Walker Clark Worldview

“Never ask a question to which you do not already know the answer.”

This is one of the cardinal rules of trial advocacy.

Unfortunately, this rule is foolish in law firm management.

My colleagues and I frequently hear statements such as these from otherwise intelligent lawyers and business managers:

• We can’t ask those questions of our associates or staff. That would only stir things up and make the situation worse.
• We can’t ask those questions of our clients. We must not raise their expectations.

One of the most important skills for leaders in law firms is to ask courageous that produce answers that the firm needs to succeed. Sometimes the answers are ones that we would rather not hear, but we must hear and heed them nonetheless. This is usually the only way to get the accurate and reliable information needed to make wise, fully-informed decisions.

Sometimes there is no act more courageous than asking a question.

Good leaders stir things up.

There are few, if any businesses, that are as heavily dependent on people as are law firms. People, along with their knowledge and skills, make up at least 90% of the assets of a law firm. The other stuff — some furniture, books, and perhaps a leasehold — are comparatively worth almost nothing, because without its people, a law firm has no real value at all.

Leaders of law firms need to know how junior fee earners and staff perceive the firm and its internal issues. Relying on hunches, group-think by partners (a favorite but usually worthless pastime at partner retreats), or “what it was like when I was an associate” are deadly problem-solving strategies.

To be sure, asking for opinions about sensitive issues might “stir things up;” but that is usually the only way to see and to understand the perceptions, misunderstandings, and grievances that sometimes lurk at the bottom.

And the best way to get to the bottom of an issue is simply to ask about it.

Good law firms want to raise client expectations.

Some law firms seem to have a phobia about client feedback. In some instances the refusal to ask clients for performance feedback is the result of a deep-seated condescension — or even contempt — about the client.

For example:

• “Why ask the clients? They really don’t know what they need. That’s why they hired us.”

In healthier law firms, however, I often hear this excuse for not soliciting client feedback:

• “We can’t ask anything that might raise the clients’ expectations.”

Raising client expectations is exactly what law firms should be doing in today’s highly competitive legal markets.

You should set standards of client care and service delivery that are above current levels demonstrated by your competitors. The best way to do this is to ask clients to describe what “quality” means to them. What indicators, such as responsiveness and understanding of the client’s business, are most important? Even if you believe that you are performing as well as you possibly can, ask the client how you can perform even better. You might be surprised by the answer. You might wonder why you are not already doing what the client suggests.

By asking these questions and responding to them in ways that the clients can observe and measure, your law firm can raise market expectations to levels at which few, if any, of your competitors will be able to perform right now. Some of your competitors will catch up to you eventually, but during that period when you alone are performing above market expectations, you will have an almost unchallenged opportunity to win new clients and new instructions from current clients.

Simple but sophisticated tools

The art of asking questions involves much more than asking questions.

Asking a junior staff member, “How do you like the firm?” is more likely to produce a cautious, positive response than meaningful data. Most staff members are not fools. Even the best-intentioned open-ended question often will look like a trap.

Asking a client, “How did you like our firm’s performance on that matter?”  will seldom produce the specific information that is the key to understanding a possible competitive advantage or disadvantage for your firm. Many clients have never articulated their key quality indictors. Sometimes you need to lead them there.

To produce worthwhile information, the questions need to probe specific issues and potential issues. The questions should be asked in a systematic and consistent way. This is why my colleagues and I recommend three tools above all others:

• Surveys – A well-designed survey can produce substantial volumes of data, compiled in a consistent manner, that can be very useful in understanding the seriousness and priority of an issue.  A survey is also an excellent tool for identifying potential obstacles to the implementation of a new strategy or a proposed solution to a difficult problem. Click here for more information.

• Interviews - We usually recommend that confidential interviews be used as a follow-up to a survey. However, confidential interviews can also provide detailed and sophisticated information that cannot be produced easily within the structural limits of a survey. Therefore the confidential interview is especially powerful to identify and understand opportunities or issues in relationships with major clients.

• Monitoring – Surveys and interviews are usually one-time activities.  They can produce useful baseline results, but cannot detect changes in opinions over time or in changing circumstances. For example, our firm’s Client Service Monitor is an outsourced service by which we assume responsibility for ongoing monitoring of client satisfaction and early detection of client service issues. This can help law firms to identify issues before they become crises and to minimize loss of clients due to dissatisfaction with the firm’s performance.

The important point is this:  regardless of which tools you use, a key tool in successful law firm management today is asking courageous questions. Ask them frequently. Ask them of your own colleagues and staff and of clients.  Ask them even when you do not know — or do not want to hear — the answer. To be sure, sometimes a courageous question might involve risk; but that risk is no greater than the underlying risk that already lurks, undetected and out of sight of your current knowledge and understanding.

Norman Clark

The people who do the work are in the best position to improve it.

This is the third in a series of posts about the characteristics of successful quality assurance programs in law firms.

Many law firms assume that the installation of an effective quality assurance program will require hiring a platoon of expensive external consultants to set up and administer the system. Actually, this is the wrong way to do it.

Law firms already have the internal quality assurance “experts” that they need — their own people.

Quality assurance requires a firm-wide approach and enthusiastic executive-level leadership. However, the “real work” is done by fee earners and support staff in the practice groups and project teams. Most risks arise from a relatively small number of specific weaknesses in the way that work is performed every day.

