TLOMA Today

As I sit down to write the March message, it is a balmy -15 degrees outside (the weather network tells me it actually feels like -21).  It was Groundhog Day a couple of weeks ago and I seem to recall a prediction of an early spring…I think the lines of communication got mixed up between Mother Nature and Wiarton Willie!

Communication is a key part of everyday life.   When you have open and effective lines of communication, this ensures relationships can thrive and move forward in a productive and positive way.  However, communication is more than just words.  There is the tone of your voice, your body language, the delivery of your words.  Are you engaged when communicating with someone, or are you avoiding eye contact and distracted by your phone or otherwise?  These are all factors in communication, and this is how mixed messages can occur.  It is important to consider these factors, as well as knowing that we all have different ways to communicate, when engaging with one another, whether it be work or personal.  Fortunately for TLOMA members, Commanding Presence is customizing a half day workshop on Advanced Communication and Presentations Skills.  Please join me on April 2, 2020, for what will surely be an informative and valuable seminar. 

At our annual TLOMA Strategic Planning Meeting late November, the Board sat down to discuss TLOMA’s values.  We came up with five values that we felt TLOMA embraced.  We then wanted to display them in a way that would effectively communicate them to our membership.  After a lot of brainstorming and several amazing drafts, we ended up with the following:

 

I would also like to take this opportunity to remind the membership about our “Best of TLOMAToday Award”.  This Award displays TLOMA talent and features creative, practical and relevant content for legal management professionals.  This award recognizes innovation and thought leadership of its members. If you would like to submit a written article for TLOMAToday to showcase your knowledge and talent, please contact Mary DaRosa, Communications Coordinator. Nominations for the award must be submitted by October 30, 2020.

March 24, 2020 - Finance SIG Event - Implementing Best Practices To Manage Risk And Improve Financial Success.

Lastly, our Spring Networking event takes place on Thursday, March 26, 2020.  Please join us to drive away the Winter blues and welcome Spring! 

To sign off this time, I am going to borrow a quote from Peter Drucker: “The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said”.

The beginning of a new year brings a unique opportunity for leaders and their teams. One of the main roles of a leader is to help their team develop and articulate long-term career plans. Interestingly, the Hays 2020 Salary Guide shows that lack of clarity about career development is the #1 reason why staff would consider leaving their current role.

By having open conversations, leaders equip their teams to have deeper conversations about their next role or project thus, improving employee engagement and retention. Here are some key reasons why it’s crucial for leaders to review their approach and begin initiating more forward-looking career conversations with their team.

Help Staff Adopt A Growth Mindset

Adopting a growth mindset is crucial to career success. It’s important for staff to understand that learning is an on-going journey. Once this is recognized as a possibility, staff will increase efforts and commitment to the organization.

 Drive Motivation And Loyalty

When leaders take an active interest in their team members’ career aspirations, it demonstrates that they genuinely care for their team’s success and are invested in their development. Don’t underestimate the power of encouragement as it can greatly motivate staff to excel and potentially reveal hidden skills.

 Aid And Inform Future Succession Planning

Leaders should continuously work towards the development of staff members into key roles before they are needed to help minimize the disruption of a sudden vacancy. Through open career conversations, leaders will want to identify unknown skills of their team members that will be beneficial in the event of another member leaving. Consider ways to upskill staff, such as inviting members to work on other projects or delegating new responsibilities to them.

The world of work is evolving at an unprecedented rate and the key to navigating this change successfully is open-mindedness, honesty and planning. As leaders start to feel more comfortable talking candidly with their teams about their career ambitions, they will be better equipped to plan for long-term success.

In The Next Decade of Legal Services – Part 1 – Embracing Law Market Change, we discussed how the global legal market is getting tighter, tougher and more fractured. Embracing change is key to survival. This is where knowing what to change, why to change, and how to do it can help.

Change management is about deploying strategies and tactics that enable consistent evolution. Here are a few that work well for today’s law firms and law companies, regardless of operational structure.

Market Positioning

Astute positioning leads to legal market differentiation. It is at this point where your market differences become both your strength and brand.

This is because market positioning requires examining a firm’s or individual’s legal offerings in the cold, hard light of business rather than from the more familiar aspect of practice. Understanding what industries, clients, services and practices are financially strong now, and expected to remain profitable, will allow you to define your market position and, in turn, build brand strength. This will entail a ruthless financial audit — no exceptions — to determine which practices, teams, individuals, industries and clients will continue to be profitable well into the next decade.

