Company culture is a term that has taken on new and important meaning in the modern business landscape. After remote work has provided more options to the workforce and younger generations have prioritized personal life equal to or greater than work life, businesses like law firms have struggled to make sure that their company displays the kind of positive culture that makes a difference to modern employees. Any law firm that wants to not only survive but to continue its growth needs to balance successful business practices with effective and worker-positive cultural decisions.
That’s why law firms should consider seeking consulting services like the kind that Brain Trust Legal provides. Building from the 50+ years of successful law firm ownership of BTL’s owners, Rob Levine and Darryl Isaacs, our consulting program provides advice on the positive changes that have made their firms a success and the mistakes and pitfalls that other law firms should avoid. Continue reading below to see just a small fraction of the kinds of insights and actionable planning that your law firm can gain from BTL consulting.
While core values and company culture are related, they are not the same thing. However, they absolutely work hand in hand. In essence, the company culture is what you want to have, and your core values are the directions you need to get to what you want to have. Core values are the map, and company culture is the treasure. Think of it this way: If one of the central tenets of your law firm’s company culture is innovation, there should also be an accompanying core value that expresses how that element of company culture is put into effect in the world and in your business.
You could have a core value that states, “Embrace and utilize any technology or advance that provides a faster, easier, and more valuable experience for every client.” Unlike the nebulous ‘feeling’ of a company culture, the more concrete ‘instruction’ of a core presents your vision and intent not only to clients and the public, but to team members as well.
There are several reasons that a law firm should be willing to consider or embrace remote and virtual team members, but two of the most significant ones are existential decisions for a law firm that can make a huge impact on the quality and longevity of your law firm.
The first is team member quality. When you seek a new team member for a position that is hiring for an in-person position, you are for all intents and purposes hiring ‘the best person possible within 30 minutes of the office.’ In reality, how many people is that? Is the best person within that small area actually the best person for the position? It’s almost certainly not, but it wasn’t until very recently that a business even had the choice to consider people outside that area, unless they were willing to relocate. Virtual and remote work opens up a whole new world of opportunities and applicants. When your pool of potential team members expands to the entire country and possibly the world, the threshold of quality candidates rises considerably.
Secondly, having a mostly or entirely remote team makes you flexible to the kinds of unexpected workplace or workforce changes that can’t be foreseen and can be devastating to a business confined to a single physical location. Case in point: COVID. Before the shutdowns and masking mandates, no one had any expectation that a business could just have to shut their doors one day and not open them for days or weeks at a time. But then it happened, and the companies that thrived were the ones who had already been embracing social distancing in their everyday business. The same can be true when inclement weather and natural disasters happen; an office building can be destroyed during a tornado, putting everyone in the business out of work. However, a versatile online workforce may be slowed down but not devastated by the same disaster. Remote and virtual teams are not only the direction of the future, they’re also the right strategy for avoiding unseen catastrophe.
Looking at the average workforce member today versus thirty years ago would provide a vastly different image and expectation. The truth is, workplace culture has shifted enormously even in the last decade. A smart and strong company like your law firm should be ready to incorporate positive changes. But what is the responsible way to make those changes?
First, you need a process to introduce those new ideas for changes into the law firm in a uniform and logical way. Often, a panel or board of some kind can be assembled to discuss important topics related to law firm culture, which allows for multiple and varied opinions from team members of different departments and backgrounds. They can spearhead initiatives like interviews, surveys, and suggestion drives that present ideas to the board.
From there, the board can consider questions and suggestions for feasibility, necessity, and potential ideas for implementation. This is where a diverse board is best for the right results; a group of predominantly one group, whether it be gender, race, age, or other orientation, can skew the awareness and efficacy of the suggestions. Once considerations have been made by the board, those suggestions can work their way up to the owner level, where serious discussion of changes and implementation can take place.
The most expensive thing that a law firm can do is to learn a lesson using their own time, money, and effort. In the long history of law firm ownership, there have been hundreds and thousands of others who have succeeded and failed, and they can provide valuable lessons that don’t cost you nearly as much to learn and utilize.
The power of Brain Trust Legal consulting comes from the real-world experience and success of its owners. There are hundreds of companies who will offer you an answer as to how to structure your law firm’s company culture for success, but most of them are not lawyers, and almost none of them are currently running a successful law firm. The bottom-line necessity for valuable consulting is the proof that your consultant can and has achieved the success you currently seek. That’s why Brain Trust Legal is the ideal consulting partner for your law firm. To learn more about BTL consulting and how to get started on growing and improving your law firm’s culture, you can call (855)743-1636 from anyplace in the United States to speak with a member of the BTL team.
