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Worldview Archives
Building a Culture of Quality in Your Organization
Introducing a successful quality assurance system usually requires profound changes in how people think about their work, how they interact with each other and clients, and how they prioritize and deliver legal services.
A culture of quality challenges traditional assumptions about how lawyers and staff contribute to the profitability of the firm and how they add value in their respective roles.
It can be challenging, but it is absolutely necessary for sustainable success in a competitive environment that has very little tolerance for poor service quality.
The Transformation of a Law Firm
Slogans and strategic plans do not build a quality culture in a law firm.
Actions do.
Deming's Fourteenth Point, "Take Action to Accomplish the Transformation," is a clarion call to organizations seeking substantial improvement in every aspect of their collective and individual performance.
Invest in professional development.
The most productive investment a law firm can make is in the continuing professional education of its people.
W. Edwards Deming’s Thirteenth Point of quality management, "Encourage Education and Self-Improvement for Everyone," holds profound relevance for law firms. In a profession defined by its adherence to precedent and its response to evolving legal landscapes, the emphasis on continuous learning becomes not just an asset, but a necessity.
Removing Barriers to Pride and Professionalism
Most law firms talk a lot about their "professional quality."
Most of them also unwittingly obstruct it.
By identifying and dismantling the barriers that prevent legal professionals from taking pride in their work, law firms can unlock a higher level of personal satisfaction and commitment, leading to superior service, client loyalty, and overall firm success.
Driving Fear Out of Law Firms
Law firm leaders must foster environments in which everyone feels secure and valued.
This is the ninth in a series of sixteen articles that will explore the relevance and, for some law firms the existential importance, of W. Edwards Deming's Fourteen Points, especially for small and midsize law firms.
Leading the Way to Quality in Legal Services
The legal services industry is awash in advice about leadership. How can Deming's Seventh Point build better leadership in law firms?
Here are five practical actions that Walker Clark clients are taking that are consistent with Deming’s Seventh Point and the outcomes that they are experiencing from each one.
Training: A Strategic Imperative
Training is not just a nice fringe benefit in law firms. It is an essential investment.
Training is not limited to understanding the intricacies of the law or mastering courtroom strategies. It extends to client interactions, administrative tasks, technological adoption, and even skills such as communication and collaboration. Making training an institution in a law firm ensures that everyone, from senior partners to administrative staff, operate at peak efficiency and with consistent standards.
It’s as important as paying the electric bill.
Cease dependence on inspection.
"Cease dependence on inspection," W. Edwards Deming's third point for effective management, is perhaps one of the least understood principles in the context of service industries like law firms.
Conventionally, it translates into the notion that quality should not be an afterthought checked through after-the-fact inspections but ingrained in every step of the production process.
For law firms, this means shifting the focus from reactive measures to proactive strategies that enhance the quality of legal services by reducing or eliminating altogether the causes of mistakes and rework.
Constancy of Purpose
This is the second of a series of sixteen articles that will explore the relevance and, for some law firms the existential importance, of W. Edwards Deming's Fourteen Points, especially for small and midsize law firms.
The first of W. Edwards Deming's Fourteen Points for effective management calls for organizations to "Create Constancy of Purpose for Improving Products and Services." How can law firms do this in the face of changing client expectations and market dynamics?
Why Law Firms Need Deming’s Fourteen Points Now More Than Ever
Quality service, not price, rankings, or size, is what will differentiate successful law from from those that merely survive the 2020s.
Delivering the best quality legal services is a sincere aspiration of almost every law firm. For most of them, however, the word quality is little more than a slogan on their websites.
This is the first of a series of sixteen articles that will explore the relevance and, for some law firms, the existential importance, of W. Edwards Deming's Fourteen Points.
Associate Career Management: a Critical Strategic Issue for Small and Midsize Law Firms
Does your law firm have a documented career management strategy for your associates? Is it more than "each year, we pay them a little more."
The truthful answer for the vast majority of small and midsize law firms, everywhere in the world, is "no."
There are few issues in law firm management that have greater strategic importance for law firms today.
What should we work on now to get ready for 2022?
Notwithstanding all the breathless headlines in the legal press about ever-higher first-year associate salaries in the so-called "BigLaw" firms, most lawyers work in small and midsize firms.
Research conducted by Walker Clark LLC over the years, as we work with law firms worldwide confirms that salary alone is a relatively unimportant -- yes, unimportant -- consideration in associate retention.
Newly admitted lawyers tend to prioritize opportunity over cash: the opportunity to develop expertise; the opportunity to do significant client work; the opportunity to advance in the legal profession, to name a few things that most associates tell us are more important than salary. Salary is important, to be sure, but it seldom is the decisive factor between remaining at one's law firm and moving to another one.
So, will your law firm’s compensation program for associates next year give them more than just more money?
Why don’t they want to become partners?
This is not just something that we can blame on "the Millennials."
For the past 20 years, partners from law firms of all sizes, in almost every part of the world, frequently have told me that they can't understand why so many of their best associates and non-equity partners decline the offer of equity partnership.
“Salary Plus” Compensation Structures to Promote Better Partner Performance in Law Firms
In a previous posting in this blog, we pointed out how an "eat what you kill" system of partner compensation can introduce toxic elements into a law firm, which frequently counteract any motivating effect on lawyer performance.
This short article outlines the features of an alternative to "eat what you kill" compensation in law firms. It can work well in any size law firm, but is especially suited to small and midsize firms.
Survival Tools for Small and Midsize Law Firms
Law firms — indeed, most professional services firms — will be confronted by some formidable challenges between now and the year 2030. Consolidation of the legal market, the emerging dominance of large service providers with national and global capabilities, a continued profitability crunch, and increased competition for professional talent are probably the most obvious threats to continued success.
Independent small and midsize firms are the most vulnerable.
Evaluating Associate Evaluations: Three Questions that Partners Must Ask
As the new year begins, many law firms are looking at their performance evaluation standards and procedures for associates. This is more than just another "HR exercise."
Our firm has identified a clear, direct, and positive correlation between the quality of performance standards for associates and the overall financial performance of a law firm. As profitability and competition become more challenging for most law firms, many are concluding that it is time to get serious about associate performance.
Why Law Firms Fail: Failure to Invest
One of the most difficult challenges for law firm leaders is to lead their partners from a short-term focus on cost (and the effects of operating costs on their end of the year profit distributions) to an investment mentality.
This is the second in a series about factors that most frequently contribute to the business failure of law firms.
