In the summer of 2018 I heard Richard Foley, our senior partner, speak about how diversity of thought improves the quality of decision making. Perhaps somewhat bravely, I approached him and asked, ‘how can we better embrace this value at Pinsent Masons?’ I suggested what I then thought to be the solution: a junior board. In the true spirit of our leadership style, Richard gave me, a junior solicitor in my twenties, ownership to go away with a small team (our Director of Knowledge and Innovation Delivery and our Head of Responsible Business, no less) to research and design a board that would work for Pinsent Masons.
In April 2019, after receiving enthusiastic approval, we announced our initiative internally. Within hours I had received hundreds of supportive emails. Our proposal was not, in fact, a junior board. Over the months of research (speaking to internal connections, clients, and business contacts) we designed the Spark Board. The Spark Board takes the best ingredients of many board designs for Pinsent Masons and gives us an ambitious group of eight diverse individuals – from across our international network, from Edinburgh to Dubai and Melbourne. We are all below partner, legal director, and director of operations level, but we have not been subject to an age limit and we are certainly not all lawyers – in fact the group includes a forensic accountant and a responsible business expert. We are not elected representatives either – we have been appointed on the basis that we think differently, have diverse backgrounds, and bring different strengths to the boardroom.
So, we are not a mirror (or shadow) board made up of senior individuals looking to step in to the management board roles, and we are not a junior board aged between 25 and 35 years placed a step away from the management board. We have not followed a template and we are certainly the first ever Spark Board.
Consideration was given to appointing a junior person to the Board instead, but we concluded that creating the Spark Board goes one better. Putting one junior colleague on to the Board to embody the views of thousands of colleagues around the world would place a huge amount of responsibility, pressure, and expectation on to the shoulders of just one person, and it would offer only one person’s perspective. The benefit of the Spark Board is that it offers the collective thinking of eight people from all around the business.
Our aim is to inform the strategic decision-making of the Board in an inclusive way that increases the connection between senior management and junior colleagues. We are doing this in two ways. First, we receive advisory projects delegated from the Board which ask, ‘we’re considering this, what do you think?’ Second, we have thinking projects which allow us to put forward proposals to the Board that we think need attention. Where our advisory projects give the Board a diverse thinking resource and the ability to ‘test the waters’, our thinking projects enable us to put forward our invaluable insight given our proximity to our people on the ground.
At the end of our term, we will all be replaced by new applicants to ensure that we have a completely fresh set of individuals bringing new ideas. This is important in ensuring that decision-making is informed by the widest possible range of talents.
As always, the proof will be in the pudding as to the success of this project, but a good benchmark for our firm and our stakeholders will be whether the Board choose to implement the Spark Board’s proposals, the success of such initiatives, and whether our community feels better engaged with our Board on a global scale.
“As we continue to transition our business we know our decision-making needs to be informed by the widest possible range of talents within our business. If we want our business to work better we have to be prepared to push a few boundaries and that includes around key decision-making. I am really excited about the contribution the Spark Board will make to that and I’m looking forward to working with the team”
I admit that when I first discussed the opportunity of joining Demarest, I was surprised by their approach and by the interest from one of the leading local – and most traditional – Brazilian law firms in bringing on board a foreign lawyer with an international career. It is true that I had been in Brazil, spearheading the LATAM project of one of the most prominent Iberian law firms and that, in a short space of time, I had gained a good positioning among foreign European investors for their regional interests. It took little time to realise that their initiative was part of a well-planned strategy and a clear bet on cultural diversity, which has proven very successful for both the firm and its clients.
This is a rare characteristic in a country (and region) where it is not very common to have fully institutionalised firms (i.e. not dependent on one individual or small group of individuals, such as the founding partners, name partners, or current managing partners). Indeed, Demarest had successfully overcome a very well-driven generational succession that led to a refurbished modern firm with clear objectives and a very interesting open-minded approach to the way they could best serve clients.
Clients have to face increasingly sophisticated and global challenges that occur in different markets. To attend their needs and be able to adjust to the demanding specialised counsel that they require calls for the capacity to understand their concerns and multi-faceted implications from a global, regional, and local perspective. Brazil is a prominent market in the international business arena and it is connected with most of the other business hubs worldwide. Its players expect advisors with a cultural and geopolitical background that helps them spot and understand the opportunities and risks of this playing field, when compared to other alternative markets.
An organisation becomes, in reality, an international reference not only for having a physical presence abroad or attending foreign clients, but also, and most importantly, for including in its ranks qualified and experienced professionals with different backgrounds. Acknowledging this fact, clients have also incorporated this multicultural diversity factor when configuring their teams, especially those tasked with expanding into new markets or simply those operating outside of their homeland. They understand that it is in this way that they achieve higher levels of competitiveness and dynamism. Professional service firms in general, and law firms in particular, need to keep up with this trend to be able to connect with the clients’ representatives and deliver up to their high standards based on best international practices.
Demarest is no different. In fact, they were pioneers in this regard. By the time I joined, several other international lawyers had already been trained and had made partnership within the firm. This allows a differentiated value proposition for clients that receive, alongside the legal advice that they seek, a highly empathetic service based on a better understanding and capacity to explain (and anticipate) their needs and in navigating the requirements and pitfalls of a different business environment.
Another driver to support this multicultural policy lies in the so-called ‘war for talent’. In such a battle, the capacity to offer a project and working environment with different personal and cultural profiles, in a well-integrated team of in-house developed and lateral hires, means a more attractive opportunity for new talent who seek enriching experiences.
Typically, M&A lawyers interface between foreign investors and the local entrepreneurs and business owners, contributing to the development and modernisation of the local market. However, we are also known to follow the opposite path, guiding local investors when expanding abroad. Lawyers and firms need to be well informed and prepared to explain, or at least understand, the main characteristics of investment source and destination markets, so that we can guide clients to make the proper connections. Often, decisive factors in the early stage of a successful international plan go beyond the technical knowledge of each specific legal system, and are, therefore, more dependent on properly understanding the cultural characteristics of doing business.
