Managing Change in a Law Firm

It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change

It is no revelation that an organization capable of implementing change is an organization set up for success. There are myriad influences on law firms today driving change. From workplace transformation to attract and retain ‘Gen Y’ employees, to the more perfunctory upgrading of a firm’s technology environment, the ingredients of successful change are constant.

What Are the Ingredients of Successful Change in a Law Firm?

The following simple tips have been formulated from the lessons learnt and the experiences of a recent change project at Mallesons Stephen-Jaques. Ostensibly an IT project, the technology— as is often the case—was merely an enabler for work practice and behavioural change.

State your case Whether by making the lives of fee earners easier, ensuring better client service, cutting costs or delivering an ethical or social benefit, clearly articulating a convincing need for change is essential. Only by establishing a valid and meaningful motif for change, will a genuine appetite for change be achieved and your audience engaged.

What we did We expressed a strong vision for our project and framed it in terms meaningful to our audience. Our vision— to achieve market leadership by providing novel tools and processes to the legal teams leading to a markedly more consistent and attractive service experience for our clients— articulated the key elements of the project.

The what—exceptional client service;

The how—the tools and processes to enable behavioural change; and

The why—clear market leadership.

We used another service delivery vision (FedEx)—a real life success story with strong parallels to our own vision—to inspire and motivate our people and by analogy articulate our objectives.

Be Sure of Your Product

Don’t embark on a change project without testing and validating your ‘product’. Does it meet the aims of the project; does it fit the cultural landscape of the organization; have similar initiatives succeeded in like organizations? Successful change is all about implementation unless you are trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. The better the fit the greater the likelihood of success.

What we did The ‘acceptance’ threshold in a law firm is typically higher than in other environments. Most industries start with technology that initially addresses 70-90 percent of the core requirements, and then gradually cover the remainder in subsequent project phases. In the legal industry the threshold is much higher, primarily as anything that may negatively impact the ability to charge out time will not be tolerated— lawyers are measured by inputs (time) not outputs as in most other industries. We took a number of steps to ensure acceptance of our product by the user community.

First, our product design was formulated after an extensive analysis phase where analyst developers spent months with practice teams. One of the benefits was that we were able to quantify activities rather than rely solely on perception—the two are not necessarily the same. For example, we realized that secretaries spend approximately one eighth of their time filing. We also found that on average each piece of correspondence is filed in hard copy more than 12 times, and mostly in the wrong place, simply because the lawyers know where things need to be filed, not the secretaries.

Second, we engaged external advisors to validate the product, to provide a fresh set of eyes and an objective assessment. Finally, our development lifecycle ensured a product fit for purpose. We staged the development and deployment of the product to ensure 100 percent uptake and acceptance by a pilot group before deploying to a larger tranc he of users. After an initial development phase, we ran a 20 person pilot before undertaking additional technical development and work practice design. We then scaled sequentially to 200 users, to 800 users and to 2100 users, with a development and validation phase before each deployment stage. This enabled us to verify and lock in savings and service enhancements early, and refine the feature set and the work practices to meet the diverse needs of our user community.

Make Risk Your Friend

In an article titled ‘Risk is good— learn to manage it’, Graeme Philipson says, “it is astonishing that the principles of risk management are not more often applied to large IT projects. They are often complex, involve millions of dollars and are integral to the organization’s success. Yet only the most basic risk management methodologies, if any, are applied.” However, Philip son goes on to say that with the increasing emphasis on corporate governance and compliance issues, a greater focus on risk is emerging. There is always an element of risk in any project. The key is to identify and manage risks effectively.

What we did The success of our project relied as much on the implementation of technology as on the introduction of new ways of working. These new work practices were critical not simply to reduce cost or improve efficiency, but to ensure compliance with legal and regulatory obligations. A failure to successfully introduce new work practices could have spelt failure for our project. It would only take a single partner to identify a potential breach of the firm’s regulatory obligations to scupper the project.

To mitigate the risk of our user base failing to comply with new filing policies, we worked very hard early on in the project—in parallel with behaviour. The appropriate use of rewards and incentives will vary depending on the nature of the project and the culture of the organization. They may range from offering a prize for contributing feedback to rewarding desired behaviour with formal public recognition or a financial or other gift. These techniques also help to raise awareness and generate positive associations with the project.

What we did We established a competitive environment early on in the project and asked practice sub groups to compete to participate in a pilot. This not only generated an element of excitement, but forced each team to think carefully about how the project would affect them. We celebrated successes, both of the individual and of the team and we provided incentives for our user community to provide feedback.

Be Honest, Be Flexible

The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry (adapted from a line in ‘To a Mouse’ by Robert Burns). Change projects are unpredictable. IT projects, for example, are notorious for failing to meet deadlines, with only 16% of software projects finishing on time and on budget [see ‘CHAOS Report’ (1994), The Standish Group]. Be prepared to make adjustments to the timetable or to the work plan and to respond to unexpected issues where necessary. Compromising the timetable is nearly always preferable to compromising the project outcome. If a deadline slips be upfront about it and let your audience know what is happening and why. If you are not constrained by externally imposed deadlines, resist the temptation to commit to artificial deadlines which you might fail to meet.

What we did Our project timetable was rewritten on a number of occasions to accommodate the unexpected. The most notable of these delays came about following a pilot in our litigation practice team. Feedback from the pilot group indicated a need for a bulk print feature. As the final of our practice teams to participate in a pilot, the requirement for a new feature took us a little by surprise. Rather than go ahead with the proposed roll out date, we delayed the implementation whilst we developed the print and export tool. Having listened to our users and accommodated their needs, the fallout from this decision was almost nonexistent.

Finish What You Start Change projects take time. Continually evaluate the success of the project beyond the intensive implementation phase. Provide ongoing support and training and extend communication initiatives to maintain momentum and to respond to unmet needs of groups or individuals.

What we did We maintained a small project team beyond the completion of the formal implementation phase. The team continued to seek both formal and informal feedback from the user community. Training and awareness programs continued, including short refresher training courses, and a user group was established, incorporating representatives from each of the firm’s offices and practice groups and including a mix of secretaries, partners and attorneys.

We regularly changed the people to whom we listened and the continuing feedback and new initiatives helped to re-energies the team. We were able to fix–in large part—what we missed during the implementation phase and ensure that the project delivered ongoing and incremental benefits to the firm.

The biggest mistake in any project is to assume that change will simply happen. Sadly, attorneys are not renowned for embracing change. To the contrary, law firm changes have been identified as a potential cause of crisis for attorneys. Attorneys can be argumentative and sceptical, and are too busy to change for the sake of change. Converting them to your cause and winning them over is half the battle. The other half requires a good deal of common sense and a bit of hard yakka.

Last updated - 23 April 09

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