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I L T A N E T . O R G
Senior leaders that embrace innovation will help
foster change throughout the firm.
At the end of the day, I want to work with
law firms that want to work with me. I don't
want to be a burden or an imposition within a
law firm. Big or small, I want to dig deep into a
firm's problems and try and tackle whatever
issues they face together. I want the incorporation
of MinuteBox within a law firm's workflow to be
a mutually beneficial experience that creates a
strong relationship of trust and understanding.
James' Observations
Thanks for those great insights,
Sean. I think it's valuable to see
what attributes generally correlate
with innovative law firms. Still,
sometimes firms with the attributes
you covered still remain ineffective
when it comes to preparing for the
future. Why? I think that beyond
these attributes one must consider
the circumstances within a firm. The
proper circumstances allow these
attributes to have the desired effect, or not.
For example, consider David Maister's
observation that expertise-based work is on the
opposite end of the spectrum from efficiency-
based work – and that "every aspect of a practice
group's affairs, from practice development to
hiring, from economic structure to governance,
will be affected by its relative positioning on
this spectrum." There is unavoidable tension
between innovation efforts, which generally aim
at efficiency, and law firms taking pride in their
specialized expertise. Even if you have the right
attributes in place, so many lawyers and others
will be operating strictly to optimize expertise.
One type of positioning is not inherently
better than the other. But if a firm cannot adapt
its business model to help users justify using
efficiency-based innovations then it will be nearly
impossible for them to do so. While it might
appear from your end that certain law firms are
effective or ineffective based on certain attributes,
my experience working within these firms
tells me something deeper is going on within
firms, whether they realize it or not. As change
management expert John Kotter points out: "we
underestimate the subtle and systematic forces
that exist in virtually all organizations".
Being proactive about risk
To your point, risk is always present. But I'm
not sure if a firm's risk tolerance is a reliable
indicator for finding correct solutions. As Clayton
Christensen points out: "many of the executives
who have been unable to create sustained
corporate growth have evidenced a strong
stomach for risk". If there's not much correlation
between risk tolerance and sustained growth in
business generally, it's safe to assume the same
goes for law firms.
Consider a firm that has decided to
proactively manage risk: how does it accurately
assess those risks? The problem with large
firms seeking growth is that the exciting growth
markets of tomorrow are small today. Even if a
firm wants to pursue a certain opportunity, its size
and business model can still make it impossible to
justify doing so.
Even though firms are indeed
aware of industry trends and have
smart people working on preparing
for the future, an organization's
size and business model can skew
its perception of risk. So no matter
how much a firm might understand
it needs to change, it cannot justify
doing so given the constraints it has
built for itself. As Christensen puts
it: "[Disruption] is not a story of
incompetence. It is a story of perfectly
rational, profit-maximizing decisions."
Streamlined Processes for Implementing
New Technolo
As someone who works in innovation, I know
that at times it can indeed feel like there aren't
any processes. Some firms are better at this than
others, but every law firm already has processes
for implementing and managing new technolo.
Given the amount of technolo involved in every
law firm (e-billing, document management system,
accounting software, laptops and mobile devices,
"Having an innovation
fund doesn't guarantee a
firm will invest in the right
technology."