Nevertheless, not all organisations are ready and willing to integrate diverse talent. Achieving a cultural fit is difficult and, oftentimes, failure to acknowledge and integrate such cultural awareness ruins bold and well-intended projects. It is not uncommon for law firms, in many cases traditional organisations averse to change, to encounter endogenous cultures that, necessarily, entail overcoming complex difficulties related to integration and ‘otherness’, proving an even harder to overcome challenge than initially thought. Also, the adaptation factor of the individual is uncertain. Many successful lawyers that once shone in a given organisation fail to measure the size of the challenge they face when changing firms, compromising the quality of service due to a lack of the required flexibility.
At Demarest, my experience, as well as several others, is evidence of our belief in diversity (in all aspects, including cultural) to be solid and aligned with the strategy. This has afforded me a smooth and successful integration and has benefitted the firm with diverse views and experiences, culminating in many initiatives that have enriched the organisation. But most of all, the firm’s strategy and adherence to cultural diversity has benefitted our clients through a value proposition with a unique approach, that has ultimately translated into tangible results.
The thing that surprises many people about me is my experience as a lawyer in Papua New Guinea (PNG). Looking at my career with fresh-out-of-law-school eyes, I’d be pretty surprised myself. Opportunities early in my career led to a less-than-common legal qualification and a keen professional and personal interest in PNG.
When I joined Blake Dawson Waldron as an articled clerk in 1998, I did not expect to stay in private practice. I planned to be a government lawyer, but rejected by the Commonwealth Attorney General’s graduate programme (my CV was ‘not sufficiently commercial’ they said), I was forced to look elsewhere. Now, 21 years into a career as an energy and resources sector lawyer, I still enjoy the irony of this rejection.
Reluctantly propelled into corporate law, I was convinced this was not a world for me. I had no intention of staying in private practice longer than was necessary. This plan, too, was derailed as I discovered early – and to my slight dismay – that I really liked resources law. My interest was piqued during articles and evolved into a more specific interest in upstream gas development and wholesale gas markets. Still later, this broadened to include renewable energy and wholesale electricity markets.
PNG is a resource-intensive economy and large-scale resources projects, historically mining and more recently liquefied natural gas (LNG), have been the key drivers of its economic growth. My early career was spent with firms with large Australian and PNG resources practices. So, with no strategising on my part, I had the opportunity as a mid-level lawyer to work on a variety of matters connected with PNG. Everything which has followed, from my first in-house role with an oil and gas major, to my 2018 admission as a lawyer of the Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea, arose from this experience. I am very grateful to the Attorney-General’s Department!
The first thing anyone wants to know about travelling to Port Moresby for work is whether it is safe. There is no question that everyone – local and visitor – needs to take care in PNG’s capital and it is smart to take local advice. Whatever a visitor’s baseline precautions, unless they are constrained by company policy, everyone relaxes over time. I had a mental block about driving in Port Moresby. I have a bad sense of direction, which doesn’t bother me in Australia (I allow lots of time for detours), but in Port Moresby it is important to get from A to B by a direct route, with no surprises. The work around was simply to get a colleague to direct me from the passenger seat on the first trip and then to have a carefully prepared map. It helps to have no shame about seeking help.
Working in PNG has its challenges but my experience has been that the country accommodates foreigners very well. Estimates vary for the size of the population and the number of languages, but common figures are more than 800 languages in a country with approximately 8 million people. Port Moresby is home to diverse people from across the country. As a colleague pointed out, the locals are dealing with difference every day, whether there are foreigners in town or not.
Business has a different pace and face-to-face meetings are extremely important. It is also important to have local advice on key political and business relationships. On the legal side, local assistance is always required to advise on PNG law and, in many cases, to obtain information from statutory registers. Subscription services for legislation are updated on a six monthly basis, so it can be necessary to visit the Office of Legislative Counsel’s library for physical copies of the latest statutory amendments and gazettes.
Other than accepting a different pace for business and the limitations of the internet, I’m not conscious of needing to adjust enormously in PNG – but I am sure that adjustments are being made for me. Just one of the many things a foreigner has to accept with humility.
My own legal experience in PNG is largely in connection with oil production, gas developments, and mining developments, with some work in the agriculture and food production space. The economy is resource-intensive but the foundation of the rural economy is agriculture, most of it small scale. Fisheries and forestry are also important sectors. The years following the construction of the PNG LNG Project (at a cost of $19bn) have been challenging ones for the economy but there is cautious optimism for the medium term.
The first ten years of my career were spent in environments where it was a normal part of business to work on PNG matters and to travel there. It is interesting to move away from those environments and to appreciate that it is an unusual set of experiences and an unusual legal expertise. The early connection with PNG has provided rewarding opportunities in a career that has been shaped by the unexpected benefit of not getting what I wished for. n
Knowledge management (KM) brings the phrase ‘what’s old is new’ to mind. As a concept, KM is at least 30 years old in the legal sector, and yet there’s newfound excitement for it in the industry within both law firms and new entrants in the ecosystem.
Historically, the discipline has been driven by the need to facilitate information and advice sharing across the firm – given that the traditional law firm partnership model isn’t naturally conducive to proactive collaboration. KM has been about legal, document-based taxonomies, and marshalling legal advice into precedents, practice notes, and processes that are made available for lawyers’ reuse.
The dynamics in the sector are changing with the rise of alternative fee arrangements, demand for matter transparency, and competition from new models of work. Corporate legal departments are demanding predictable outcomes. From a documentation standpoint, lawyers are under pressure to deliver advice in a more consistent and effective format, making handcrafted elegant documents superfluous. The ability to leverage existing information to abet efficiency has never been greater as firms look to reduce the cost of service delivery.
