How has remote working transformed the legal sector?

Finance and tech: a match made in heaven?

It seems there is no conversation among legal business management leaders that doesn’t include at least one mention of technology. And with 82% of those leaders saying their firms have moderately or significantly increased technology spend in 2024, according to the latest Briefing/HSBC UK report, it’s safe to say that its popularity within the legal sector will only grow.

While legal tech promises an increase in efficiency and productivity, implementing more solutions also brings brand new challenges to the table for all legal business management areas, including the finance function. These problems were the main theme of discussion among several CFOs and FDs from Kingsley Napley, Shoosmiths, Boult Wade Tennant, CMS, Payne Hucks Beach, Clyde & Co, Birketts, Harbottle & Lewis, and Kilburn & Strode who attended one of Briefing’s recent roundtables in October, co-hosted with expense management specialist Emburse.

The price is right — or is it?

Among the top challenges is the pricing conundrum — how do you price your services accordingly, as automation and technology become more embedded in legal work?

This is something that finance leaders are still trying to grasp and solve. Several attendees noted they’re still struggling to “work the science around pricing” to pull themselves up the value chain, to ensure they consistently price work properly — and even with being willing (even happy!) to turn down unprofitable work.

Picking the best tool for the job

Another key challenge is choosing the right solution from the myriad available in the market — a job that can sometimes be made harder by IT teams who may not grasp the specific tech needs of a lawyer. Things also become more complicated for firms that do not have a traditional hierarchical structure, as one expert claimed most solutions available in the legal market do not cater to these particular firms.

While there’s no one-size-fits-all approach, everyone agrees that it is essential to understand the law firm’s, and individual lawyers’, goals and needs to identify and procure the right tech solutions for them. However, one expert noted that firms do not necessarily need to chase the ‘best’ or most cutting-edge technology to achieve a boost in productivity and efficiency, arguing a sub-optimal solution might actually be more beneficial if it works best for the law firm and its lawyers.

Selecting the right tech tools for your firm also brings another burning question — is it better to pick a one-stop-shop provider, or fit multiple smaller tech solutions “around the edge” to complement a law firm’s existing primary? system? Once again, no one “right way” was identified — although a tendency to gravitate towards the latter option was noted.

Smartphones: a useful productivity tool or an ethical trap?

As the discussion revolved around different solutions currently in use, one particular tool emerged as a popular choice: none other than the good old mobile phone.

With several lawyers using these devices for various activities, such as billing and time reporting — especially when it comes to the younger generations, who are more phone and tech-savvy — finance leaders noted that mobiles can be useful tools in a law firm’s tech arsenal. They could also prove valuable in the hunt for data, particularly ESG information collection, such as using a phone’s GPS tracking to calculate a lawyer’s carbon footprint.

However, this also brought potential dangers into focus and reinforced the need for lawyers to have a separate work phone in case of an audit. Moreover, using mobile devices for ESG data collection could potentially become an ethical trap, if law firms cannot find the balance between getting the data without becoming Big Brother.

The ESG hunt

The versatility and convenience of phones for carbon footprint data collection then steered the conversation towards the topic of ESG more generally, and how technology can help firms accurately and efficiently report their ESG data. Leaders agreed that tech tools offer a massive opportunity for their suppliers, particularly those developing AI tools.

However, not all firms represented have ESG as a priority on their agenda, with some still viewing it as a tick-box exercise. One expert claimed some may soon face the day of reckoning, as clients are becoming more focused on ESG — thus making it more important for firms to report reliable stats — and the impending regulatory wave will eventually hit.

As ESG grows in importance, data collection and reporting will become a bigger task, and one that is not solely for the operations function to solve. Finance also has a key role to play, and must collaborate with operations team to make it happen.

This brings one more question to the table: is the CFO role now turning into a ‘chief value officer’ position as finance leaders take on additional operations responsibilities — particularly in firms without a formal COO? While the finance leader certainly already does more than number-crunching, the chance of this wider evolution remains to be seen, and may take a few years to come to fruition.

Thirsty for more valuable insight? Make sure you check out our latest issues of Briefing, available through our app. 

Creating vibrant places: How law firms can help shape communities

In an era marked by dynamic societal shifts, urbanisation and evolving community needs, the concept of a vibrant place can be a crucial element in shaping the fabric of our country. Investing in and advocating for them can enable us to lay the groundwork for a sustainable and prosperous future.

For the current government, economic growth is imperative and the development of vibrant places — tailored to address the unique needs of different regions — will be essential in achieving this critical goal. And as responsible businesses, law firms can play a vital role in driving this positive change.

