Does the real­i­ty for your stake­hold­ers match your law firm’s pub­lic image? And are you ready to find out?

Reset­ting in the legal industry 

It’s impos­si­ble to sum up the past two years of chaos and tur­bu­lence which has affect­ed the world, from the pan­dem­ic to where we find our­selves now watch­ing events across Europe. How will his­to­ry look back upon these defin­i­tive years where so much has changed?

We feel it in legal. Well-being, burn out and retain­ing and attract­ing tal­ent lie deep at the heart of law firms’ mod­ern day chal­lenges as well as a burn­ing ques­tion: do the tra­di­tion­al struc­tures, sys­tems and ethos fit the world we now find our­selves work­ing in? ²⁴⁄₇ access to tech­nol­o­gy, a volatile world expe­ri­enc­ing glob­al cri­sis upon glob­al cri­sis, an increase in remote work­ing and man­ag­ing a hybrid workforce? 

As the pan­dem­ic resets major work trends and the world remains uncer­tain, as these crises shake us to the core and ques­tion our pur­pose and val­ues, there is much for lead­ers to rethink when it comes to sup­port­ing their people. 

ESG top of the law firm agenda 

And quite right­ly ESG is top of the agen­da for most law firms, with an increas­ing aware­ness that not address­ing these fac­tors in a mean­ing­ful way will have a neg­a­tive impact finan­cial­ly and rep­u­ta­tion­al­ly. Most law firms know clients want them to demon­strate their efforts and evi­dence when it comes to ESG, but we know many are still work­ing out whether what they are doing is enough and if what they are doing is actu­al­ly working.

There is a press­ing need in the legal indus­try to recog­nise, empow­er and lever­age human cap­i­tal in our law firms. To go beyond ​“ESG wash­ing” and eval­u­ate cul­ture, well-being and health holis­ti­cal­ly. To find out the real­i­ty of your lawyers, law firm pro­fes­sion­als and clients ver­sus the pub­lic image you por­tray to d the market. 

We believe the major­i­ty of law firms gen­uine­ly want to do the right thing. They want to be able to con­nect pur­pose with per­for­mance. But struc­tures are so com­plex and behav­iours and process­es so ingrained over so many decades, how do we begin to pick this apart and work towards a full fac­to­ry reset? How do we mea­sure law firm ​“health” and take the actions we need to cre­ate a cul­ture that works for all, from employ­ees to clients using our legal services? 

The answer lies with the many tal­ent­ed pro­fes­sion­als in your law firm. It’s your peo­ple, your clients, lead­ers, work­force, alum­ni and sup­pli­ers, who cre­ate finan­cial val­ue and ESG impact. So find­ing out what they real­ly think and act­ing on these insights is the start­ing point.

Mak­ing law firms Mature Organisations 

We have been huge fans of the Matu­ri­ty Insti­tute at Lex­So­lu­tions now for some time. 

What is a Mature Organisation?

A Mature Organ­i­sa­tion is a com­pa­ny that can max­imise prof­its, cre­ate wealth for share­hold­ers and deliv­er val­ue. It’s a com­pa­ny that enhances well-being for all its work­force and has a pos­i­tive impact on the envi­ron­ment and soci­ety. It con­nects pur­pose and per­for­mance and shows how to inte­grate ESG with busi­ness mod­els and strat­e­gy. It assess­es core indi­ca­tors of com­pa­ny health includ­ing Pur­pose, Inno­va­tion, Learn­ing and Human Value.

The Matu­ri­ty Insti­tute mea­sures Organ­i­sa­tion­al Matu­ri­ty (OMIN­DEX®); the total val­ue and risk that aris­es from a com­pa­ny’s whole, human sys­tem. It’s a tool that gen­er­ates evi­dence-based assess­ments across 32-inter­re­lat­ed fac­tors and com­pares across all sec­tors. The method­ol­o­gy has been tried and test­ed with acad­e­mia, law firms, invest­ment pro­fes­sion­als and cor­po­rates and it has stood up over 7 years of scrutiny. 

DNA Diag­nos­tic for law firms 

For some time now we have been research­ing law firms and run­ning work­shops to help them deliv­er true inno­va­tion and opti­mal cul­tures on the path to over­all matu­ri­ty. Now we have part­nered with The Matu­ri­ty Insti­tute to cre­ate a dynam­ic diag­nos­tic tool for the legal pro­fes­sion, which includes but goes way beyond just ESG. We’ve called it the DNA Diag­nos­tic.

DNA Diag­nos­tic is a full health check for your law firm that cap­tures and mea­sures all val­ues and risk ele­ments aris­ing from your stake­hold­ers: from your work­force to your lead­ers to your clients. It helps you on your path to becom­ing a mature insti­tu­tion which puts stake­hold­er val­ue at its heart by inte­grat­ing ESG with your busi­ness mod­el and strategy. 

It will help you care for your peo­ple and the world around you whilst oper­at­ing prof­itably. It cov­ers impor­tant ques­tions as to whether your law firm is tru­ly oper­at­ing as one sys­tem, a deep under­stand­ing of its lead­er­ship behav­iours, your firm’s indi­vid­ual impact on soci­ety and the envi­ron­ment, whether your firm’s pur­pos­es is aligned to all your busi­ness deci­sions and com­pares how mature your law firm is com­pared to oth­ers in the marketplace.

DNA Diag­nos­tic con­tains a mix of work­shops and inter­nal sur­veys to gar­ner insights, fol­lowed by a final report, analy­sis and rec­om­men­da­tions which trans­late into the prac­ti­cal actions you need to take now, in the medi­um long and for the long term. Pack­ages can also include lead­er­ship and client inter­views and more tar­get­ed reports on spe­cif­ic areas you might be strug­gling with, such as reten­tion, well-being and burn out, includ­ing inter­ven­tions with a cost / ben­e­fit analysis.

Our call to action to our law firm friends 

We are work­ing with law firm clients who are active­ly seek­ing to build a new cul­ture which is based around truths and not assump­tions. Is it a risk to know what your peo­ple real­ly think and what that means for the over­all health of your busi­ness, or is the biggest risk not find­ing out?

It’s time for change in the biggest and bold­est way. We need to work towards a bet­ter pro­fes­sion­al future. We are legal indus­try cham­pi­ons and we want to see our law firms lead­ing the way, los­ing what might be regard­ed as a tar­nished rep­u­ta­tion in many respects and build­ing from the inside out to become mature insti­tu­tions who val­ue their peo­ple and the world around them.

Has this res­onat­ed? Are you some­one in a law firm in Inno­va­tion, Well-Being, ESG, CSR, HR, a senior part­ner who wants to come on this jour­ney? Then we would love to speak with you. 

Con­tact manu@​lexsolutions.​com and find out more about how we are work­ing with our law firm clients with our DNA Diagnostic.

10 Mar