The cracks show
Despite law firms and some lawyers appreciating the need for KM, adoption still isn’t hugely successful. Legacy technology infrastructure stands out as a key reason. Knowledge is still delivered via old search engines, intranets, practice area pages, and knowhow collections, often on old versions of tools like SharePoint. The interfaces are cumbersome and antiquated, lacking ease of use and providing limited navigation that modern applications offer. Think Google!
Cultural transformation is lagging. Firms are employing data scientists, data analysts, information and research professionals. Disciplines such as legal project management, Six Sigma, and process improvement are being embraced. KM teams need to work with them all, but in the absence of mechanisms for a new, collaborative way of working, cultural friction often poses obstacles.
KM needs redefinition
KM needs a redefinition of its delivery channel and the format of knowledge assets (rather than reinvention) to move away from the traditional content-led methodology of ‘retrieve and read’ towards a more fluid, intuitive and data-driven way of surfacing information. This will ensure that content is created in a way that fits in with how lawyers perform tasks, appearing dynamically at the point of need within their workflows. For instance, legal best practice-style documents need to be transformed into workflow-led content, and things like legal precedents need to evolve into clause banks and recommended positions in playbooks.
Data-driven enterprise search and knowledge go together
For data to take the shape of ‘knowledge’, content needs to be enriched and information needs to be accessible across systems and repositories. A lawyer seeking information on a specific type of matter should be able to access information holistically – from legal advice and documentation, firm expertise, skills and resources, through to time and billing data. More than merely search, the enterprise search engine should be a data repository that can be queried from multiple angles and by different professionals – lawyers, business development executives, and client-facing service teams. It should be an engine that ‘joins data’ to provide analytics on the firm’s knowledge – like Google, where a search also provides ‘searches related to’ the original search term.
A data-driven approach delivers analytics that law firms will find valuable. The ability to know how many litigation matters have been executed for a client over a 20-year period, the percentage of success for each, the time spent by lawyers by expertise and seniority, and the billing level for every case, would be great insight. Undertaking the same analysis for litigation activity across the client base would be invaluable business intelligence that could be used strategically for competitive advantage.
This approach will help drive KM adoption among lawyers. Given their quest for evidence, focus on identifying risks for clients, and analytical approach, lawyers are well disposed to data. Offering them the ability to identify risk/opportunity in a format that is visual, well-presented, and drillable to a granular level is more likely to motivate them to engage with KM. This function has the capability to provide the structure, rigour, and governance to make data truly insightful and useful at the point of need for lawyers.
Applying AI to KM is logical
A data-driven approach to KM provides a stepping-stone to applying AI/machine learning to the function. Amazon is an example of a company that has successfully applied machine learning techniques to enterprise search. Doing a search on Amazon and purchasing, say a book on corporate leadership, typically results in recommendations on similar books for the online customer. At the backend, AI is connecting the various facets to surface information at the point of need for the buyer, but crucially it’s constantly cleaning and enriching data through machine learning techniques to ensure incrementally more accurate outcomes for the customer in the future.
AI technology offers enterprise search and KM great opportunity for evolution, within the continuum. KM professionals must be commended for their work thus far. Many have had the vision for the function but were constrained by technical capability. With AI, technology has finally caught up with their mindset. With a combination of old principles, new legal drivers, and modern formats, we’re seeing the rise of the next evolution of knowledge management, at scale, in legal organisations globally. n
As business crime-related claims go, the one made by the chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was a pretty big one.
SEC Chairman Jay Clayton chose a speech to the New York Economic Club to argue that the US was pretty much going it alone when it comes to punishing bribery and corruption. He cited figures to back his stance and followed up by calling on other nations to follow the US’s lead in tackling what is an international problem. But does his viewpoint stand up to serious scrutiny? Only to a very limited degree.
His view that the US has spent more than two decades enforcing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) is a valid enough point to make. In the past five years or so, the SEC has brought more than 70 FCPA-related cases – and these cases have involved misconduct in almost as many countries. Mr Clayton’s argument that the US is ‘doing its bit’ does, therefore, seem to stack up. The FCPA is a strong piece of legislation and the US is far from shy when it comes to utilising it.
But the SEC chair can be taken to task when he claims that the US is acting largely alone; especially as he argues that other countries are taking advantage of the efforts that the US is putting in to tackle bribery and corruption. The US has, for many years, been one of a relatively small group of nations prepared to investigate bribery but the view that somehow everyone else is freeloading is unfair.
The view has also been expressed within the US that because other countries do not have strong anti-bribery legislation US companies bidding for work abroad are up against foreign rivals who are not bound by legislation as far-reaching as the FCPA; meaning the US companies are at a disadvantage when trying to clinch deals. But should that not be a reason for the US to be working closer with other nations to eradicate bribery rather than condemning them for what the SEC chair sees as a lack of effort?
Mr Clayton appears to have recognised that as markets evolve, so must the SEC. He should also recognise that the US is not the only place where efforts are being made to tackle bribery.
If we take the UK as just one example, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) takes a multi-disciplinary approach to investigating bribery and corruption. The likes of forensic investigators, lawyers and computer specialists work closely together for maximum effectiveness. The SFO also works with other UK agencies – not to mention national and international enforcement agencies – to tackle bribery and corruption. It is looking to encourage a culture of co-operation and self-reporting among corporates. Avoiding prosecution via a deferred prosecution agreement – as was the case with Rolls-Royce – is now a possibility. Unexplained wealth orders are just one in a series of measures available to the UK authorities when it comes to targeting the assets of those suspected of being corrupt. And, in the Bribery Act, the UK has a more far-reaching piece of legislation than the US’s FCPA.
