How Law Firms Can Meet Corporate Needs and Their Client’s

Speaking to Rob Ford at Governance Gurus, we discuss what steps law firms ought to take in order to improve their corporate needs, whilst still meeting the needs of clients.

What are the first few stages of assessment required to establish what improvements need to be made?

Each business is unique as its strategy, governance framework and corporate culture differ so significantly, even for similar companies in the same industry. Business transformation is part of every successful company’s overall strategy as change management through transformation enables a business to improve and adapt to stay relevant and remain competitive.

The initial stages are all about understanding the perceived issues, getting a firm grip on the scope and analysing the data which is provided. The next stage is one of planning and design for the project and agreeing on messaging and the transformation team members within the organisation.

How often do businesses disregard effective IT systems and software? Following from this, how often do law firms fall victim to this?

Most businesses forget the importance of IT and the impact it can have on the success of the transformation project. Law firms are no different. When planning for a wholesale system overhaul or new processes and systems, its vital to include IT from a licencing, IT security aspect and of course, regarding IT governance and ensuring data and information are secure.

What challenges do law firms face when it comes to change management? How can they work around this for the betterment of their firm and its clients?

Law firms have had to transform in order to meet the requirements of their clients. For instance, firms have revisited their fee structuring, namely fixed fees, blended rates or stepped fees based on volumes. All industries go through transitions and technology is now firmly front and centre of all businesses. Technology is supposed to make us work smarter and not harder. The reality is that systems only do what they are programmed to do, and workflows, processes and procedures should match what is required for staff to work effectively and efficiently. Both fee earners and non-fee earners should be able to work effectively for efficient client support.

Many of the successful law firms have looked to professionals to help them with their governance, processes and systems.

Most lawyers like to be in control and find it hard to empower and allow senior management to design workflows, document management systems or procedures. I have worked with several law firms in the UK and in the Middle East. The most effective are those firms which work across practice areas, business units and interact effortlessly with the non-fee earning support functions. This enables everyone to communicate clearly and efficiently across the firm and better serve each client.

Many of the successful law firms have looked to professionals to help them with their governance, processes and systems. The partners and senior lawyers focus on lawyering and leaving it to the professionals to manage the workflows to interact seamlessly within the procedures and governance structure. This allows everyone to work more effectively and enables lawyers to focus on the client and client work for better realisation ratios and ultimately higher profits.

What would you say is key for law firms to improve their corporate needs, whilst also satisfying their clients?

Empowerment of employees and a focus on the career development for lawyers, fee earners and non-fee earners is vital for more effective collaboration. There, of course, needs to be greater transparency on fees and billing to manage the client experience.

Change needs to be ultimately accepted and embedded in order to become part of the culture and working practices of an organisation.

Out of all the initiatives that are needed for change, where do you think law firms fall short?

When they are not really focussed on implementation and are mainly transactionally focussed. Too many caveats and legal advice don’t normally provide commercial advice or assistance with implementing the advice given. I think implementation is an area where most law firms – and even main consulting firms – fail, as the policies and advice are given without the need to also embed the proposed changes. How many times have well-drafted policies and elaborate strategic plans failed to be implemented? John Kotter – Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership, Emeritus, at the Harvard Business School – suggests that 70-90% of change initiatives fail; this is a staggering number.

Why do 70-90% of initiatives fail?

Change needs to be ultimately accepted and embedded in order to become part of the culture and working practices of an organisation. I successfully led a multi-office change initiative for Clyde & Co across the Middle East, a 13-country transformation project for PwC in the MENA region (forming the Arabic Centre of Excellence in Jordan) and a largescale governance project for a semi-government group in Dubai. Successful change doesn’t happen by accident.

Change must go through the eight stages set out by John Kotter; the key to successful implementation is ensuring you keep buy-in momentum and don’t celebrate success too early. Win the war not just a battle; change is a very complex and challenging matter and requires patience, tenacity and perseverance. We work with law firms and other businesses to design and successfully implement their transformation projects.

Robert L Ford
Executive Director

Governance Gurus FZE
17 Iridium Building, Al Barsha, Dubai,
PO BOX 391186

Telephone: +971 (0)4 3873554
Website: www.governance-gurus.ae

I am the Executive Director of Governance Gurus, the corporate governance training and consulting experts. I have lived and worked out of Dubai for the last decade and more recently, I’m in and out of Malaysia with many projects and corporate training masterclasses. The two main reasons I enjoy working in the Middle East and Malaysia are the diversity of culture and appetite to embrace good governance.

In 2009 I was headhunted to transform a corporate services division within an international law firm with its main regional office in Dubai. This was a challenging project as it required a full root – branch review of the business unit, the employees and the services, systems and fee structures.

Governance Gurus is one of the few regional corporate training and governance consulting companies which provides internationally accredited continuing professional development (CPD) for directors, senior executives and company secretaries. The company designs and facilitates interactive and engaging masterclasses for senior leaders and managers through in-house corporate training or public workshops and courses. Governance Gurus is also a tuition partner for The Chartered Governance Institute for ICSA courses and is also partnered with the Dubai based Hawkamah Institute of Corporate Governance for the tuition of their ICSA Foundation Course.

If you want the support of a successful change management and transformation leader or want specialist accredited CPD corporate training get in touch with Robert or one of the Governance Gurus team.