's a very simple cash flow model. The time intervals appear in the columns, and various cash inflows and outflows appear in the rows. It has only one calculation, in the "Ending cash" cash row.

  Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Starting cash 100 75 60  55  60  75  100  135  180  235  300  475
Revenue 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120
Supplies -10 -10 -10 -10 -10 -10 -10 -10 -10 -10 -10 -10
Salaries -20 -20 -20 -20 -20 -20 -20 -20 -20 -20 -20 -20
Rent -5 -5 -5 -5 -5 -5 -5 -5 -5 -5 -5 -5
Ending cash 75 60  55  60  75  100  135  180  235  300  375  460

Bankers and consultants claim modelling as "their" territory, and take inordinate pleasure in building monstrous, multi-megabyte simulations, but the core of any commercial arrangement or business model should fit on a single piece of paper. Get in the habit of building very simple models, and you will soon find yourself exploring advanced financial concepts. Once you start down that path, you will find that spreadsheet skills become really useful. I would suggest that you acquire these skills in the following order:

  • Learn to arrange data in a clear and consistent way
  • Learn to export tables and charts from the spreadsheet into your word processing or slide deck programme
  • Learn to write functions and formulae, especially those that allow one part of your sheet to look up and reference values from a table
  • Learn the keyboard shortcuts so that you can work quickly (muscle memory is key)
  • Learn to make your spreadsheets (as well as your tables and charts) clean, clear and easy to understand. (The books of Edward Tufte are great fun, and full of useful hints. Envisioning Information is my favorite, and possibly the most accessible.)


Your models, like your memos, should be like a glass of water: clean, clear and unobtrusive.