These are all reasons why Mr Clayton would be wrong to lump the SFO – and by extension, the UK – in with those he sees as falling short when it comes to tackling bribery and corruption.
But it would also be wrong to think the UK is the only nation taking a more aggressive approach to tackling bribery. Anti-corruption laws may vary significantly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction but many countries are now working harder to combat bribery. Corruption has been made the subject of agreements from bodies as sizeable and varied as the Council of Europe, the United Nations and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The claim from the SEC chair that the US is going it alone does seem, at best, a little short-sighted.
‘Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.’
In 1997, Apple launched its iconic ‘Think Different’ campaign with those words, but it may as well be a millennial’s manifesto. We, the generation born between 1981 and 1996, tend to take a fair bit of flack in the media for laziness and an obsession with silly videos of cute animals. But among other things, it is clear that a significant proportion of millennials want to approach work in a different way to previous generations, and also consider that ‘achievement’ goes beyond comparisons about who earns the most money. As a result, businesses are changing.
Sure enough, the legal profession is changing too. Which is just as well, because there has never been a better opportunity to shop around. Whether from the perspective of a client involved in a commercial dispute, or a student wanting to become a commercial barrister, there are many options out there. So what drives their choices? The first part of the answer are things which haven’t changed. For the client, think excellence of service, pragmatic resolution of business disputes, and cost-efficiency. For a future barrister, probably a reasonable rate of pay, working hours which are not too extreme too often, flexibility, and career progression towards handling more complex or challenging cases.
But the other part of the answer – the part which is changing – is a keener focus on social responsibility, and in particular on how business relates to wider society. This focus, which is now being seen as increasingly important by corporate clients (both lay and professional) and by potential recruits, puts pressure upon chambers to consider carefully the very same issues or risk disfavour. And while some barristers will naturally remain passionately individualistic, increasing numbers – including many millennials within chambers – recognise that it is not merely our own individual talents which have secured our current positions for us, but also a healthy dose of luck and assistance from others and, in most cases, a well-established chambers brand. In sum, a powerful combination of market necessity and personal values should make commercial chambers’ greater contributions towards social responsibility something which is eminently deliverable.
We all know that change does not happen overnight. But a failure to recognise the trend towards social responsibility which millennials have helped to push up the agenda will, in time, lead to increasing difficulties for chambers. While that is something which can readily be understood by anyone, the millennials in chambers may find that they need to take a more active approach in ensuring that practical steps are taken to reflect that trend. After all, our generation represents the future of our chambers – at least till the next one comes along.
A socially responsible profession
The seeds of a greater focus on social responsibility in the commercial Bar have already been sown in a number of areas. Three prominent examples are gender diversity, social mobility/access to the profession, and support for pro bono work:
The gender imbalance at the Bar has long been recognised as a problem, and the percentage of women in practice at the commercial Bar is significantly poorer than the profession’s average. As an issue which relates both to recruitment and retention, there is not a one-size fits all solution. However, recent initiatives from law firms including Clifford Chance, A&O, and Freshfields to actively meet with, promote, and instruct female counsel, the efforts of a number of commercial chambers in organising ‘Women at the Commercial Bar’ events, and changes made by some chambers to introduce more generous parental leave policies (while it remains the case that women are disproportionately in primary carer roles), shows that there are a range of serious options to be explored.
In terms of access to the profession, for many years the Bar Council has led the way with social mobility work, supporting an annual Mock Trial Competition and Bar Placement Week for state school students, in conjunction with the Social Mobility Foundation (SMF). In addition, a number of chambers have well-established links with local schools or other programmes, or formal ties with social mobility charities. For example, my chambers is an official supporter of the SMF, in which role we host a number of events each year such as introductions to public speaking and law for school leavers, mock interviews and feedback on UCAS personal statements, and an ‘Introduction to Mooting’ for university students.
Finally, support for pro bono work is becoming an increasingly popular way to develop your own skills as an advocate (in contrast to led work as part of very large litigation), while at the same time giving something back to those who find themselves in the unfortunate position of being without legal representation. Many barristers do pro bono work of some kind, whether it be via Advocate (formerly the Bar Pro Bono Unit), the Chancery Division Litigants in Person Scheme (CLIPS), the Free Representation Unit (FRU), or the Employment Law Appeal Advice Service (ELAAS).
The total cost of pro bono
Did you know that if you are successful in a pro bono case, you can recover costs by way of a pro bono costs order, which is paid over to the Access to Justice Foundation and is then distributed to support the future work of pro bono charities such as Advocate?
The application for such an order is extremely straightforward and can be made alongside an application for other costs (such as litigant in person costs), covering both counsel and solicitor work done on a pro bono basis. The jurisdiction of the court is based on section 194 of the Legal Services Act 2007 in combination with CPR r46.7, and more information (including a draft form of order) can be found here. The court is likely to approach the matter in a similar way to a summary assessment, and so although there is no prescribed format for setting out what is claimed, if not assisted by a solicitor it is advisable to include dates, brief remarks on the work done on each date, and the amount which would have been billed to a paying client on your typical hourly rate.
As pro bono work through Advocate or other charities is often ‘unbundled’ rather than a beginning-to-end commitment, it is useful to provide a costs schedule of this kind at each stage, so that if a different counsel ultimately appears at a hearing, the overall costs can be claimed rather than just those in respect of the final representation element.
Chambers’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives cover a number of different areas, including access to the profession and equality and diversity, as well as initiatives focusing on staff health, environmental sustainability, ethical business practices, and charitable causes. A successful CSR programme can have far-reaching effects, not only for the reputation of a chambers, but also for wider society and the environment. For sets which do not currently have a CSR programme, what works best and how can they implement one? To answer that question I spoke to representatives from five leading chambers on what works for them.
