The Legal Business © Copyright of Frankie Yee (2022) Samantha is an experienced criminal lawyer who has worked on numerous high profile cases over the past 20 years. Owing to her career success, Samantha was appointed Senior Counsel, placing her in an elite group of advocates who have top-tier advocacy skills, professional integrity and are learned in the law. As a Senior Counsel, she will naturally command a higher fee for her services. But after more than 20 years at the forefront of legal service, Samantha decided to have a change of direction. She wanted a senior management role and this would mean she will have less face-to-face contact with her clients. She decided to take up a newly created position of CEO of a law firm in Singapore. Tan & Lim Chambers is an ambitious and growth-oriented law firm with 35 partners supported by 97 other fee earners and 100 support staff. The annual fee income is currently around $250 million. The legal services offered include matrimonial, commercial litigation, corporate law and finance, employment law, insurance litigation, insolvency, debt recovery, intellectual property, and private client work. The fee earning potential and the firm's capabilities in each of these areas varies significantly. Each area is the responsibility of one of the senior partners. Until recently, the managing partner has taken the responsibility of the marketing effort, but has found the task to be increasingly demanding and difficult. In the first 3 months of her appointment, Samantha engaged an OD consultant to conduct a general review of the firm's current situation. The results of the review have been summarized for the firm's senior management and partners and are as follows: 1. Externally • Levels of client satisfaction and client care are far lower than had been expected, with a high proportion of clients suggesting that they were not kept fully or sufficiently informed of the process of the case. • Existing and potential clients appear to have little awareness of the full range of the services that the firm is able to offer. This problem is compounded by the ways in which the individual partners fiercely guard client relationships with © Copyright of Frankie Yee (2022) 2. • the result that although there are often opportunities for the cross-selling of services, this seldom happens. Market research suggests that the firm is perceived generally to be rather staid. A number of the competitors both regionally and nationally have recently become far more aggressive in their search for new business, with the result that the firm's overall share of market is dropping. Internally • • There is no real sense of a long-term direction for the firm or of a true competitive stance. There is little planning and no obvious attempt to capitalise upon the firm's strengths. Levels of client retention and new client attraction have dropped significantly over the past two years. The partners lack commitment. Typically, they were in their positions because they were the longest serving lawyers at the time the partner position became available. • Although some employees had been with the law firm for several years, staff turnover was higher than the industry average. A number of the younger and more promising lawyers have been attracted away by competitors over the past two years. To her astonishment, Samantha also noticed a few other HR and operational related problems in the company. • The company operated an annual employee opinion survey. In the last survey employees raised concerns over a lack of training. Partners are resistant to the idea © Copyright of Frankie Yee (2022) • • of spending on staff training. This is because of their perception that time should be better spent in getting big clients. Training does not bring in the money, clients do. The law firm reported high levels of absenteeism and lateness for nebulous reasons such as 'my car broke down' or 'I think I am coming down with a flu today'. Recently a few of the firm's trainee lawyers had their admission to the bar applications suspended because they cheated in the bar exam. Local and regional media reported on this, causing embarrassment to the law firm. An urgent meeting had to be called to review the firm's hiring procedures. Despite the presence of a formal appraisal process, the reality was that each partner determined when and how it would be carried out. There was no formal appraisal process for partners. In discussion with the partners and staff, Samantha discovered that many were unclear about what is meant by business management. Indeed, the partners knew little about how a strategic and employee orientation with a focus on staff engagement might contribute to the development of the firm. A culture of misgivings and suspicions is evident. For example, during meetings, staff have to leave their mobile phones at the door. This restriction was because of the sensitive nature of the information of several clients. All staff are required to be in the office every day. This contrasted with the growing trend in the industry of working remotely and telecommuting. There was also a culture based on a 'professional approach' characterised by a lack of an explicitly commercial orientation and an aptitude which preferred to wait for clients to come in rather than going out to get them. This was reflected in comments such as: "People and companies will always need the services of lawyers at some point. If they need our services, they will come to us.” "I became a lawyer because I wanted to practice law. It isn't my job to do all of this selling and marketing, is it?” "If I had wanted to be a salesman, I would have chosen a different career path. Don't expect me to change how I operate." © Copyright of Frankie Yee (2022) Given all the above, Samantha feels it is necessary to hire a full time OD practitioner to develop and co-ordinate a change programme focusing on changing the corporate culture and work attitudes. She is keen on engaging the staff, especially the young lawyers, to give them more opportunities to be exposed to high profile cases. Samantha had in mind a few programmes to meet the needs of an ever changing, and increasingly Gen-Y workforce. These programmes will be put in place with an explicit aim of making sure retention and engagement within the company remain high. These programmes have the goal to: • • Empower staff at all levels and in all positions Create a collaborative and problem solving culture instead of "these are my clients, so stay away" culture Encourage decision making at the lower level Make all employees feel valued and build their trust in the organisation Provide a platform for employees to express their opinions and concerns These goals will be accomplished through a series of well-designed programmes that are aimed at changing the work culture and mindsets of the staff. You are hired for the OD specialist position, and you know you will face an uphill task. Bearing in mind the type of people you are dealing with in the law firm, a slight mistake would result in an exodus of lawyers who could set up their own legal practice. You are aware that motivating and dealing with professionals require different interventions. NKIE YEE © Copyright of Frankie Yee (2022)/n

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The Legal Business © Copyright of Frankie Yee (2022) Samantha is an experienced criminal lawyer who has worked on numerous high profile cases over the past 20 years. Owing to her career success, Samantha was appointed Senior Counsel, placing her in an elite group of advocates who have top-tier advocacy skills, profess