How in-house counsel can help improve things at firms

  1. In-house Lawyer A sees a lot of law firms ASSUMING stuff (timelines, responsiveness, etc.) - lots of lawyers self-imposing stuff. In-house Lawyer A will say - I dont want junior doing it on weekend, etc.
  2. If law firms are better at ASKING about urgency, they can avoid these false deadlines. If they just ask, most clients will say not urgent. That might be key to law firms feeling comfortable
  3. Maybe level-setting with clients about how they want us to handle stuff - vacations, etc. 2-way conversations and encourage that. Have in-house people encourage that behaviour
  4. Stigma/fears - firms are afraid of what they will lose if they actually embrace some of these things
  5. In House Lawyer B: law firms/lawyers feel 24/7 availability is table stakes. Can some clients encourage some of this - we dont want people doing this stuff?
  6. What else can in-house counsel do that is creative to apply pressure (eg you must do X, we wont work with you if you dont do Y (incl participate in this initative), etc.

Firms believing they’re doing a good job

  1. How much do firms actually know about how people feel? What would they do differently if they knew this stuff? Believing they are unique?
  2. Lots of nodding when I talked about this
  3. And how do you get people to be honest?
  4. But Participant A really believes they are aware of issues; but that if they roll out stuff, then they've done their job. They end it after they do 1 initiative (DEI webpage, initaitve, etc.) - They think they're done. Too much patting themselves on their back. Not enough actual programming
  5. At the end of the day, if we cant focus on making change at the top, then all we’ll do is address symptoms at the individual level, and that just means playing whack-a-mole - wont help reduce the underlying issues

Firms Actually Struggling to tackle these issues (and acknowledging it internally)

  1. Participant B - she thinks a lot of law firms are struggling with this BUT dont know what to do. Most probably know there are issues and they might care - but they dont know what to do
  2. Need tools/resources/tips for law firms - including managers/leaders at these firms who are in that role and are not good at their jobs/understand this stuff
  3. So how can we SUPPORT them. How can we help firms implement all the stuff we want to do. We can talk about worklife balance all day - but they need ideas/tips/resources on how to implement
  4. Fear of not having enough work/losing clients ; not realizing there’s a triple-bottom line approach here
  5. Need more alignment on short-term and long-term thinking; need to prioritize long-term also
  6. KPIs for firms? Benchmark something?
  7. For lawyers dealing with individual clients (not business clients)- very different pressures - be mindufl of that too
    1. Biglaw vs. small law; litigation vs. not; different types of clients