‘Matrix was founded on a set of core values which govern the way that it works and form a set of shared understandings that are a fundamental part of its identity,’ says Rachel Murray, the set’s marketing manager. ‘At the heart of these values is a commitment to equality and fairness in the way both barristers and staff work, and a public service ethos.’ Matrix is conscious of its duty to contribute to wider society which can be seen through the lens of its various CSR initiatives as well as the use of members’ expertise to carry out publicly funded and pro bono work.
Another set that has developed and implemented CSR initiatives which go beyond its core business activities is Maitland Chambers. While its members, through their own individual initiatives, use their skills and knowledge to help charitable causes and those in need, the set also provides activities the whole chambers can contribute to as a collective endeavour, but without pressure on individuals to commit, and with no identification of those who have not chosen to volunteer. In addition, all employees are allowed one day a year paid time-off to volunteer.
‘This model of CSR is particularly apposite to barristers’ chambers,’ explains chambers director Stewart Thompson. ‘It is also a model which does not try to take on more than is realistic for a small organisation like chambers, while having a high impact on the individuals benefitting from the projects. It is well-balanced between legal initiatives (pro-bono work and social mobility in the legal sector) for which members’ particular skills are efficiently utilised, and other social initiatives engaging the broader skill-sets and passions of members and staff.’
‘CSR programmes can be difficult to start in any small organisation,’ Peter Blair, chief operating officer at Quadrant Chambers admits. ‘There are rarely spare resources and finding investment – whether of time or funding – can be difficult. The Bar is a profession of individuals and so we have used membership of Heart of the City’ – the UK’s largest responsible small business network – ‘as a way of coordinating the different individual and chambers initiatives that were already in place and to help us develop new strategies and programmes.’
Clare Bello, former chambers manager of family set 4PB (now the new CEO of Cornerstone Barristers), details her old stable’s commitment to building CSR into its business strategy rather than considering it ‘a separate project’: ‘[CSR] is part of what chambers is, where it is going, its values, and how it wants to operate. CSR is not a “tick box” exercise and is at the heart of chambers’ business purpose, vision, and strategy. It impacts and influences every part of chambers’ activities and decisions.’
As Bello explains, solicitor clients increasingly have greater expectations on who they instruct and what they stand for: ‘CSR does make business sense, pursuing a sustainability agenda does in many cases lead to cost reduction possibilities, an increased competitive advantage. We also found that having an external focus and giving back to the community also significantly adds to the sense of belonging, motivation, and wellbeing of barristers and staff.’
Access to the Bar
As Matrix’s Murray explains, there are a number of challenges which young people wishing to pursue a career in the law face. On top of financial difficulties, key challenges include gaining relevant work experience and receiving appropriate encouragement, support, and advice from knowledgeable individuals.
‘With the aim of addressing some of these challenges, Matrix runs a work experience programme for GCSE and/or A-level students with 50% of places (“priority placements”) reserved for those from groups that are typically underrepresented at the Bar,’ says Murray. ‘This programme is about to be expanded to provide longer-term mentoring to those on priority placements who show particular promise.’
Matrix is also involved in several projects which aim to contribute to the progression and diversity of the Bar. These include being a founding member of FreeBar, a network for those who believe in equality for LGBTQ+ individuals, being a member of Stonewall’s Diversity Champion Programme, and hosting events on topical issues which help to spark conversations and debate.
Matrix is not alone in offering ways to access and diversify the profession. ‘Over the past couple of years, we have put particular focus on making the Bar accessible to all,’ say Fountain Court deputy senior clerks Katie Szewczyk and Sian Huckett.
‘We are an active supporter of The Sutton Trust, and offer a series of placements in chambers to academically able students in Years 12 and 13 from non-privileged backgrounds who are interested in pursuing a career in the law. Members have also spoken at schools to provide information on the Bar to young people who may not previously have been aware of the opportunities available in the legal sector.’
But the outreach does not end there, explain Szewczyk and Huckett: ‘Members of our clerking team have also spoken at state schools in London and surrounding areas, talking to prospective students about the career opportunities on offer in barristers’ chambers, specifically what a clerking role entails. By talking to students we hope to promote careers in chambers and encourage diversity among our future staff.’
‘One of the things we felt strongly about was the lack of diversity at the commercial Bar,’ remarks Quadrant’s Blair. ‘We wanted to examine ways to help address it and believed that improving access to the profession could be valuable.’
To achieve this, Quadrant partnered with HFW to take part in PRIME, an alliance of UK law firms and chambers committed to improving access to the legal profession through work experience. ‘Students are in Years 9 to 13 of state-funded, non-fee-paying schools or colleges and grew up in a household where no parent or guardian attended university. Most are in receipt of free school meals, pupil premium, education maintenance allowance and/or a 16/19 bursary,’ explains Blair.
‘The PRIME programme is mainly focused on working with law firms and so we initially were unable to make the “PRIME commitment”, particularly with regard to the selection process and the requirement to offer a number of work placements as a ratio of training contracts. As with all sets of chambers, we do not have the support resources enjoyed by the larger law firms,’ he adds.
‘We contacted HFW, one of our key clients, to offer to act as part of HFW’s PRIME programmes, and we were able to develop a programme to introduce students to what it means to be a barrister and to look at the routes that are available to join the Bar, as well as the support roles that every set needs.’
The programme is either a full or half day with short presentations from barristers and staff with opportunities for students to ask questions as well as try out newly learnt networking techniques. Quadrant has offered several students follow-on placements and remain in contact as they make their first steps into their chosen profession.
Community outreach
Chambers involvement in local schools can have a wider impact than just increasing access to the profession, however. Maitland’s initiatives include supporting the children at the Argyle Primary School in Camden. ‘The school is a fully inclusive community school where over 25 languages are spoken and the great majority of children come from low-income families,’ explains Thompson. ‘For the past few years Maitland has provided the financial means for children to experience a day-trip to a place of interest outside of London. A popular destination is Warwick Castle, but the children have also visited Hampton Court Palace and The Globe Theatre.
