Modern Legal Practice journal: January 2019 issue
In the current edition of Modern Legal Practice, the broad parameters of business, strategy and leadership are addressed with particular focus on the management, selection and wellbeing of people working in legal environments, on their talents in areas such as innovation and the conduct of transactions and their opportunities to exploit technology and communicate to optimal effect.
If it is truly the case that people are to be viewed as the greatest asset of any organisation, Agnes Foy, a noted lawyer, corporate strategist, change implementer and trainer, usefully and with incisiveness, tackles the serious issue of honour code dynamics among the “good eggs” in law firms and similar organisations. She demonstrates, with compassion and wit, how and why the male honour code constitutes unwritten rules of business conduct and she indicates forcefully a need for change. Professor Judi Cohen, of Berkeley Law and Warrior One, offers an expert perspective on wellbeing in the law. She observes, in the light of recent and detailed studies, that the legal profession has become interested in wellbeing as a measure of success but it is compromised, thereby at risk of negatively affecting competence. She advocates more serious attention being paid to matters of wellbeing and mindfulness.
Professor Heidi Gardner, a Distinguished Fellow at Harvard Law School, encourages smart collaboration for lateral hiring success. She is concerned that many firms mismanage and undervalue newly-acquired talent because they do not have actionable, data-driven strategies to encourage it to flourish. In the second part of her article on the merits of law firm chief information officers, University of Miami professor of law, Michele DeStefano, author of Legal Upheaval, A guide to Creativity, Collaboration, and Innovation in Law, describes and gives guidance on the potential holes that can accompany their goals and roles. Professor DeStefano’s book is most eloquently and with enormous insight and experience, reviewed in this same edition by William G. Young, United States District Judge for the District of Massachusetts. We are honoured to have his contribution.
Addressing matters of cutting-edge legal practice, Professor Robert J. Spjut, a member of the California and Florida state bars and recently retired from his partnership at Pillbury Winthrop Shaw Pitman LLP, summarises the comprehensive conceptual framework for identifying nearly all risks in all types of transactions, as explained in detail in his recent book, Transaction Risk: A Guide to Contractual Management Strategies, published by the American Bar Association. He explains key objectives of risk management and describes the means by which to identify, mitigate and avoid transactional risks. With a focus on the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Sally Penni, a practising barrister, vice-chair of the Association of Women Barristers, founder of Women in the Law UK and co-author of the recently published Cyber Security, assesses their effect and implementation since their enactment, both from legal and business perspectives.
With regard to the use of technology to improve relationships with clients, Marc May, a commercial and technology solicitor at Stephenson Law and previously an automation specialist at Reynolds Porter Chamberlain, describes the reasons for and benefits of technology-adoption marketing material. He believes that it is to the very substantial benefit of advisers and their clients to increase the former’s use of technology tools. Kim Tasso, who has great experience in working with law firms on business development, strategy and management issues address questions of how to use social media to best effect. She draws on many case studies to demonstrate, in jargon-free language, best practice to achieve intended outcomes. From me, in a personal capacity but with my experience in and writing about professional information provision, is an argument in favour of the benefits of working with and writing for a law publisher to achieve law firm or corporate reputational and competitive rewards. I believe that there is substantial and measurable evidence that this can deliver benefits for the firm, it’s clients and of course, the law publisher.
In his regular GC Perspective section which addresses the work of lawyers primarily in commerce, KPMG’s Jeremy Barton provides a number of accounts, including a personal one, of what he defines as “defining moments” of a handful of top-ranking general counsels. His and the other accounts provide key pointers to aid and drive successful career progression in those areas of modern legal practice.
Call for Articles 2019 and beyond
We are at present making plans for the remainder of the 2019 and further issues of Modern Legal Practice. If you would like us to consider one or more articles by you on topics on and around the broadest definitions of business, strategies and/or leadership in modern legal practice, please contact the editor, Robert McKay, at [email protected], who will be happy to give guidance and advice as to how to proceed.
Editor, Modern Legal Practice