Understanding vibrant places

Our Creating Vibrant Places report, in collaboration with Anthropy, was developed through a collective effort involving a diverse panel of experts from multiple sectors. It also incorporates data from a survey of 1,241 people to understand public attitudes towards their living and work environments.

The report simplifies the notion of a vibrant place, maps out the opportunities they present, looks at the barriers to their realisation, and outlines targeted asks of central and local government, businesses and individuals to enable their creation.

Key findings

Despite acknowledging government and local authority investment as a barrier, the public predominantly places the responsibility for creating vibrant places on these public bodies.

Less than half (46%) of respondents consider their residential areas vibrant and even fewer (33%) perceive their workplaces as such. Greater London is the only place where respondents believe their workplaces are more vibrant than where they live.

Factors contributing to vibrant places include transport services and green spaces, both for workplaces and residential areas. Leisure, hospitality and entertainment, and housing are also seen as crucial elements.

Proposed solutions

Creating vibrant places requires a concerted effort from central and local governments, businesses and individuals, and the report proposes several targeted solutions.

One significant approach is conducting a full review of the broken business rates system. The Netherlands successfully overhauled its system in the mid-90s — demonstrating that it is possible to transform a centralised, slow and overly-complex system into an agile and fair tax that considers local conditions and rewards local economic growth.

The importance of investing in full-fibre broadband networks to increase digital connectivity and support economic growth and social inclusion is also emphasised, as is revisiting planning obligations and adapting licensing laws to create safe spaces for young people.

The role of law firms

Law firms can significantly influence the development of vibrant places by advocating for policies that support their creation and working closely with local governments to shape legislation that promotes sustainable urban development, fair business practices and community wellbeing. Supporting entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses by offering information, opportunities and debate helps them navigate legal challenges, contributing to their evolution and stability.

Implementing robust CSR programmes that focus on community engagement and volunteering, adopting sustainable practices within their operations, and encouraging clients to do the same, can also have a positive impact — while mentoring young people, offering internships and providing educational workshops can develop the next generation of legal professionals and strengthen community ties.

Greater London is the only place where respondents believe their workplaces are more vibrant than where they live.

Empowered working and social mobility are additional areas where firms can make a substantial difference. By creating jobs in regions where a career in law might not have been seen as a viable option, and hiring individuals to work locally in empowered, hybrid or remote roles, firms can distribute legal expertise more evenly across the country.

This approach not only prevents the concentration of talent in major cities like London but also supports local vibrant communities by retaining young talent and enabling individuals, such as carers or young mothers, to re-enter the workforce through flexible working policies.

With the expertise, resources and influence to drive significant positive change in their communities, firms should embrace their role as responsible businesses to help create vibrant places that are sustainable, inclusive and prosperous for all.

Reduce your firms administrative burden during onboarding by process automation

n spite of the compelling reasons that motivate firms to move to a centralised process model, many struggle with staffing decisions or securing the buy-in to support a change. In a recent webinar poll of general counsel and conflicts and risk professionals from firms of all sizes, 33% were not yet centralised and said they’d like to adopt the model. But unsurprisingly, there was a split between those without management budget or buy-in and those unsure of the best way to design and implement it.

Many firms looking to centralise are considering significant investments in technology. There are several key vendors in the legal technology market, particularly for onboarding clients and new business intake. But investment in technology isn’t necessarily inexpensive.

Make the benefits known
Making a case for investment is about bringing the benefits to the attention of senior management. In a partner-driven firm, it isn’t easy to justify significant expenditure that erodes partners’ capital. You need to be able to demonstrate the kinds of benefits a product can offer.

Embed intelligence in the process
One good example, which many firms are pursuing, is the ability to embed third-party technology in the client-onboarding process. Manual data retrieval processes are quite a heavy administrative burden during the onboarding process, but a lot of tasks can be reduced through process automation. For example, firms can embed system access to corporate tree and beneficial owners’ data through third-party providers such as Bureau van Dijk (BvD) and Dun & Bradstreet (D&B). This can build a strong business case. The goal is to leverage information, but in a seamless way, so you can easily surface that information to people throughout the process. And the technology these days is a lot more flexible and adaptable to changes in business needs.

Automate where possible
Another example is meeting outside counsel guidelines. Firms may spend many hours a year trying to straighten out and understand this process. If it can be embedded within the client-onboarding process, it’s a lot more straightforward and easier to understand, and you develop consistency. There are suitable technologies that allow firms of all sizes to manage the process very efficiently as part of the client-onboarding process.

Investing in technology, risk model, and your staffing strategy is critical for the operational success of your business processes. Regardless of the approach and route to success, demonstrate that investment will enable the firm to leverage additional information and make the process that much more efficient.

