Peer to Peer Magazine

18 L et's face it: The traditional image of the corporate CEO or law firm managing partner no longer mirrors the reality at many organizations. Professionals rarely stay in jobs for 20 years, awaiting a gold watch and sizable pension. Talented attorneys and staff frequently move to new firms to get more experience and higher salaries. Remote working is on the rise, requiring a new management skill set altogether. New generations are entering (and running!) law firms, populated by a diverse set of professionals. Collaboration is quickly gaining ground as an extremely important component of a healthy work environment. Changes like these affect not only your firm, but your clients, their expectations and how you work with them as well. In short, the old-fashioned stern leader of few words doesn't survive long in a world where accessibility, collaboration and shared goals bring success. Modern leadership is a rapidly evolving discipline influenced by a wide array of phenomena like work preferences and styles, younger generations and diversity. Senior leaders and management must constantly "refresh" their views on leadership through education, feedback and more in order to achieve optimal results. Technolo – specifically the cloud – can help law firm leaders excel. It has become a valuable tool for current and emerging leaders open to exploring new ways of achieving their goals. Through the cloud, law firm leaders can improve flexibility and access, reduce infrastructure and support costs, improve security and focus more on the law and running their practice areas and firm and less on IT. Advantages of the Cloud There are many ways that law firms can strengthen leadership with the cloud, including means to increase the effectiveness of a leadership team, build more productive attorneys and staff, improve client service and strongly differentiate themselves from other firms. 1 . C R E AT I N G L I M I T L E S S B O U N D A R I E S Without a cloud-based system, lawyers and law firms are tethered to places and spaces by hardware and software. The cloud empowers lawyers to work anywhere while allowing for seamless collaboration. That means law firm leaders can recruit top talent in other markets to operate remotely, without having to relocate and uproot lives to join a firm. The user experience through the cloud remains the same, and all the files and programs that your attorneys need are accessible from anywhere. That makes it an invaluable tool for recruiting leaders and helping them build the strongest possible teams. The cloud is also highly scalable so that teams can build or consolidate quickly and efficiently. There is no need for the executive committee or practice heads to shy away from taking major cases or opening new areas out of concerns that they won't be able to ramp up fast enough or handle the workload. 2 . O N B O A R D I N G Say that you have hired an outstanding leader for the firm's newest practice group. It's critical to get that leader up and running as soon as possible. This is another area where the cloud improves efficiencies since Ten Ways the Cloud Boosts Law Firm Leadership B Y J O E K E L LY B E S T P R A C T I C E S Collaboration is quickly gaining ground as an extremely important component of a healthy work environment.

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