Realigning Operations through Collaboration and Feedback

The law firm found itself at a point where its support departments needed to align more closely with the firm’s main objective: providing outstanding legal services to clients. While the firm’s end clients received excellent service from its highly skilled lawyers, there was room for improvement in supporting those lawyers internally. This misalignment caused several issues:

• Lawyers Handling Administrative Tasks: Lawyers often ended up performing administrative work, unintentionally redirecting their valuable time away from client facing work.
• Untapped Potential of Support Teams: The talents and abilities of many skilled support team members went untapped, resulting in their underutilisation.
• Growing Divide between Legal and Operational Teams: A noticeable rift developed, creating a “us versus them” mindset and straining relationships between legal professionals and support teams.
• Unhappiness among Employees: Misaligned goals and lack of effective teamwork caused dissatisfaction across both legal practice groups and operational teams.

In addressing these challenges, we applied our distinctive method of turning strategy into actionable plans, deeply rooted in empathy for end-users. Our approach to Change Management manifests in four critical phases:

The journey started with close collaboration with the partnership group and the management board, who provided valuable insights into their shared vision for the interconnected future of the legal practice groups and the operational teams that support them.

The next step involved a collaborative assessment of each department’s operational state with leaders and managers, who worked with their teams to identify areas of improvement. Recognising the delicate implications of this initiative, the resulting strategies were carefully designed to ensure a balanced approach while addressing the realignment of services provided to the lawyers. To ensure the long-term success of our strategic interventions, we crafted a detailed change implementation plan which formed the basis for the transition to the desired ways of working.

Throughout the transition, our focus was on deeply engaging every team member in the change journey. By prioritising clear and engaging communication and enabling a mutual understanding of shared goals and benefits, we laid the groundwork for a smoother and more successful change process. This included 1:1 and group feedback sessions with lawyers, partners, operational team managers, and employee representatives. These sessions helped refine the newly formed operational support strategies, promoting inclusivity and cultivating a thorough, deeply integrated change process.

To keep everyone moving in the right direction, ongoing guidance and mentorship programs were established. These programs provided the necessary support for team leads members to develop the skills to adapt to their new roles and responsibilities.

Our involvement extended beyond implementation, establishing a cycle of review, adaptation, and feedback. The project demonstrated the power of strategic alignment, comprehensive planning, and stakeholder engagement in unifying the workforce towards a shared vision.

Our consultancy’s work with the Business Support Department streamlined operations and reaffirmed the law firm’s dedication to top-tier legal services. By tackling core challenges within support services, we’ve established a foundation for continuous improvement, allowing legal teams to focus on their clients’ needs. This strategic realignment and enhancements have improved client satisfaction and employee morale, ensuring lawyers are supported by an efficient and strategically aligned system that meets the firm’s high standards. This transformation fostered a culture of continuous improvement, propelling the firm towards sustained excellence and growth.

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