For law firms, market positioning (or repositioning) can be sensitive and politically charged. Individuals or groups may feel slighted or disenfranchised. Even though market positioning is based on hard numbers that prove profitability and assess current and future legal market conditions, it’s fair to expect resentment, anger and hurt to surface.

Developing a tightly defined market position is tough. It should be. It’s the true test of whether you have the grit and determination to cut a swath through the competition by claiming key strengths, defining demonstrable traits, and remaining unwaveringly dedicated to your market position and brand.

Rightsizing 

Legal services providers with that grit and determination will ruthlessly examine themselves from the perspective of their clients and target markets. They will then need intestinal fortitude to rightsize and reposition their offerings. This is when understanding profitability and industry strengths come to the fore, since rightsizing can mean trimming down to fighting weight.

For example, removing or spinning off an individual, group or practice to operate as a standalone can be an astute decision that often benefits all parties, who can then cross-refer and often operate without conflict. Or, some individuals or groups may continue their practice in a business-as-usual manner, even though the firm repositions in the market and rebrands accordingly. For example, a corporate commercial firm may continue to handle certain matters, such as real estate or private wealth representation, but not promote the practice.

Low-cost centers. It has become a client expectation that sizable firms will have a low-cost center — either onshore or offshore — operating as a back office for commodity work. Many European firms have opened back offices and supply chains in other countries to lower their costs of doing business. In some instances, they have moved infrastructure such as finance, IT, marketing and business development offshore. On a smaller scale, for smaller firms, commodity work can be outsourced to less expensive legal talent, such as contract lawyers, paralegals or clerks, or to lawyers in less expensive geographic markets.

Low-cost centers can also take the form of legal services providers — human or machine — that work within the legal services supply chain.

Industry Alignment

Clients don’t care about your practice; they care about their industry. Understanding your clients’ industry strengths is critical to retooling or rightsizing your firm. What’s more, approaching your market by industry sends the unmistakable signal that you reflect the world of business.

Mapping clients’ industry codes. Dunn & Bradstreet operates a classification system originally established by the federal government. Every company and thus every client has a Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) or North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code, which is determined by a company’s primary line of business. (Clients select their own code.) When you map your client roster by industry code, it provides sharply defined industry strengths — and gaps in your practice.

This information helps you organize and retool to face the market by sector. It provides direction for business development efforts by way of prospective client targeting and makes it easier to evaluate marketing opportunities and justify your spending decisions.

Brand

Rewards are evident when clear and concise positioning — along with acquiring business-savvy talent and key clients that sit squarely in the center of a firm’s expertise wheelhouse — enables a clearly differentiated and unique legal market brand.

When many legal brands are as fungible as peanut butter, a one-of-one brand acts as a beacon to attract ideal clients needing a particular type, talent, and delivery of legal service expertise.

Marketing and Business Development Investments

The most important marketing and business development resources are focused on clients — namely client relationship management (CRM) tools and your website and online profile.

• A solid yet flexible CRM. You are nothing without client data. A robust CMS is the central data hub — a holding tank of every scrap of client information along with who on the legal services provider team knows who at the client company — where finance, marketing, business development and technology are stakeholders.
  
  

• A well-mapped, up-to-date online presence. People want to work with people they like. While hiring legal talent often happens through a personal referral, an online presence is essential. This is why a well-mapped, easy-to-use, story-telling-not-selling, search engine optimized, consistently well maintained and updated website is a must. Your site has five basic uses:
  
  

1. It helps people find you.
2. Prospects use it to learn about you.
3. Clients use it to validate their decision to hire you.
4. Law students and lateral hires use it to assess you.
5. Other lawyers use it to check you out.

Ditch directories and content aggregators. Rather than being one of one, you’ll wind up being one of many, and the only people who make money this way are publishers appealing to egos. Google and other search engines are the world’s directory of everything, including legal talent. Spend your energy instead on your website and thought leadership.

Client Care 

I’ve left the best for last. Client care is what lawyering is really all about — helping people understand and solve legal problems. It’s where lawyers who care shine most brightly. It also brings us full circle to the first “First Principle”: Clients Call the Shots, as discussed in Part 1. 

While clients do call the shots, the lawyer-client relationship need not and should not be adversarial. Instead, the relationship should be collaborative, seamless and completely transparent.

