Data visibility for law firms: internal change for external transparency

‘Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.’ At first, this quote from life and business guru Tony Robbins might have an introverted, personal development quality to it. When I saw it recently on my LinkedIn feed however, it struck me as particularly relevant to the legal market right now.

I was doing my usual scroll through LinkedIn on a morning commuter train into Waterloo station and thought - it’s true, we know the legal market is changing – client demands are increasing and new competition continues to enter the market, and if we all had a pound for every time we saw an article that began to that effect – we would have enough for personal coaching with Tony himself.

A big influencing factor to change being inevitable is development in technology – and perhaps we are missing the reality in the legal space, that most firms are failing to take advantage of the change for future optimal growth.

Two legal tech trends getting a lot of airtime in 2020 predictions are productivity and profitability technologies – and how these can be used to maximise client service.

Despite industry pressures, the fact remains that legal advice will always be a service in high demand and clients will continue to pay for what they believe is of value to them. So how can law firms take advantage of the technology available to them to optimise client service, and ensure they stay at the forefront of their client’s legal procurement needs?

Let’s look at productivity to begin with. According to the latest PWC Law Firms’ Survey, ‘for the third consecutive year, the top priority for business support is “improving the use of technology”. From our interactions with law firms, I would interpret this as a need for increased visibility around the support offered to lawyers internally.

Like parallel parking a car without any mirrors, manoeuvring support services to facilitate fee-earner needs has traditionally happened from learned behaviours, or anecdotal requests. Support teams are ‘busy’ and ‘overstretched’ – but rarely do team leaders really know what ‘busy’ actually looks like. Add in some mirrors or parking sensors – in the form of data analytics – and the whole process can be streamlined from start to finish.

Likewise, the need for firms to look under the bonnet from a financial aspect is not only needed for firms to achieve profitable growth – but to provide the holy grail of client transparency. Our recent cash-flow research revealed that in the UK, the majority of firms believe WIP to have the biggest effect on lock up in their firm, yet only 20% of respondents said that the Partners in their firm had access to WIP data.

Indeed, the Operational Health Check 2020 report from The Lawyer states that several Top 200 firms have reported an increase in WIP over the last five years, despite some having seen a decrease in overall lock up. Surely providing data visibility to the people who can affect change in the firm should be imperative.

We live in a world of demand – and as technology continues to feed our appetite for instant gratification, so will the need for client transparency grow in the legal industry. Business Intelligence, it seems, is the key to real growth. Internal visibility of key operational and financial blind spots, is the enabler for external client transparency to build trust and top-notch service levels.