Successful Law Firms: The skills that the legal professional needs for their ideal career can work on and develop over time. As the saying goes, practice makes perfect and successful lawyers aren’t born; they are made.
Who is a successful lawyer?
From the rule of law, a successful lawyer defends and speaks for justice and good governance. This professional supports and speaks out against abuse, tyranny, oppression, inequality, and corruption. In the best of cases, a truly relevant attorney should leave jurisprudential traces of their experience in the system.
From a business perspective, a successful attorney is one whose services are needed by the client. Some lawyers are not aware that law is a profession and a business, but their knowledge of the law without knowledge of the market and the clientele is useless (and vice versa).
To be truly successful, an attorney must be relevant to the client and society. However, the key to survival is professionalism, a concept that can be broken down into two parts: excellence and efficiency.
New Skills for Successful Attorneys
Creativity
The best lawyers are not only logical and analytical, but they display great creativity in problem-solving. The best solution isn’t always the most obvious, and to beat the competition; you often need to think outside the box. New trends in legal design thinking confirm that an innovative vision may be behind a boost to efficiency, increased profits, or increased customer loyalty.
Technological prowess
Today, technologies are an essential part of the work of a lawyer. Legal firms do not only use email or the internet to consult documents. It is already common for them to have management software installed, automated monitoring programs, and even solutions that make it easier for them to generate invoices and estimates.
The confinement that COVID-19 has imposed in many places confirms that the law firm’s progress may depend on the technological prowess of its team and its ability, based on tools and procedures, to continue operating, even when you have to work remotely.
Ability to work in a team
Although the legal profession may seem lonely, it is becoming less so. New trends in advocacy, especially those that emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic, prioritize multidisciplinary efforts, the formation of alliances, and cooperation initiatives.
The lawyers of the future know that, many times, from collaborations with other professionals, from outside or within the industry, from the same country, or others, their position in the market will be strengthened.
Having the vision that allows them to identify an opportunity to collaborate and knowing how to take advantage of it characterizes successful lawyers.
Among the post-pandemic techniques for law firms that a recent McKinsey report recommends, five stands out:
Put the focus on customers.
Successful attorneys use personalization to differentiate themselves. Focus on delivering relevant content and value. Marketing strategies for attorneys must be up-to-date and address current issues but within context. It is preferable to explain how the services will be offered in times of restrictions or confinement than to repeat statistical data published by other media.
Take care of the people.
These not only to customers and shareholders but also to employees. Flexibility and empathy must be promoted, and connectivity must be prioritized. It’s time to stick together.
Be precise in budgeting.
Right now, successful attorneys seek to increase transparency while relying on an objective method of accounting for their billable hours. The billing software for law firms is essential to support.
Be attentive to changes in the present while keeping your eyes on the future.
In times of uncertainty, you have to remain vigilant to act at the first sign of a trend change.
Digital transformation has been a C-Suite priority for years, but the legal industry has barely realized it and was not prepared; as Forbes publishes, this has been changed by the coronavirus.
Remote work was nothing new for business. 69% of organizations allowed employees to work remotely in 2019. In 2020, the time has come for law firms. The data confirms it: 97% have used video conferencing applications in recent months, and 91% have provided their staff with specific software to facilitate remote work ( Statista ). Apart from this, firms have realized the potential of outsourcing legal services and are looking forward to leveraging the same.
To these most visible signs of digital transformation, we must add another great potential: distance learning.
Ongoing team training is a sure value, and successful attorneys don’t want to miss out on any knowledge that can help them advance toward excellence. Online courses provide accessible, affordable, flexible, and quality content.
For those firms that survive an internal crisis, the result of the effort is often business transformation and renewed trust from stakeholders, both internal and external. Once the need to find a fundamentally new path is accepted, it is necessary to remember the importance of staying up-to-date, learning, and strengthening leadership with qualified profiles.
Vision, courage, and sound change management are part of the solution, which guarantees survival in any crisis and leads to business differentiation through its positioning in the market Because success is born from the will to be the best that you can be and this implies accepting the need to evolve and rely on all the resources and tools that allow you to achieve it.