This article was taken from Briefing November/December 2020 – Alert to change. Read the full publication here.

Christopher Young from Pinnacle gives guidance on how to be risk-ready for 2021

Within risk and compliance, our observation would be that firms are doing a good job of undertaking the risk assessments as they take on matters – conflicts and anti-money laundering (AML) assessments are getting ever more robust, and while AML evidence-gathering can be tedious and time-consuming, it is being completed. To achieve this, we have a powerful tool – the releasing of the matter number. As risk and compliance specialists, we do have a potential hold over fee-earning teams – don’t issue a matter number until they have done all that they need to do. While this works at matter inception, however, it doesn’t help with ongoing risk management.

We are seeing an increasing number of firms looking to understand and manage risk through the lifecycle of the matter. It has always been an obligation to identify changes, but now it’s about the difference between risk assessment and risk management. Risk assessment is a point-in-time action, whereas risk management means the identification of risks and understanding of changes in parameters over time as things evolve or more information is discovered.

We also know that risk and compliance teams are stretched for resources. This means most flag things they see as high risk at the outset, add them to a list, and monitor the items on that list. The challenge here is that being added to the list for monitoring relies on the quality of the data that is input initially – but matters inevitably change as lawyers are executing them.

It’s why more firms are asking us to use some of the new technologies available to review inflight matters dynamically. We have had one Tiger Team that has been working to ‘silently’ initiate an ‘add party to matter’ process based on the contents of legal documents as they are being drafted. The lawyer does the lawyerly thing, drafting the document in Word and adding parties as they need to. On saving, the document is then assessed to determine whether all parties in the document are already linked to the matter. If there has been an addition, an add-party-to-matter request is automatically and silently created. A new conflict search is run, and only highlighted to the risk team if new hits are generated.

We have also been sharing the outputs of two other Tiger Teams – one that has been developing a risk-reporting content pack, the other, new ‘Actionable Insights’, which means embedding simple instruction forms and action buttons into reports. The user no longer has to go into another system to do whatever the dashboard is highlighting – initiate a bill, perform a risk check, or add a calendar entry. Instead, it allows you to turn reporting from FYI to FYA – ‘for your action’ – and to fundamentally accelerate the speed at which your firm gains and acts on insights.

There are truly exciting developments going on in the technology arena – things appear to be becoming cheaper and quicker to deliver. Risk teams need to capitalise on this movement. Having captured considerable savings in office space use, travel, and other costs, do we now seize this moment to focus on automating the identification of risks within firms? The ultimate prize – reducing the inherent risks of running a professional services advisory business – is surely too big to pass up.

This article was taken from Briefing November/December 2020 – Alert to change. Read the full publication here.

Pressure pointers

Keith Froud, international managing partner, Eversheds Sutherland, and Dr Rob Archer, director of Cognacity, explain why they’re training lawyers to achieve a mindset commonly found among professional tennis players.

Almost two years after launching a firm-wide wellbeing programme in May 2018, Eversheds Sutherland has now rolled out an organisation called Cognacity’s ‘Sustaining peak performance’ workshops in the UK.

Cognacity’s Performing under pressure programme combines preventative mental health expertise from its clinic and the performance focus from elite sport. The programme, built on principles taken from cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), empowers people with awareness and reflection tools. These therapeutic approaches are adapted to build resilience – essential techniques to enable a workforce to perform under pressure and sustain high levels of performance in a way that does not compromise its mental health.

Research shows recurring themes relating to poor lawyer wellbeing, including long hours, poor work-life balance, perfectionism and overachievement, as well as a cultural stigma around mental health difficulties in law firms. The aim of Cognacity’s workshops is to enable legal professionals to move beyond survival mode – to thrive.

There is a difference between ‘pressure’ and ‘stress’, and understanding this difference helps us to respond proportionately to the event we are experiencing and protect our emotional resources. An example of this might be focusing on the elements of a situation within our control, rather than wasting energy trying to control the uncontrollable.

Pressure is our response to an external event imposed upon us – whether a fast-approaching deadline or presenting in front of senior colleagues. The intensity of the physical, emotional, and psychological demands is largely subjective – two different individuals can tackle the same event with completely different levels of pressure. One can even create more pressure by imagining consequences if things don’t go according to plan.

Stress on the other hand is a physiological response: a flood of hormones cause increased heart rate, sweating, and a nervous feeling. The level of stress generated by a specific situation depends on whether a person perceives the situation as a threat – rather than the threat being objective.

Eversheds Sutherland understands that its people work in an increasingly high-performance, and often pressured, environment – so the programme supports in achieving high performance levels in a way that is sustainable and doesn’t result in stress.

Read the full story in Briefing April 2020, here.