29 ASIAN LEGAL BUSINESS – OCTOBER 2023 WWW.LEGALBUSINESSONLINE.COM ROUNDTABLE The role brings a number of advantages for law firms, including driving a culture of collaboration and continuous improvement, uplifting legal technology capability (including the recent focus on generative AI), better client experiences and cost savings, and the ability to respond to client expectations for innovative legal solutions, as well as creating an innovative, forward-thinking culture that attracts top talent. ALB: From your understanding of the market, particularly at traditional law firms, what are some of the challenges they face when looking to innovate, and what would you suggest would be the ways to overcome these? Allgrove: There are two main barriers. One is talent-related, and one is structural. The talent barrier results from the law being an expert profession. The legal services market is built around selling expertise, not services. True innovation requires a shift from the former to the latter. The structural barrier is the partnership + billable hour business model. It limits the ability to invest in medium to long-term returns. Overcoming these will take time. As I said previously, it is a model that has delivered very impressive returns for some time now. There is also a third barrier, which is less often talked about: the demand side. There is no doubt that there is client demand for things to change. But the buying patterns are clear evidence that either that demand is not translating to changed buying behaviour or that there is, in fact, not yet a viable competitor for the majority of what is currently provided via traditional models. That will change; but until it does, supply side innovation will always be constrained. Voo: While innovation is important for law firms to remain competitive by meeting evolving client needs, some traditional firms face significant barriers that inhibit change. In Asia, some exhibit riskaverse traits where established practices are preferred over experimentation with new ideas. Implementing gradual and incremental changes, along with actively developing use cases by lawyers, has proven to be advantageous. Furthermore, emphasising the importance of listening to client feedback can contribute to positive outcomes. In addition to external factors, law firms often face internal resistance to change from lawyers who are accustomed to existing workflows. This resistance can pose challenges to implement innovative practices. Moreover, the prevailing billable hour systems commonly used in firms can discourage value-added work and limit the time available for lawyers to develop new skills. These operating models present significant obstacles that need to be addressed in order to foster a culture of innovation within the firm. The presence of established processes and a reluctance to take investment risks can often hinder innovation within law firms. It is possible to overcome these barriers by fostering cultures that are tolerant of failure and effectively communicating a vision for the future through change management initiatives. Providing incentives, hiring experts, and allocating dedicated budgets to support strategic pilot projects before firm-wide rollouts are also effective strategies. Asay: A big challenge is where to focus. If not careful, every problem can become a project. To overcome this, I suggest a listening tour. The benefits include: (1) gaining a greater understanding of the firm’s business and clients so you can predict the likelihood of success and impact of initiatives, (2) identifying the outsized challenges and opportunities that warrant attention, and (3) finding people and resources in unlikely areas of the firm that can expedite your path to success. I also suggest saying, “not now, but we’ll keep it in mind” and operationalising a project management system to track all ideas. Other common challenges include dealing with bureaucracy to get projects approved/funded and soliciting bandwidth from others needed to bring your vision to life (e.g., IT). To overcome these, I’d circle back to empathy. Sandler: The perceived value of innovation can remain a barrier for some stakeholders in the legal industry. When I started my role as chief innovation and knowledge officer, I knew there was a hurdle in gaining the support of the partnership to advance G+T’s client service model and achieve its strategic objective to position itself in the market as a leading innovative law firm. To get our partnership and people invested, we needed to “sell’ our vision for innovation and instil a belief that we could deliver on what was an evolution of our existing business model. The firm needed to be confident that the investment in LSI and associated legal technology would result in a suitable ROI from both realising efficiencies and generating goodwill with clients and incremental revenue. A vision and mindset certainly helped garner that initial support, but it was ultimately the establishment of a culture at G+T that has kept their support. Clients also expect their elite law firms to leverage the latest technology and deliver efficient legal solutions, which has supported the internal drive for innovation. Another barrier to innovation is access to time-poor lawyers to work on strategic innovation projects. Amongst other initiatives, we implemented ‘Project Invigorate’, an initiative allowing lawyer’s hours on innovation to be counted as billable work. This signalled to our lawyers a significant cultural shift in how we incentivise innovation. Taking your people on such a journey of transformation is a deeply rewarding challenge. Jonathan Voo Alma Asay Caryn Sandler Ben Allgrove
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjA0NzE4Mw==