‘A member of chambers staff accompanies them on these trips and the aim is to broaden the children’s horizons and raise aspirations, as well as give them an enjoyable day out. The children draw pictures and write about their day: these are collated into a book for the parents and the school (again paid for by donations from Maitland). It has been an outstanding success; the children learn a lot, and each year produced a gorgeous book for Maitland about the castle, which features proudly in Maitland’s reception.’
By far the biggest part of Maitland’s commitment to Argyle Primary School is the barrister and staff volunteers who visit the school throughout the year supporting the teachers in delivering reading, literacy, and numeracy skills to the children.
‘Barristers also run an annual debating workshop with students,’ says Thompson. ‘It is a very popular session in which the students are introduced to a subject (e.g. “Chocolate should be free for everyone”) before considering their own motion. Within smaller groups the students discuss the range of arguments on both sides and are encouraged by the barristers to think about how to present their views in the most persuasive manner. The children then conduct the debate during the final part of the session supported by the barristers, who then decide which group submitted the most compelling arguments. These debating workshops have inspired the school to hold similar debating sessions in the classroom and evidence of these is displayed on school noticeboards.’
Charitable donations
One of the most obvious CSR programmes chambers can involve itself in is fundraising and supporting like-minded charities. ‘One of 4PB’s early initiatives was developing a collaborative partnership with the children’s charity Barnardo’s’, explains Bello. ‘Chambers was keen to link specifically with a charity closely aligned to our work and committed to improving the life chances of children. Traditionally, it has been very easy to think that by giving money you can tick a box that you are doing your bit for charity, but we wanted to get more involved through giving our time to young people leaving the care system.’
This partnership led to barristers and staff becoming volunteer independent visitors (IVs) for young adults leaving the care system. This volunteer programme offers the young person support and friendship and barristers and staff are given the opportunity to make a tangible difference to the lives of young people, providing them support at a crucial time in their development into adulthood.
Matrix also has a charitable fund, known as the Causes Fund, which is made up of monthly contributions from staff and members to provide small grants to national and international charities. ‘The fund provides support to organisations which promote access to justice, equality of opportunity, or a sustainable environment,’ explains Murray. ‘This year Matrix is proud to have reached the £1m milestone, having donated to over 110 different charities since the fund was established in 2003.’
When selecting which charities to fund, a Matrix sub-committee aims to ensure that projects will have a long-lasting impact and, where possible, this impact has ‘a cascade effect’ allowing it to reach the maximum number of individuals. ‘This fund and the work it is able to support embodies Matrix’s core values, and provides the opportunity not only for Matrix to be associated with a wide range of fantastic initiatives but to make a bigger impact on the wider society in the UK and around the world.’
For the good of the people
Pro bono is another traditional initiative that chambers can involve itself in. As Fountain Court’s Szewczyk and Huckett explain, junior members in their first year of tenancy are required to provide legal advice at the Bethnal Green Advice centre every Wednesday evening.
In addition, the set’s juniors also volunteer for a number of other schemes including Pro Bono Connect, the Queen’s Bench Division Interim Applications Court Pro Bono Advocacy Scheme, and the Chancery Litigants in Person Scheme (CLIPS) set up in conjunction with the Chancery Bar Association to provide pro bono representation to litigants in person in the Rolls Building, Court 10, and at the Central London County Court.
Also of note, in 2019 Quadrant became a Gold patron of Advocate, the Bar’s national charity that makes it possible for barristers to balance a dedicated practice with making a significant contribution to the community. ‘We have a champion within chambers, Matthew Reeve, who acts as liaison between the charity and members of chambers to provide information and encouragement to our members to offer support to pro bono clients,’ explains Blair.
Ethical business practices
Matrix is one of a number of legal businesses with an eye on its environmental footprint and sustainability. Examples of this include undertaking a green audit, only serving vegetarian food at internal and client events, and looking at ways to use technology in an effort to become paperless.
CSR initiatives at Matrix also extend to the health and wellbeing of its staff and barristers. ‘For a company to be socially responsible, it first needs to be responsible to itself and all those that work within it,’ says Murray. ‘In addition to having an impact for individuals on a personal level, Matrix’s health and staff initiatives can help to boost morale and help employees to feel more valued at work.
‘A few initiatives include a commitment to paying the London Living Wage, creating a wellbeing policy and committee made up of barristers and staff, and providing access to a 24/7 confidential helpline as part of the Employee Assistance Programme for barristers, staff, and their families.’
Elsewhere, Maitland is also preaching what it practices, ensuring all its suppliers pay their staff a living wage. ‘Maitland contacts its suppliers once a year to confirm they are maintaining this commitment,’ explains Thomson. ‘Some suppliers who were not paying the wage decided to do so to retain Maitland’s business.’
Starting small
Now you know the kinds of CSR programmes your chambers can get involved in, but how best to get going and what challenges should you be wary of before you begin?
‘The greatest barrier to beginning these programmes is often a feeling that, as a small organisation, a set of chambers is unable to develop or provide a full programme of events for a significant number of students,’ explains Blair. ‘We found it beneficial to start small and to partner with organisations with a history of delivering these initiatives, and with resources to be able to support selection and management throughout the programme.’
‘To fully integrate and establish a wide-ranging CSR strategy for chambers its vital that senior management are fully committed and engaged in the process,’ says Bello. ‘CSR can’t be achieved by one person, and broad ownership is instrumental in bringing about change as well as ensuring the long-term CSR development. Engaging individuals with a particular interest in the various areas really help to embed CSR strategies at 4PB; champions are enthused and driven to make changes. Additionally, new challenges continue to emerge and we need a team of people committed to being innovative and creative.’