The people who do that work every day are usually the ones who can best diagnose the causes of problems in work processes. Therefore, a major component of a successful approach to quality assurance is to provide knowledge, tools, and methods to people working in departments, practice groups, and teams. This empowers them to take responsibility for improving the quality of their work.

Although we recommend firm-wide infrastructure and consistent procedures to manage quality, the intense focus must be at the working level. The key persons in are the lawyers who are managing client matters day to day. This working-level approach is almost always more successful and less expensive than solutions imposed by senior management or outside consultants, who arrogantly believe that they “know the business” better than the people who work in it every day.

When Walker Clark, LLC, assists a law firm with the development of a serious quality assurance program, we contribute tools, methods, measurements, and program management structures. The real improvement comes from the people who do the work.

Norman Clark

Thomas Friedman published an important column in today’s New York Times:  “The Fat Lady Has Sung.” I highly recommend it to readers of this blog outside the United States who seek insight and understanding about the leadership dynamics and current dysfunctionality in the American political system.

It is also required reading for the managing partner of any law firm anywhere.

Friedman is critical of both President Obama and the Republican Party.  Put your own personal political views aside as you read the column.  It discusses some basic truths that apply to law firms going through times of challenge and change, whether in the United States or anywhere else in the world.

Courage in a crisis

While consensus, trust, and common goals are essential elements of long-term success, times of challenge frequently require clear, directive leadership. I have seen a number of law firms fail to achieve goals and capitalize on opportunities. Why did they fail to implement what appears to have been obvious? In most instances, there were two reasons. They both relate to failures of courage.

I will state each one in plain but honest terms.

• Personal cowardice. No one is willing to step forward and assume the risks of taking charge. Crisis is not a time for “summits” and consensus building. Those can come later.  Clarity, direction, commitment, and resolve are what are needed now.

This does not imply dictatorship. The two greatest American presidents in my opinion, Franklin Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln, did not seek or assume dictatorial powers, despite the criticisms of their opponents. (Some of Lincoln’s and FDR’s political opponents made today’s “Tea Party” movement in the United States look like…well… a tea party.) Instead, their great contributions were to set a direction for a country that, at the time, was adrift politically and whose long-term survival was legitimately in doubt. They consulted their opponents, were not constrained by ideology, and were not afraid of a pragmatic trial-and-error approach with respect to the details.

• Group cowardice. In some law firms, the partners are unwilling to go through the sometimes painful process of resolving internal disputes. Conflict is an essential part of the development of any business group. Without it, there is no hope of developing the genuine trust and common purpose that are essential to becoming a high-performance business team.

Responsible dialogue

Friedman’s article suggests is that “no” is not a responsible position for someone responsible for governing a country.  The same applies to law firms. Irresponsible minorities frequently betray themselves in one or both of two ways:

• The party of “no.” I have seen a few law firms wrecked or almost destroyed by the stubborn refusal of a willful minority of partners to accept any change whatsoever to a failing status quo. “No” is not a negotiating position. Instead, it is the first word in saying “farewell.”

• Taking hostages. Super-majority voting requirements in partnership agreements are usually a wise precaution when making fundamental decisions about the partnership or the business. The minority must use super-majority requirements responsibly, and not to hold the law firm hostage to the minority agenda or to no action at all.

The best way to test the legitimacy of opposition to change, especially in difficult times, is to ask questions.

• Probe the rationale behind the opposition.
• Feed back what you understand the opponents’ position to be.
• Ask them how they would apply their rationale to relevant hypothetical situations.

These techniques will usually expose intellectual dishonesty, if there is any, and allow everyone to focus on any honest issues that need to be discussed.  If all else fails, this truth-seeking strategy will also bolster the courage of the majority to deal with irresponsible factions in the partnership and, if necessary, to remove them before they can sabotage the future of the firm.

Norman Clark

Despite good intentions, some law firms seem to be unable to implement. The partners spend many hours rehashing the same issues, but there is little or no forward movement.

My partner, Lisa M. Walker Johnson, has developed a four-point agenda for partners and senior managers to discuss frustrating implementation issues in law firm management:

What are we NOT doing or achieving that we WANT to be doing or achieving?

What are the obstacles to our success in these areas?

What specific next steps will we take, separately and together, to begin to address these obstacles?

What do we need from each other right now, and in the coming weeks, so that we can become more effective and feel more motivated?

Invest 60 minutes in discussing the issue in the context of these four questions.  Stay focused and disciplined. Limit your discussions to that issue only. Avoid tangents and side issues. Document the results and assign one partner to monitor the completion of each of the action items.

If your law firm can hold only two of these “60-minute retreats” each month, each focused on a single issue,  you should begin to see progress on even the most frustrating issues.

Norman Clark

This is a follow-up to Norm Clark’s post on the business case for business travel.

When you have the chance to meet face to face, business needs are often discussed in greater depth and with more opportunity for an exchange of information and ideas.

Subjects are brought up that may be glossed over on the phone.  Perhaps it’s easier to discuss sensitive issues when you can be completely engaged and able to gauge the other person’s reactions, verbally and nonverbally.

Especially with groups, face to face dialogue tends to be more inclusive of all parties and seems to  prompt more creative problem solving.  When we can build off of each others ideas it helps everyone renew commitments to shared goals which increases the chances that plans will actually get implemented.

Having some opportunity for face to face collaboration in a given year helps to sustain and strengthen even the best of client relationships.  Without it, the energy in the relationship starts to wain and it’s harder to pick up the deeper and more strategic discussions when necessary.

Lisa Walker Johnson