Stop Locking Away Your Best Business Asset

Quentin Birchall, Regional Director – North, avsnet

Legal firms are casting off a long-suffered stereotype; one of stuffy offices, mountains of paperwork and restrictive cubicles.

Technological innovation is transforming this industry, but many are getting left behind. New, open collaborative workspaces are now on the agenda – a change that’s happening for numerous reasons. To start, the industry is on a collective drive to eliminate excess cost and improve efficiency.

As the senior partners amongst us already know, profits are being squeezed by various threats like new regulation, increased market competitiveness and the economic instability created by Brexit.

This means that law firms are having to drive efficiencies, build new revenue streams and explore innovative ways of working.

Subtle changes to business processes can have big consequences after all. Some firms are proof of this claim and have extended their competitive advantage with a simple tweak in how they structure their business and leverage technology.

These organisations are essentially unleashing the full power of one crucial business asset that is often unintentionally locked away.

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So, what is this secret weapon that can stem the effects of disruption plaguing the sector? 

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It’s your senior partners… Yes, most likely you…

Senior partners are what separate legal winners from losers! However, traditionally at most firms, senior staff work in private offices, earned after years of toiling in junior positions.

Yet by locking away all this knowledge and insight, junior staff are being starved of the expertise they need to advance their own personal development and empower your firm to succeed.

This is why many legal workplaces are changing physically and culturally.

Innovative firms are going open plan to close this gap, helped by new collaboration solutions that simplify knowledge sharing, drive productivity and increase billable hours.

The most successful firms undertaking this transformation have, however, recognised that a blanket approach isn’t necessarily a silver bullet. Instead, activity-based collaborative environments are a more effective choice – smart, technology-enabled spaces built to enable whatever the task at hand is.

This could still be a private office, though one equipped with secure visual communications to enable senior partners to collaborate with colleagues and clients wherever they are in the world.

Alternatively, it could be a designated space for casework with an embedded collaboration solution so barristers can capture and share lines of enquiry easier, or perhaps a training room that functions as a video enabled private meeting space as well.

Essentially every workspace should be agile, one that lets colleagues come together swiftly to produce exceptional work for clients faster.

These micro and huddle spaces are easily attainable with the latest generation of collaboration solutions and are now easier to use, highly secure and comparatively cheap compared to systems of yesteryear!

Change is always a challenge, but if legal firms are to survive, change there must be, so…

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…Empower your Senior Partners, Embrace Technological Evolution
and Increase Your Billable Hours.

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If this is something you want for your law firm, let me know and I’d be happy to help.