Canadian Lawyer InHouse

to initiate or accelerate innovation processes within their firms. But yes, by and large, innovation efforts are given very small budgets. Moreover, these efforts are often subject to more stringent ROI demands than, say, the partners' budget for enter- taining clients. But that just means you need to pick your initiatives carefully, since one or two early fail- ures can be fatal. LB: We've found that success comes from starting small. If you try to change everything at once about the law firm or the law department, the resistance will stop you in your tracks. So we identified a few very specific areas of our firm where we felt confident we could make head- way. In these core areas we have been focusing on automated docu- ment assembly, pricing analyses, and process mapping to produce scalable tools that we can rollout firm wide. The key to the whole effort was to get some quick victories under our belt. Once we could show that we'd successfully undertaken a new initiative that created some identifiable value, we gained credibility among the firm's decision-makers and bought ourselves more time and political capital. Prece- dent is very important to lawyers: show them a few successful examples, and buy-in becomes a lot easier and more widespread. JF: Agreed. I've gotten more accom- plished with lawyers using the words "pilot project" than you might think possible. PS: Not everyone will buy into the innovation effort. How do you deal with people who aren't prepared to engage in your innovation, or who actively oppose it? JF: This is a challenge for law firms on many fronts, especially on core issues like partner compensation and origination credit: it's asking a lot for lawyers to look beyond their own interests and think of the firm at large. Even law departments, with a more corporate culture, still have pockets of stiff resistance among senior counsel: these are lawyers, after all, and they don't welcome change with open arms. If the resis- tance comes from a political heavy- weight, the job is that much harder. The two key elements to suc- cess here are leadership and culture, which are intertwined. When com- mitment to the change initiative is clearly and directly demonstrated by leadership — not only nominal lead- ers like managing partners and gen- eral counsel, but also "opinion lead- ers" like rainmakers and corner-office dwellers — resistance is lessened. And if you have a culture that pri- oritizes the enterprise and its clients over individual lawyers, your job is easier again. Conversely, a "me-first" culture is a significant challenge to innovation. LB: I agree that firm culture is critical to success. We have taken strides in this area by changing our compensation criteria to incorporate valuable contri- butions in practice innovation. We've also employed other strategies such as creating a Practice Innovation Depart- ment, striking an innovation committee composed of influential partners firm- wide, engaging our board members, management team, and client service team leaders in our initiatives, and have set up an internal blog to promote our successes. Our long-term goal is to develop a culture of continuous improvement where our lawyers and staff are always looking to improve the way we work to enhance client value. This is also where those early small wins can play a part. It's harder for a skeptical partner to shoot down a change effort when you can show, especially in terms of dollars or client satisfaction, that a previous initia- tive has clearly paid off. Lawyers like hard evidence, so make sure you have some on hand. PS: What are the major trends you're seeing in in-house and law firm innovation? Where do you see this whole area evolving over the next five years? LB: The pace of change is accelerating; there's no question in my mind about that. Just in my time as CEO of Stew- art McKelvey, I've seen a marked shift in how businesses buy legal services, and I don't think we're going back to the old days. So we need to look beyond the simple question of what services we offer our clients; we need to think about how those services are being delivered. That looks to me like the next big opportunity for law firms to stand apart. JF: I think that's a critical point. Law firms have to think about the design of their firms, what you could call the "user experience." What's it like for someone to deal with the firm? Where are the bottlenecks and pain points; and conversely, where does everything flow smoothly and quickly? And the same goes for law departments: how easy or difficult is it for your internal business clients to access Legal's offer- ings? The user's assessment of your effectiveness will increasingly include how well or how poorly the user felt served throughout. Beyond that, I expect to see the whole field of legal operations con- tinue to make real headway, first within law departments and eventu- ally within law firms. "Legal Ops" is all about enhancing the effectiveness and productivity of the legal function, through the application of systems, processes, analytics and technology. The growth of Legal Ops is ulti- mately going to have a transformative effect on how much work law depart- ments send to outside counsel, and what kind. LB: We believe strongly that the future is going to belong to those law firms that recognize how much every- thing is changing and that respond to it fastest and most effectively. We can't accept "business as usual" in law firms any longer, because our clients won't accept it. I really think we're on the brink of major change in the legal services world.

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