Murray suggests thinking about what resources are available to you in terms of time and money, and ensure the whole organisation is involved. ‘When implementing a new CSR programme think about quality over quantity,’ she says. ‘Ensure that there is collaboration between barristers and staff so that there is shared responsibility. If everyone is passionate about your initiatives, it will be easier to get people involved and they are more likely to be successful.
‘Ensure your CSR initiatives mirror your organisation’s values: your CSR programme can provide an insight into an organisation’s culture and values so make sure that they are in line with one another.’
Chambers has recently launched the ‘Analysis: Commercial Dispute Resolution and life at the Bar’ podcast. How did the idea of this podcast come about?
There are two arms to our podcast – recent developments in commercial law and life at the Bar. The idea was initially born out of a desire to reach our international and regional clients more frequently, especially during periods when they are unable to participate in our events. Of course, we also wanted to reach a wider audience and find a way to develop an on-going relationship with that audience. The other arm to the podcast, ‘Life at Bar’, enables students considering a legal career and prospective pupils to access information about chambers in a more meaningful way, such as to help them get a real feel for life both at 4 New Square Chambers and the commercial Bar.
What do chambers hope the podcast will achieve?
Much of the marketing barristers do is centred on legal training and education. Our podcast provides the listener with an opportunity to access useful information at their own convenience and get to develop an impression of the speakers. Marketing at the Bar is continuously evolving, and we decided to take an innovative approach in how we reach our clients, keep pace with the shift to flexible working, and the increasing integration of technology in our professional lives by providing a resource legal professionals can use whenever and wherever they wish. So far take up has been excellent, and we have had a lot of positive feedback from our clients.
In respect of recruitment, there have traditionally only been a limited number of ways to interact with prospective pupils and especially those for whom the commercial Bar appeared inaccessible. Diversity of intake is a key consideration for us as a set. We have hosted a number of successful events in chambers for students in this regard but inevitably there is only a limited pool of students we are able to reach in each with these sorts of events. The podcast allows us to cast a wider net.
The first instalment of our ‘life at the Bar’ episodes went live in October 2019. There are five episodes in total in which we interview a number of our barristers including our new silks, recent pupils, and established juniors as well as our CEO, Lizzy Stewart, and head of recruitment, Miles Harris. The episodes seek to give a frank and detailed insight into their experiences of life at the Bar, their (varied) journeys to the profession, as well as some guidance to those considering a move to the Bar, in particular what future pupils can expect from the recruitment interviews, pupillage, and tenancy at 4 New Square Chambers.
There is all too often an assumption that there is a typical barrister and a typical background to those seeking to enter the profession. We feel that this is an outdated assumption that no longer reflects the present reality or the direction of travel. We hope our podcast will help to dispel those myths and encourage prospective pupils to go for it and apply!
What further developments do you have in the pipeline?
We are in talks with a number of exciting potential external contributors – watch this space!
What advice would you give to other chambers thinking of launching their own podcast?
I am not sure that it is for me to be advising other chambers but I do think that some of the initiatives that we have been undertaking as a set will become more commonplace and that can only be a good thing for the Bar as it continues to protect its well-established reputation for excellence in the provision of legal services.
What form of marketing do you think currently works the best for a chambers?
I think there is no single form of marketing that works best across all practice areas or even in one specific practice area. That is part of the challenge. We offer a whole range of different choices for our clients, from intimate roundtable discussions and seminars at law firms, to hosting full day public conferences and events, or speaking engagements at major conference events in the UK and abroad.
What underpins all of our successful marketing activities as a set is quality and, where possible, innovation. That necessitates working closely with our members of chambers (and consulting frequently with our clients) to ensure what we are offering is as useful and helpful as possible. This applies for all forms of marketing, whether it is providing training to our clients, for example a seminar or roundtable off the back of a major recent decision in which we have acted on one or both sides, or the contributions of our members to international events overseas.
Chambers marketing has come a long way in the last decade. However, can the Bar be bolder with the ways in which it markets itself?
I am not sure the Bar needs to be bolder, but I do think we will increasingly need to look outside the traditional marketing tool-box and be more entrepreneurial with our marketing plans whilst retaining our character as a chambers. The way in which people work and how they prioritise their time is changing rapidly, which means keeping pace with technological and societal developments will remain crucial for chambers.
For more information on the ‘Analysis: Commercial Dispute Resolution and life at the Bar’ podcast, please click here.
Street Law’s Legal Diversity Pipeline Programs The legal teams seeking to make the most progress in terms of diversifying their talent pool are taking a multi-pronged approach in targeting diversity initiatives to recruit, retain, and promote individuals from different diversity backgrounds, while complementing this by addressing diversity at different career stages – or pre-career stage as is the case with the Street Law Legal Diversity Pipeline Programs (the ‘Programs’).
The Programs are designed to encourage young people from ethnic minority backgrounds to consider a career in the law. As the Program website highlights: ‘Our past experience has shown that many high school students are uninformed about the education needed and the process to become a lawyer, and lack a comprehensive understanding of the many types of work lawyers and other legal professionals do.’
Street Law partner with both the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) and the National Association for Law Placement (NALP) to deliver the Programs in the US – partnerships which ‘help them to extend their reach amongst the networks of these organisations and expand their volunteer base’, according to Street Law’s director for the Programs, Joy Dingle.
The Programs are supported by volunteer teams from both law firms and in-house legal departments who are partnered with diverse high school classes by the Street Law team. ‘The focus’, says Dingle, ‘is on high school students of colour and those who may be the first to [attend higher education] within their family’. The work of the Programs can be especially impactful in minority communities which have historical issues of trust with the law, and can help to dispel myths that are preventing those students from considering a legal career path.
