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The World Masters of Law Firm Management
2005 Conference - a review
by Simon Tupman
For the fourth consecutive year, the Law Council hosted the World Masters of Law Firm Management in Sydney on 26 August. In previous years, a variety of high profile speakers had topped the bill. This year, Gerry Riskin of Edge International, the global management consultancy to the legal profession was the headliner and he didn't disappoint. He was capably supported on the platform by Adam Lewis, Director and Managing Partner of McKinsey & Co and John O'Shea, National Marketing Partner at KPMG Australia.
Adam Lewis opened the day with his topic, 'Beyond Competence &emdash; Developing Outstanding Client Relationships'. After giving a brief history of McKinsey & Co he focussed in on the philosophy that has driven McKinsey's success globally since its foundation in 1926. They are:
- to help clients make distinctive, lasting, and substantial improvements in their performance;
- to build a great firm that is able to attract, develop, excite, and retain exceptional people; and
- to advance the science of management.
Independent perspective
He went on to emphasise the importance to McKinsey of retaining an independent perspective adding that 'if clients don't see you as independent, you've lost your value'. Running one's practice as a profession rather than as a business, he contended, was necessary in order 'to build relationships on trust'.
Adam went on the make some general points about developing close relationships with clients. In summary, they were:
- competence is simply the 'ticket to play'
- full empathy and understanding the client's agenda is imperative
- have no fear in your relationships.
In closing Adam reminded everyone that big challenges lay ahead for law firm leaders. He warned against busy-ness, emphasised the need to work with different personality types and urged caution when matchmaking lawyers with clients, reminding us that not everyone will click with every client.
Gerry Riskin then took over the reins after the morning tea break focussing on best global client care practices. In particular, Gerry took us through a process of conducting client care visits effectively.
Bullet-proofing
He reminded everyone to focus on the 'crown jewel' clients and to take steps to bullet-proof them from the competition. In making client visits, he urged us not to survey, not to sell, nor even to advise. Simply listen and learn. He suggested that many opportunities to deliver additional services to clients are missed by law firms. Said Gerry, 'Many unmet needs are not beyond our capability. We just don't know about them.'
He urged lawyers to prepare for client visit by rehearsing and role playing. Finally, he warned us not to rely just on branding to keep us ahead in the marketplace: 'the rubber hits the road when you do one on one'.
After lunch John O'Shea presented 'What Do Clients Really Want?' Emphasising the importance of relationships, John distinguished between good relationships and poor ones.
To develop good relationships, John maintained that lawyers need:
- to have open and frequent client contact
- to work hard
- to have a good rapport
- to be capable
- to speak plainly
Examples of bad relationships included:
- Being overly technical
- Having infrequent contact with clients
- Having too formal contact with clients
- Not offering enough continuity of the team or knowledge
- Providing inexperienced or untrained staff
To provide the glue, John added that firms need to invest in the whole marketing function within a firm, including personnel and processes for:
- research
- marketing strategy
- communications
- event management
- proposal support
- thought leadership
- brand management
- business development support
In closing, John reminded us of the possibilities. 'The choice is yours'.
Gerry Riskin returned to the platform to close the conference with a session '5 proven and practical strategies to create and maintain a client service culture'.
The 5 were, in summary:
- Create client (and staff) satisfaction surveys and scores and use them
- Be user friendly
- Train all staff to have the relevant skills
- Use checklists and debriefs
- Add 'client service' to all agendas.
Using a case study, Gerry pointed out that a compensation system alone would not bring about the desired client culture in a law firm but that it was important to have the correct system in place. That responsibility belongs to management. He urged Managing Partners to get themselves proper management training and to understand the value of management.
Additionally he urged the leadership in law firms to confront problem behaviours which, as many of us know, is widespread in the profession. Subversive behaviour should be unacceptable and should it persist, then those responsible should be asked to leave the practice. As Gerry added, 'everyone needs to commit to support the leadership. That doesn't mean you have to agree with the leadership all the time.'
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