A successful client care strategy starts with … listening. The most recent Canadian Lawyer annual corporate counsel survey found that 87.8% of large companies surveyed were not asked for feedback by their law firms. One way to address this (and set yourself apart from the competition) is to establish a formal and permanent client service interview program. Ask questions, listen carefully and clarify responses. Who you interview may vary. In some instances, it may be a CEO or GC, while in others it may be legal ops or procurement.

A common client complaint is that their outside lawyers don’t know the client’s business. Lawyers who are students of their client’s business and the industry in which they operate realize a return on investment in more than financial form. Results also include better ease of communication, unsolicited referrals, mutual goodwill, a higher profile and solid reputations.

A Last Word

I have avoided talking about innovation. That’s because “innovation” is an overused and tired term that simply means making something better.

Making legal services better has been happening in the global law market for the past couple of decades — some improvements are obvious and others not. Observers talk about these changes while participants do them. While both observers and participants have their place, to stay relevant and solvent for the next decade we need to quit admiring problems and instead tackle and fix them.

Ideas that enable legal services to survive and thrive will continue to come from accountants, management consultants, law sector advisors, engineers, technicians, professional services industry experts, and those with applicable business backgrounds — many of whom may have legal understanding and know-how. They’re ready to offer a helping hand. My best advice is to let them.

Outside of Big Law, it’s all too common for firms to make tactical – as opposed to strategic – decisions when it comes to technology. In this article Tikit’s Peter Zver* highlights the danger firms put themselves in when they miss the more strategic play.

Is there a lot going on at your firm? Are there daily and hourly decisions to be made? You make them, of course. But every so often, there’s probably a gnawing, underlying feeling that it might not hurt if the firm was to improve its long-term strategic planning. But you mostly park those feelings, because day to day there’s just a lot to get through. And actually the “status quo” is doing okay.

And on today’s urgent technology list, a typical issue may be addressing a Microsoft announcement that in three months’ time support for a server operating system will be dropped. With a three-month window the pressure is on to tackle the situation. So you ask: “What are the implications?” And you’re told it’s about security or about back-up or something equally alarming. Something about how now’s the time to upgrade the server and in turn the applications that reside on it … which in turn may require processing power and storage capacity... It sounds concerning, and expensive. How will you proceed? Chances are that you’ll say, “Okay. Get me some costs… What’s next?”

And so it goes by that quickly. In the blink of an eye. Without even really taking a beat, the firm is on its way to doing the thing it did last time, and the time before that, and the time before that. Because it’s just there to be done. And nobody, but nobody, has noticed what you just did. Which is that you sailed straight past the crossroads, the junction, the fork in the road; the moment where you could have just… paused.

Stop, look, listen

What I’m advocating is that firms should do is nothing more complicated than recognize a moment. That’s all. Simply recognize the moment when the firm still has a choice. It’s the moment when your firm could take a different route. One that’s become available to firms over the last five years. A route that has redefined how technology is delivered and consumed by the firm and its clients.

Because unfortunately what we see time and time again is that the split second a firm opts to get costs for a technology upgrade – it has already set one foot on the road to irrevocably re-committing to on-premise solutions. And once committed to investing $X, the firm is often locked in for the next five to eight-year cycle in order to amortize the Capital Expenditure (CapEx). There’s no turning back. So all I’m saying is: recognize the moment when you could take another path.

But more than that. Be aware that this moment isn’t necessarily that easy to spot. Indeed, why does it happen that firms are so likely to miss this metaphorical crossroads where a right turn embarks you on one technology journey and a left turn takes you to quite another? Well there are a couple of factors which obscure the opportunity.

The first is that, as alluded to above, smaller firms have less capacity for long-term planning and that includes strategic planning about the role and form of future technology. The consequence is that all too often decisions are essentially tactical, rather than strategic. They are point solutions to a current issue. It appears that now is the moment to upgrade the server, to invest in new processing power and greater storage/CPU capacity for the future. So you make a tactical decision to go ahead with that because there’s no overarching strategy that is guiding a different, more far-sighted course.

The second reason why managing partners and CFOs might miss the moment is because, well, there will probably be voices in the room which aren’t pointing out that you have options. Very naturally and very often there are trusted, experienced people in-house who’re comfortable with how things are and want to stick with what they know – all for the good of the firm. In turn, they’re probably aligned with select trusted tech vendors who are – naturally – promoting their primary interests (their solutions and product suites). But the net result is that options tend not to be presented. So there doesn’t seem like much of a crossroads to negotiate. In fact it’s a bit like cruising up to a traffic cop with a whistle and flags – and he’s just waving you to turn right, right, right! So the moment just flashes by – that moment where you might notice that the route to the left is clear and open and a viable option.

