Modern Legal Practice journal: February 2020 issue
That modern legal practice and in-house legal counsel functions and priorities, together with the needs and demands of clients, are ever-evolving, is an unstoppable fact, but there is no reason to believe that the control of and rules applying to such change cannot be managed for motives that are positive. Legal practice is not set apart from life and society and many of the insights and analyses presented in the current edition of Modern Legal Practice serve to highlight the issues in question.
To a significant extent, Agnes Foy, a seasoned in-house capital markets practitioner who has also practised at the Bar, is a strategy assessor and legal/regulatory author, trainer and evaluator, sets the scene. With reference primarily to the Singularis v Daiwa Capital Markets case, she asks if, in the law versus morality debate, to what extent can a court judgment become a corporate culture game-changer? She believes that the case provides insightful, practical and humane workday assistance to those at all levels in organisations. At issue is what the legal meaning of ‘attribution’ amounts to in a corporate culture context. Recognising the minefield that is the discussion of morality and ethics in subjective and objective terms she suggests that those in and around the law can undoubtedly benefit from the range of judicial clarity which the case provides. Questions of ethics, in terms of how decisions are made in areas of legal practice which are managed by legal counsel are further taken up by Constance E Bagley, a lawyer, senior research fellow at Yale University and CEO of Bagley Strategic Advisors, as she analyses the value of legal astuteness in integrating law and strategy. She sets out the requirements of legal astuteness, highlighting such elements as ethical behaviour, proactive approaches to risk, informed judgment, knowledge of the law and strategic approaches to decision making, and demonstrates the value of utilising them to achieve necessary outcomes. Rather than seeing the law as a force that constrains managers and their businesses, she believes that the tools suggested by her help embed management in a dynamic societal system that includes the requirements of the business within its competitive environment. Perhaps a manifestation of how lawyers’ skills and attention, even to a greater extent, can be applied to the achievement of positive societal outcomes, at least to an extent, are presented by Norman Clark, a lawyer, author and internationally known management consultant, who is the managing principal of Walker Clark LLC, which advises law firms, and Carmen Pombo, co-chair of the International Bar Association Rule of Law Committee founder and chief executive officer of the Fernando Pombo Foundation, which promotes and supports the rights of vulnerable people through initiatives in the legal world. The authors highlight social entrepreneurship practices which do not just offer traditional pro bono legal services. Instead, this is a fee-generating practice area that can produce a solid foundation for cross-marketing of mid-value and even some high-value legal services to clients in the social entrepreneurship sector. They see increasing opportunities for entrepreneurs not to focus purely on a private profit model, and increasingly on opportunities to combine business and social causes, considering it now to be possible to combine a social cause with the complementary aim of generating profit for shareholders. To this aim, they offer a set of practical steps to work towards developing legal business of this kind.
Taking a view across modern legal practices of all kinds, Itzik Amiel, an attorney and authority on business development, business networking and personal branding, describes and recommends cross-selling, using internal networking as a means by which to benefit practices. He takes the view that there are often opportunities to be found within the firm or organisation, which are sometimes overlooked, to optimise the set of internal relationships established from standard day-to-day business practices and interaction among colleagues within the firm. An objective is to create new teams dedicated to boosting internal networking and to invest in building new capabilities incorporating new technologies.
Inevitably, little of value is achieved without the efforts and participation of satisfied, motivated and well-rewarded law firm or legal department team members. Jean-Baptiste Lebelle, head of human resources at DRH Allen & Overy in Paris, argues in favour of a new proposition, which seeks to achieve a correct balance between the firm’s strategy and the expectations of its workforce. He discusses and explains how to create an employer value proposition to provide opportunities to rethink firm loyalty. He believes that building a new employer proposition is a long-term vision that will actively prepare firms for future success in the hyper-competitive and fast changing environment of the legal sector. Roz Tacon, an executive coach who works with clients who are usually in large legal firms, draws on her experience to encourage keeping energy high, by building team mental health in order to achieve strong commercial performance. Setting out a number of practical pointers for action, she encourages law firm management to find time to examine legal recruitment processes and ensure that management styles operate in favour of achieving workplace health and well-being. The ultimate workplace goal, that of successful and happy retirement, is the topic for analysis by Micheline Hogan, a psychodynamic psychotherapist, who designs resilience workshops for client-lawyer relationships at law firms which specialise in family law and dispute resolution. She describes the emotional impact of partner retirement, where sometimes there is little evidence of more conventional lawyerly qualities being put to use when planning for their own personal circumstances. While she acknowledges that ultimately it is each partner’s individual choice on how best to embrace this major change to construct a satisfying, meaningful and contented existence for the days ahead. Early preparation, awareness of the impact and, if appropriate, willingness to seek guidance are the cornerstones of that process.
Editor, Modern Legal Practice