LEXPERT MAGAZINE
|
JUNE 2017 69
| COLUMNS |
MARKETING
Heather Suttie is a legal marketing and business
development consultant working with firms ranging
from Big Law to New Law, global to solo. Reach her
at 416-964-9607 or www.heathersuttie.ca.
BY HEATHER SUTTIE
that "Innovation is one of the firm's high-
est strategic priorities," while 42 per cent of
associates thought so. As for experiment-
ing with new ways of delivering value, 92
per cent of partners agreed that they did so,
while only 43 per cent of associates agreed.
e divide was equally wide when the
topic turned to money. In response to the
statement "Our compensation structure
encourages myself and other lawyers to try
new things," 54 per cent of partners agreed,
while just 25 per cent of associates did.
As for alternative fee arrangements
(AFAs), just 33 per cent of partners said
they employ them frequently and 17 per
cent never do. For associates, only nine per
cent use AFAs frequently, nine per cent
use them periodically and 18 per cent had
never heard of AFAs. is finding alone
should alarm traditional law firms that
are losing clients to legal service providers
who live and breathe AFAs, and who have
chucked the traditional law firm billing
structure in order to offer new ways of ca-
tering to clients.
e survey received 105 responses from
practitioners who had spent at least three
years working in a law firm in Canada.
Sixty-one per cent of respondents ranged
in age from 31 to 55 years old, and so had
been working in law firms long enough to
have seen changes in the market. But as
one respondent now working outside of a
conventional law firm observed, "e legal
model is at least 25 years out of date. Every-
one wants to keep their Benz but I think
they will have a big surprise coming their
way very shortly."
THE SEISMIC SHIFTS
Pressures cause shis. Sean Bernstein, a
2015 call and corporate lawyer at Osler,
Hoskin & Harcourt LLP, was a respondent
in the study. He thinks the differences of
opinion between partners and associates
may be generational. "e legal industry
has moved slowly so older generations may
view any changes as monumental. Younger
generations may not see change as monu-
mental because they're used to it."
ese shis are happening more so
outside of the conventional law firm set-
ting. For example, there are lawyers who
prefer to work full-time from their homes
rather than be pressured by law firm poli-
tics and office space. eir work-life bal-
ance includes more informality and ease of
mobility. For client visits, they'll toss their
computer into a backpack and take a bike
or public transit, if not a car, to get where
they need to go.
Patrick Hartford is a 2016 call who
says, "Inefficiency drives me crazy." at
frustration led him, with co-founder Ori
Barbut, to launch Notice Connect, a web-
site enabling individuals and businesses
to publish legal notices online, which has
been shown to be more effective and less
expensive than publishing them in news-
papers. Now an entrepreneur and resident
at Ryerson University's Legal Innovation
Zone, Hartford believes that once change
is adopted, "it becomes a new convention."
HAPPILY EVER AFTER?
Whether innovation happens inside or
outside a law firm, it must be tangible,
meaningful and effective in serving clients
every day.
As Bernstein says, "the industry is in
good hands with people willing to take a
risk." And with clients holding the buying
power, they'll have a big say in determining
which innovation fairy tales end happily
ever aer.
Law firms must become receptive to change in order to effect it; here are the hits and misses of good innovation
INNOVATION HAS BECOME a buzz-
word that has lost its meaning. At its core,
innovation is a
desire to be new
and different.
at desire leads
to breakthrough
thinking and pi-
oneering action.
Risk is involved,
which means
failure is prob-
able, not just possible.
True innovation is difficult to achieve
—
and it can be elusive.
THE TALE
e Emperor's New Clothes, by Hans Chris-
tian Andersen, is a tale about weavers who
dupe an emperor into thinking his new
clothes are visible to only a certain class of
people. When the emperor appears in his
"new clothes," everyone dutifully admires
them until a child points out he is naked.
e moral of this story is that not ev-
erything we've been led to believe is true
— and nor are various claims about legal
innovation, which is why innovation isn't
only elusive; it can be illusive, too.
THE REALITY
According to e Illusion of Innovation
at Canadian Law Firms, a January 2017
study from the Faculty of Management at
McGill University, there's a chasm between
what partners and associates think is inno-
vative. e study was conducted by McGill
University law and MBA student Aly Háji
under the supervision of professor Karl
Moore, with mentorship support and guid-
ance from Mike Ross of Juniper, a boutique
innovation consultancy.
e numbers tell the story. For example,
84 per cent of partners surveyed agreed
Why Innovation Remains Elusive
PHOTO:
SHUTTERSTOCK
