The Future of the Legal Profession
  • Home
  • Manifesto
  • Blawg
  • My Books
  • Book Synopsis
  • Sample chapter
  • Value Pricing
  • Store & Links
  • FAQ's
  • Loan Application Form
  • Blog

Why Running a Law Firm is a Lot Like Football

26/12/2012

1 Comment

 
As I write this its Boxing Day. I'm bored. But I'm also open to ideas for articles and as I watch the football, an idea has sprung into my mind.

Now I remember when I was young, football was pretty much all about the final score. 



Nowadays we have Sky and football punditry and at half time we get bombarded with statistics and replays.  Why, because apparently it's what people want.

However, the thing about "what people want" is that most people don't know what they want. They do after you give it to them, but mostly they don't know
.

The late Steve Jobs hit the nail on the head when he said something like, "you don't ask people what they want because they don't know".  If  said Henry Ford, I asked people what they wanted in 1909 they would have said faster and more comfortable horses!

Ok, so far so what.....here's the so what....sometimes you just have to present something to your clients to see if they like it.

Wow, what a groundbreaker!

But what does that have to do with football?

The changes in the way football has been presented on TV were not as a result of what people said they wanted, it's a result of trial and error, but mostly it's a result of competition.

Before Sky came along, football on TV was a bit rubbish.  First of all it was in black and white! ( ok I made that up to see if you're paying attention!), no really, if you're over a certain age (ahem) TV football coverage was very amateur.  For a start you only saw about four or five games out of the whole league.  in Scotland you didn't really see English Division 1 as it was and when you did, all games were commented on by Brian Moore.  In Scotland you had a choice of Arthur Montford, Archie Macpherson or of you were really unlucky, Bob Crampsey.  There were about four or five angles, replays were a bit non-existent and no body bothered about statistics.

Statistics were all very American.  American Football ( rugby with padding for boys who don't want to get hurt) was all about yards and percentages. We saw, but we didn't care.

Then they introduced it into the Premier League.  We saw, but we still didn't care.

Then one day, about 3 or 4 years after they first introduced statistics, I remember a friend in the pub droning on about the number of corners and shots on target that Team A had over Team B the last time they met, so naturally, Team A were favourites to win.

All of a sudden, statistics meant something.

In fact, the whole betting industry is built around them.

Imagine if the betting industry started to put odds on law firm survival?

If it did, what are your law firm stats like?  

How do you measure and manage referrals or website hits? If you do, how do they compare to last month...the month before...last year?

How many clients do you have? What is the average spend? What is the lifetime value of your clients? And so on.  

The thing about proper statistics ( or as management consultants call them, KPIs or Key Performance Indicators) is that they tell a story. They tell the story of how well or how badly your firm is doing.  And if you don't have any at all, or if your whole team don't know what they are, then your heading for relegation; but in this climate, that means oblivion.
1 Comment

A Remarkable Firm

1/4/2012

1 Comment

 
One of the great things about working with Law firms who “get it” is seeing the day when everything comes together; because there is usually one day when the collective firm has taken in enough information and all the bits suddenly fit together nicely.

One such day happened last Friday.


But before we talk about Friday, let me briefly explain how they got there.

The firm in question had “merged” in late 2008 with a similar sized firm because they could see that the many external forces that had eroded their income were simply not going to go away and merging could at least reduce some of their costs. 

But even since that merger, they had been butting against their overdraft; the partners had already had to put more money into the firm and they had made redundancies and taken pay cuts…and they had almost run out of ideas.  I say “almost” because one of the partners suggested getting some outside help.

That decision was taken about a year ago.

Following an initial consultation and a Strategy day, the firm decided to implement some changes; nothing major, just some basic business changes to make fee earners accountable and make their billing slicker and cash collection more systematised.

That eight month process culminated yesterday in an event attended by everyone in the firm.  And I mean everyone.

The purpose of the event was to outline to everyone in the firm what had happened and more importantly, what was going to happen in the future; but it was also an opportunity for peace and reconciliation and a chance for all staff to not only vent their feelings but to make suggestions.

Although the whole day was uplifting, the best part for me was the Managing Partner’s opening talk.

I only wish we had recorded it because I would be proud to send a copy to every partner in every struggling law firm with the message that “…it can be done”. You can rescue your firm, grow it and have a positive future.

The opening talk set the scene for the day, but it also set the scene for future of their firm. The Managing Partner drew a line under the events of the past; fully explained to everyone how all the partners had felt about the redundancies they had been forced to make and apologised for getting many things wrong.