According to Dingle, the Programs now have close to 2,000 legal volunteers and 70 active sites across the US. Both Holland & Knight and Paul, Weiss are participating firms, and were noted by Dingle for their outstanding contributions to the Programs. (And each firm has provided some additional insight into the Programs from their experiences with them below.) As with all of Street Law’s programmes, the work on the Legal Diversity Pipeline Programs is impressively carried out by a small sub-team of four. The team provide formal training, in-depth demonstrations, and lesson plans for all volunteer law firm and in-house teams.
As Dingle explains, her team are ‘very hands-on to ensure volunteers have the training needed and a full understanding of what is required’. One crucial focus of the training exists to remind the legal volunteer teams of the difference between the method of learning at high school level compared to that which they would more commonly have experience with from entry level lawyers who have been through higher education.
For their part, law firms and in-house teams enter into a formal agreement confirming their obligations and undertakings are understood. They commit to following through with the Program activities, which include a visit (or visits) to their partner high school classes to teach them about the law and to provide insight into legal careers from their own personal experiences.
At a legal careers conference at the end of each semester the students participate in interactive legal simulations where they can use the skills and knowledge acquired over the course of the Program.
While privacy laws restrict the Street Law team from tracking which high school participants go on to study law, they do receive feedback from some volunteer teams who keep in touch with promising student participants, or from the students themselves. Overall, however, their role is not to achieve set numbers of future law graduates, but rather to open the door to a legal career amongst minority background high school students and in doing so contribute to the pipeline of diverse legal talent.
A law firm leader recently asked me what it is that separates successful firms from the uber-successful, superstar firms – those that seem to grow exponentially, retain greater profits, and solidify decades-long large-scale client engagements. She asked what I see when I contrast the behaviour of those two types of firms.
The challenge is that it’s hard to define a singular characteristic that makes a difference; after all, each firm is unique, from its compensation system and leadership paradigm to its succession planning and culture. However, when I’ve consider those attributes, there is one commonality between those firms that consistently do well, year after year, regardless of the economy: a culture of collaboration.
This shows up in a variety of ways that other firms can model, especially as it relates to a firm’s client relationship management and business development efforts.
Partners collaborating on serving clients
Firms that take care of their clients by providing them with a range of cross-functional services in more than one practice area are likely to have stronger and more meaningful relationships with them. Firms supplying deeper and more varied value to their clients are more likely to do so because they have multiple personal connections at different levels of seniority within the client organisation, in comparison to the law firm that provides a more shallow service from just one lawyer or a single practice.
This paradigm of multiple inputs, up and down the firm’s hierarchy and between the law firm and the client’s organisation, is often referred to as the ‘zippering effect’. The zippering effect occurs when partners throughout the firm have relationships with various individuals within the client organisation. These relationships provide a strong glue in the client-attorney relationship. When a client is using a firm for more than one practice area, they are less likely to be viewed as an-easy-to-replace legal commodity. As Dr Heidi K. Gardner (author of Smart Collaboration: How Professionals and Their Firms Succeed by Breaking Down Silos) has noted from the research for her book: ‘When it’s done right, cross-practice collaboration creates far stickier client relationships by creating barriers to switching. The skills of individual lawyers can be found elsewhere, but a cross-functional team is more valued and harder to replace.’
Partners collaborating on pitches
Firm leaders now understand that diversity, both in demographics and in perspective, is extremely helpful in problem solving. Perhaps this is nowhere more evident than in crafting approaches to new business. By bringing partners together to share information prior to pitches – whether it’s in thinking about possible approaches to resolving a case, or providing ideas and sharing contacts to get in the door – collaboration is at the centre of building a robust practice. The technology that is available to help firms market their practices is miraculous. It can save time, money, and aggravation for the firm, and can help everything from client intelligence, team building, and targeting new pieces of business. However, as amazing as these new tools are, a firm will never leverage them effectively unless the full partnership is involved. Whether it is building a CRM to gather the firm’s contacts or tracking experience, partners’ willingness to work together by providing information and data to help build and populate these tools can become a differentiator in how the firm operates as well as in how it develops business. By sharing and collaborating with one another, partners can take advantage of their cumulative knowledge and pursue opportunities with greater insight than they would on their own.
Collaboration is also beneficial when actually making the pitch. When two partners are in a pitch, it’s easier for one partner to present the capabilities of the other. Not many partners feel comfortable sitting with a potential client and telling them about their glories in the courtroom or how beloved they are by other firm clients. It can be awkward for them to state how illustrious their background is, and what results they have won for clients. However, most are comfortable speaking about their partner colleagues and speaking well of the other lawyers in the room. Having more than one partner in a pitch, enabling them to sell one another and be there to shine a light on the other’s talent, is a collaborative technique that literally ‘sells’.
Partners collaborating with marketing
Law firm marketing people are in a unique position within their organisations. They are often the fulcrum, tying together various cross-marketing programmes and tracking successes and failures within the firm’s practice areas. Members of the marketing staff have a tremendous amount of skill and knowledge in helping their lawyers to create individual, practice, and firmwide strategy. Not only can they suggest tactics to be employed by individual partners, they can supply connections to other partners at their firm who may be able to involve them in cross-selling opportunities. Those marketing folks are also more likely to remain longer at an institution where they feel valued for their work in a collaborative environment. Collaborating with marketing by including them in the initial discussions with partners surrounding strategy, lateral hiring, and growth – rather than bringing them in post-decision making – is the way to go.
By collaborating with their clients, fellow partners, and the firm’s marketing professionals, lawyers can take the steps towards building a more functional and stronger firm – one that will grow and secure long-lasting client relationships. It’s important for firm leaders to understand the importance of a collaborative culture and to take the steps necessary to incentivise partners to work together in establishing their own working model of successful – and collaborative – business development. n
