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Julian Uebergang Managing Director Asia Pacific, Neotalogic |
There are some degrees of cynicism when another law firm issues another press release regarding the next step on their innovation pathway. The latest foray into “Blockchain”, “Artificial Intelligence”, “Design Thinking” and “Smart Contracts” are touted as game changers placing their firm at the forefront of the re-invention of the profession.
The truth is that the profession isn’t being re-invented. Firms are delivering record profits, but with lawyers’ job satisfaction at an alltime low, and declining customer net-promoter scores, something must change.
What is innovation
The “innovation by press release” mantra indicates that firms understand the benefit of innovation and clients are seeking enhanced service delivery. So where are things breaking down?
The inhibiting factor may be a lack of understanding of the term “Innovation” and what it means to be innovative. To innovate is to explore creative ways of improving an existing process as opposed to “invention” which is to create something new. The art of innovation is to focus on self-improvement which in turn provides a richer client experience.
Legal services are transactional in nature, and many law firms see innovation as a single event. “We create something innovative and we charge you for it”. To focus on innovation as a transaction fails to realise the broader opportunity that is presented.
An approach to successful innovation
Law firms are starting to understand that innovation is a mindset that needs to be embedded culturally into the organisation for it deliver real benefit. Lawyers are beginning to open their minds to the opportunity and engage a mix of skills to achieve a tangible outcome.
Streamlining ways for clients to engage with firms may represent a significant opportunity to increase client satisfaction. Importantly, the opportunity to co-create solutions with clients can deliver untold benefits to the client/firm relationship. An exercise leveraging multidisciplinary skills such as legal, process, user experience, product and technology to create a streamlined solution may result in clients choosing to brief your firm rather than competitors. “If you make it easy for clients to come to you, they will come to you more often” is the hypothesis for this approach.
That’s one example, but the point is that there are some fundamental points law firms should consider when approaching their innovation strategy:
Realising the value of innovation
Defining the value of an innovation initiative is something that law firms are starting to grasp as a measure of success. Recognising that clients do not come to law firms for their innovation expertise is an important point. You shouldn’t charge for innovation the same way your charge for legal service delivery, innovation should be seen as a way to enable your customers to more easily do business with you. If you succeed in delivering on this, clients will come to you more readily than go to competitors. This, of course, is the true value of an innovation initiative.
There are several ways firms can provide streamlined services to clients to deliver real value:
Firms should also seek to create solutions that are re-usable across multiple clients or sectors. For example, “A Marketing Approvals Advisor” is a generically applicable solution. The subtleties of the approval checklist will differ across clients, but the broad approach is the same potentially increasing the value of the solution created.
The way forward
True innovation is an important competitive advantage for any law firm. Recognising that the art of innovation needs to be culturally embedded into the firm and not just sit with an “innovation manager” will help ensure success.
A multidisciplinary approach is an important component of the innovation process to connect pain points to the right outcome. Understanding how to derive value from your innovation initiatives will help determine the investment required, both in terms of money and time.
Those firms that have a strategy incorporating these key elements will better position themselves for the future of legal service delivery