And it was a genuine apology; not the sort of apology you see politicians making but a real “from the heart” message that they were sorry that they had let things get as bad as they did and sorry that they had handled some things badly but they had now taken action and it was working.  

The apology also carried forward in that they suggested that they may make some mistakes in the future, but at least everyone in the firm could see that they had their best interests at heart; the whole of the firm and not just the partners.

During the coffee break I not only spoke to some of the staff but I also hovered near to clusters of conversations and I never heard one cynical word about the “speech” but I did hear lots of positive ones.

From then on, the positive tone carried forward onto the next group of speakers.  Each departmental partner spoke for 5 minutes on what they did and what they were looking for; not in a dull monotone way, but chatty, humorous and engaging. 

The day was also peppered with inspirational videos clips, short talks, suggestions on improvements as well as short tasks where everyone came up with marketing suggestions and ways to improve the firm. And it wasn’t all about the big stuff.  Suggested improvements included better access to stationery, keeping the free tea and coffee and getting cleaners in more often!

Finally, (and this was only about 2.30pm) they had an awards ceremony.

The awards went out to staff who had “gone the extra mile” or  “who showed a positive attitude” and each one was met with rapturous applause as well as tears from some of the recipients.

But there was an award for everyone as they left.  As they filed out into the sunshine, there were business cards on the table for everyone in the firm.  Every single person got business cards ....and Easter Eggs for them or their kids.

As one exited lady opened her pack up she had tears in her eyes. “I’ve never, ever had anything like this in my life” she said to me.  I asked her for her card.  She laughed and remembered our talk earlier on stage. She wiped the back of her hand across her face and apologised for being silly, then she gently handed me the card with both hands.

The card had her name and all the details of the firm but no title (I knew that was deliberate…but that she didn’t) so I asked her “And what do you do?”

“I work for the best law firm in the North East” she replied.

Enough said.

Picture
1 Comment

    Author

    After many years paying lawyers,I became one in 2005 Just in time for the largest upheaval in the law since records began. Brilliant. Exiting times ahead.

    Disclaimer.  The thoughts, ideas and comments on this Blawg ("Blawg - a legal Blog) are my own and not to be confused (unless otherwise stated) with anyone else and certainly not of anyone in the Firm where I used to work and they are not the views of the firm where I used to work.

    Tweets by @ray_mclennan

    Archives

    April 2019
    December 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    April 2018
    September 2017
    November 2016
    September 2015
    January 2015
    May 2014
    November 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010
    January 2010
    December 2009
    November 2009
    December 2008

    Categories

    All
    10 Rules That Govern Groups
    10 Things That Don\'t Matter
    10 Things That Matter
    3 Choices
    Abs
    Accounts
    Advertising
    Appreciation
    Apps
    Bentley Cars
    Budget
    Cards For All
    Change
    Change Hints
    Charities
    Clay Shirky
    Close Vote
    Coaching
    Competition
    Confirmation Bias
    Conformity
    Creative Destruction
    Customer Service
    Deloitte
    Depression
    Disruptive Technologies
    Droids
    Earning Capacity Of Lawyers
    Economics
    Elephant
    Entrepreneurs
    Facebook
    Fee Income
    Fees
    Frogs
    Fti
    Gene Poool
    George Marshall
    Getting It
    Glasgow Bar Association
    Govan Law Centre
    Government Initiatives
    Group Psychology
    Iphone App
    It Based Law
    John
    KPI\'s
    Laptop Lawyer
    Law As A Commodity
    Law Firm Broker
    Law Firm Start Up
    Law Society
    Leadership
    Legal Docs
    Legal Education
    Legal Firms\' Accounts 2009
    Legal Services Bill
    Legal Websites
    Marketing
    Mdp
    Measurement
    Mental Health
    Mergers
    Minimum Wage
    Modernise Or Die
    More Sales
    Musings
    New Technology
    Office Politics
    Online Docs
    Overcharging
    Partnerships
    Pep
    Perceived Indifference
    Pkf
    Pro Bono Work
    Pro-Bono Work
    Pwc
    Royal Faculty Of Procurators
    Rss Feed
    Sales
    Self Esteem
    Self-esteem
    Self Improvement
    Seo Strategies
    Seth Godin
    Socialism
    Social Media
    Solutions
    Substance Abuse
    Tax
    Tesco Law
    The Firm
    Trainees
    Tribes
    Trust
    Turnaround Time
    Twitter
    Two Killers
    Value Pricing
    Values
    Verasage
    Verasage Institute
    Websites
    Who Gets It?
    You Tube

    View my profile on LinkedIn

    RSS Feed

    Buy1GIVE1 - Transaction Based Giving