#macushlaw + #Notion - Why, What and How

Since we posted about our tech stack and started interacting with other firms using, or interested in using, Notion , we thought it might be helpful to expand on how we're using it to operate our unique practice platform to save time, increase operational efficiency and improve our ability to deliver on our financial and public interest aims.

Special thanks to Renno & Co , Dhawal Tank , Samandeep S. , Beth Young , Allison Morrell , Eli Zbar , Spencer Keys, TEP JD and others for sharing, stimulating, encouraging and contributing to the industry's collective growth and development in tech adoption. It's an exciting time :)

Tech Stack Dovetailing

A great tech stack is like a great cocktail. You need to have the right proportions, high quality and fresh ingredients, a discerning customer and a half decent bartender to bring the whole experience together.

We often hear from other firms that they are looking for a 'one stop shop' for technology, but that's not how the distributed nature of legal tech works.

Our philosophy certainly includes limiting the number of unnecessary or duplicative programs, but we view technology as an ecosystem rather than a castle.

#Notion fits perfectly into our tech stack foundation alongside Clio - Cloud-Based Legal Technology (client management), Microsoft 365 (base IT infrastructure, email, document processing, data and cyber security, forms and automations, etc.) and Slack (internal communications).

We actually just missed the Microsoft Loop HQ launch (November 2021), and we may make the switch at some point if they make it easy to port over from Notion, as #Loop appears to promise much more in terms of M365 integration than Notion does (which, admittedly, has been a bit of a pain point).

Notion does what Clio, M365 and Slack cannot do. Notion is a very visual, highly customizable information repository.

Why Notion is So Important for macushlaw

We are a digital by default practice platform. We offer lawyers the freedom and flexibility of solo and small firm practice while offering the infrastructure, economies of scale, community and support of a law firm.

We keep our overhead very low, so our operations team is fairly taxed as a result. We needed a system that could help limit the time operations team members spend answering routine questions or providing routine training.

We wanted to grow, and grow quickly, so it was important for us to have a central, single source of information for our firm.

We also value transparency, and wanted to be able to better communicate and interact with our team, and bring a level of formality, visibility and permanency to our consultation and communication efforts.

#Sharepoint is fairly limited as a firm intranet, and browsing for files in folders in file explorer just doesn't do it.

So, Notion is our firm's brain trust. Just take a look at the header photo above and you'll get a sense for what we house in Notion.

I know this is a bit vague, so let us expand a bit. Here are some of the big impact ways we use Notion to improve our firm's operation:

1 Onboarding

We tried doing more hands on onboarding 'welcome weeks' for new lawyers at the outset. It would take hours of preparation and hours to deliver these training sessions, and for the most part, trainees would zone out, be multi-tasking, or just forget the information we were delivering. Our founder certainly remembers attending orientation weeks in big law where all you had at the end of a training session where a partner or operations team member rambled off some teachings were the notes you took. There was no easy place to revisit for the PPT slides or other information contained in these sessions.

It dawned on us after a few of these welcome weeks that we were essentially just taking our new team members on a tour of Notion anyways, so why not give them the keys? After all, the training wasn't really that effective as is, and it was taking our operations team away from other high-impact activities like automations development, community building, process improvement, and just day-to-day support of the team members. We couldn't sustain both the training program as is and these other activities without hiring additional team members, which would adversely impact our low-overhead approach.

We created a self-onboarding tool, which we repeat for all new team members. They take themselves on a tour of Notion now to get acquainted with where everything is, how our firm works, and so they know it's always here for reference.

We also noticed that at times new team member performance wasn't in line with our firm's expectations or what would make for a financially viable practice on our platform for the lawyer. So, we created a checklist that helps the lawyers get their computer set up for long-term success, provide milestones to the new lawyers, and sets out the necessary (and optional) to-dos over the first few months on our platform. The format also makes it easy for operations to follow along and see how they are doing with onboarding, and importantly, when to step in and offer support.

2 Transparency and Engagement

We have two important guiding principles for internal operations:

1. We are very transparent with the team about our operations. Aside from the odd confidential or private matter, our operations team's activities, news, meeting notes and beyond are all publicly available so the team can see what we're doing in the background. This helps us consistently demonstrate our value to our lawyers, keep them in the loop, and demystify the overhead allocations each lawyer contributes. We take a similarly radically transparent approach to our financials, our recruiting materials, and beyond.
2. We often joke internally that we're a 'benevolent dictatorship', in that, the firm is taking the most risk, is an independent operating entity providing a package of products and services to lawyers (rather than an employer), and as such it retains final decision making on all matters. That said, our operations teams knows its limitations, and that good decisions required good information. We invite participation by all of our lawyers and staff on any matter that could impact overhead allocations or the lawyer's practice.

Notion let's us provide this radical transparency and meaningful consultation with ease.

3 Policies, Procedures and Forms

One of the most consistent, and biggest, pain points in firm operations is repeatedly explaining firm policies, practices and procedures to team members.

Law firm accountants and HR know this pain intimately. Repeatedly sending instructions to lawyers about ensuring the funds received are cleared funds, that notice of upcoming transactions are provided to the accounting team, and that funds and forms are completed and received in advance of closing. HR knows the pain of repeatedly explaining the need for transition memos before a long vacation, notifying clients of your planned departure, and explaining vacation policies.

All of this unnecessary repetitious communication is costly to a firm and it's bottom line, and air in the budget balloon.

We use Notion to house all of our policies, practices and procedures from time tracking to personal emergencies to receiving and requesting disbursement of trust monies.

4 Brand, Culture + Client Experience Consistency

Ensuring lawyers set up their auto-signatures, adopt default fonts, use logos, social media templates and presentation templates, and otherwise participate in the propagation of a consistent externally facing brand can be another major pain point within firms.

We make it easy to ensure lawyers are aligned with our brand conventions by providing a 'brand bible' in Notion.

Given our unique structure, we also want to make it easy for lawyers to plan and deliver their own digital marketing content through our system, so we provide the tools and templates to create the content and the processes for submitting the same for publication across our email list, social media platforms and blog page in Notion.

We also use Notion to house information, guidance and expectations around our culture, performance and client experience. We are just about to roll out some very cool self-help wellness resources tailored for lawyers, created by the insightful Kara Hardin and her team at The Practice Lab .

We're not shy about sharing, and also not shy about learning from others. Solving the interconnected #accesstojustice and #lawyerwellbeing crises will require us to focus on growing the pie, not our slices, and openly sharing with each other is integral to this learning and growing.

If you're using a tool like Notion for your firm's operations, let us know if you found this helpful, or whether you think we might be able to make improvements to how we're using Notion now!

Also, we would be very curious to hear about other firms' experiences with Microsoft Loop, and whether anyone has made the transition from Notion to Loop.

Get in touch! [email protected]