The road less travelled

So what is it to the left that’s so alluring? What is the “road less travelled”? It’s simply this: the option to embark on a cloud-based strategy instead of an on-premise one.

And it is a road less travelled, for now. As ILTA’s 2019 Technology Survey[1] reveals, out of 359 participating firms with 149 or fewer attorneys, just 22 per cent are using cloud-based legal technology solutions. It might be a leap but I’ll take it and say that probably the more technologically confident and advanced firms are the ones taking part in the ILTA survey in the first place. It suggests that probably fewer than 1 in 5 small and medium-sized firms as a whole are in the cloud. So far. But I don’t think it’s going to stay that way for too long given that, from the same ILTA survey and “for the upcoming year”, 68 per cent of firms with fewer than 50 attorneys plan to increase their adoption of cloud-based solutions; and 70% of firms with 50 – 149 attorneys plan the same. 

What are the advantages of being in the cloud? I’ll quickly list them. You eliminate the time and cost of an on-premise implementation, reduce IT infrastructure costs, achieve rapid utilization, and gain higher levels of data security along with greater resilience and availability, all ensuring business continuity. Upgrades will happen without cost or disruptions; systems can be accessed anytime, anywhere on any device. Capex expenditure is replaced by a monthly subscription and you have infinite elasticity to scale up or scale down as capacity is needed.

Meanwhile, with on-premise you have the capital cost, the lower resilience, availability, security and flexibility. I’ll add that one of the problematic factors is that you’ll be cajoled into a capital investment which is typically an over-investment, as you’ll be buying not only the capacity you need now, but future capacity. This flies in the face of Moore’s Law which holds that processing capacity doubles every two years even as the price halves. So you end up in expensive handcuffs while your competitors are free to take advantage of all that cloud platforms can offer.

But that cloud is probably much better for your firm isn’t really my point. To be clear, I’m merely advocating that firms don’t inadvertently shut-down their chance to properly evaluate their options before committing   spend to supporting the “status quo”: aka on-premise solutions. They should recognize the opportunity; and get an unbiased view of their options via a legitimate cost/benefit analysis (business case). Have a strategic vision for your technology investments, be aware of when there is a decision to be made and get the best advice on what it should be. Above all, recognize when you’ve come to a critical strategic crossroads.

For more information on this subject, please join us for an ILTA educational webinar on April 8^th, 2020. Register here.

Change management has become a permanent priority for Canadian businesses. Change has become a constant in the workplace, but that doesn’t make it any easier to deal with or go through.  While change for an office or organization can be good and necessary, it also can be stressful, exhausting and confusing – for everyone involved.  It is crucial to keep a positive mental attitude to be able to combat some of the hurdles you may have to overcome, one being change fatigue.  Change fatigue is the exhaustion you feel when you are pressured to make too many transitions at once, when change is rolled out too quickly or when change is continuous and poorly thought out with insufficient preparation. 

Often during times of change employees have to roll up their sleeves and put in extra time, all with a smile on their face.  While easier said than done, we can train our mind to see change as something we can cope with, adapt to and make the best of.  Suffering through change can be self-induced.  Why not make it an opportunity to learn? 

5 things to keep in mind

Stay present and keep perspective.  This will help get you through tough transition periods.  You need to be aware of your behaviours and emotions and understand that others, although experiencing the same change as you, may respond differently.  

Cultivate positivity.  This can help you manage the emotions that come along with change.   Remember positivity breeds positivity. When you are positive you tend to be more actively engaged and when others see you exude positivity, they will follow suit. If you define change as a problem you are going to find more problems.  We often get caught up in the negative aspects. If that is what you focus on, that is all you will see. 

Take accountability.  Ask yourself, how do I approach change?  Am I focusing on what has gone wrong or am I focusing on what’s working well? Am I focused on what a positive, energizing vision of the future could look like?  If you define change as an opportunity for new ideas, the focus will then become what needs to happen. The focus could be on what should happen to support the organization’s vision. How can I make this happen?

Pay attention to your words.  The kind of language you use during times of change is critical.  Negative language tends to lead to fear and confusion.  Simple phrases and words you’re using could have a negative impact, not only on the way you’re perceived by others, but on your own mind-set too.  The good news is you can change negative language into positive language. This will make you sound more confident and you will notice you feel more confident too.  Positive words strengthen areas of the brain’s frontal lobes, and promote cognitive function. In simple terms, hearing and using positive language can help you feel great—physically, mentally and emotionally.

Be proactive.  You have an integral part to play in organizational change no matter what your position.  You should strive to understand what is driving change and the desired results.  Ask yourself if there are ways you can contribute to the results.  If you have the opportunity to learn new skills, do so.  This is a great time to take initiative, get involved, seek out new solutions and ideas or volunteer for tasks or projects that arise during these times. 

Remember people generally prefer to work with positive individuals and this is especially true during times of change.  So why not make sure you are one of these people? No matter how good or bad things are, it is always the right time to focus on your strengths. The best way to manage change is to start with yourself.

While you may be thinking that there’s just not enough time in the day for writing and posting blogs to your busy firm’s website, there are many compelling reasons why you should be. Blogging isn’t just about writing informative articles or handing out free legal advice; it’s about improving your brand image, raising your firm’s profile and getting you found on page 1 on search engines like Google. What this translates to is more leads, more clients…and more revenue; it’s a proven process.

Here are the top 3 reasons why you should be posting blogs regularly: 

1. Demonstrates that your firm is an authority on legal issues

Your clients (and potential clients) have a lot of questions, so why not answer them in a blog? Writing short articles about your legal specialties and posting them to your website is proof that you are a trusted source on industry news. It also shows that you are keen to help out and share your legal insights as well as update the general public on legislative changes that may impact them. Giving a ‘high level’ overview of a topic of interest to your clients provides them with valuable information, and they’ll keep coming back for more. Good content gets forwarded to friends and family and shared on social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, giving you more visibility as a firm worth noting.

2. Gets You Found And Increases Your SEO

We all know that people are going online to search for answers to their legal questions, so why not let them find you through a well-written blog that’s chock-a-block full of those magical keywords that leads them straight to your firm? Every time you post new content, it gets scooped and ranked by search engines, and then anyone searching using those keywords will see your content. The more relevant content you post (using clever SEO practices), the better this system works. If you’re not sure about the intricacies of SEO rankings and website traffic, you can retain the services of a professional blog writer or marketing agency for blog-writing help.

3. Sets You Apart From Other Law Firms

Your law firm isn’t just a business, it’s a brand. The individuals and businesses in your region want to know that you are their local, trusted, ‘go to’ firm. Posting blog articles helps to get your voice heard and gives your firm a real presence. It shows you care enough about legal issues affecting your community to take the time to write about them and lend a hand. Now that’s good branding!

If you’re not sure where to start with your blogs, think of some of your most asked questions and write about them – in plain, non-legal language. A top 5, or top 10 list is always great, as are FAQs, changes in legislation, quick tips, rights and responsibilities, courtroom expectations, or basic advice on any range of legal issues that your firm specializes in. You can have guest writers, write a series on a trending issue, or do a sample case study; the options are endless. As long as it’s presented in a friendly, helpful tone that shows you as the expert lawyers you are, your audience will eat it up…while search engines rank you up.

As you can see, blogging is good for business. It increases your visibility, proves you have a very high level of expertise you’re willing to share, and helps you stand out from other firms. Make it a priority to invest in blogging, and you’ll soon see results in terms of increased traffic to your website, new clients and repeat business. 

At TLOMA, we provide education, professional development, mentorship, and support to our Membership. Through these initiatives, TLOMA members are offered both a professional and social network of professionals working in law firms of all sizes. To encourage members to grow their network at TLOMA, we would like to profile TLOMA members in each issue of TLOMA Today to give readers a snapshot of who we are within the legal industry.

Name: Katie Donaldson

How long have you been a member of TLOMA? Since September 2018

Where do you work? Davies

What do you enjoy most about working in the legal industry? At the heart of the legal industry is client service and I am truly passionate about delivering high quality customer service.

Describe a career accomplishment that you are particularly proud of: Living in London, England for five years was an amazing experience. I traveled all over Europe planning and delivering high quality events. The most memorable of which was a private tour and dinner of The Prado Museum in Madrid.

Where was the last place you vacationed? Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

What is your favorite sports team? Go Raptors!

What are your favorite hobbies? Travelling, cooking, reading, and spending time with friends and family

Name one thing you can't live without? My French bulldog

If you could have a 60-minute conversation with anyone (fictional, famous, not famous, etc.) – who would you choose? Fred Rogers

Describe your ideal vacation: Exploring a new country with my husband.

If you are interested in participating in the Member Spotlight feature of TLOMA Today to share some of your experiences at TLOMA, please email editor@tloma.com for more information.