2013 Index Case Studies

AdventBalance

Innovation isn't something AdventBalance has to work at, it goes right to the heart of their organisation as all of their lawyers work remotely at client offices as a cost-effective, flexible alternative to the traditional law firm.

However, this raises its own challenges with Anita Bennett, Director of People Development & Communications, tasked with keeping her remote workforce engaged with the company in addition to providing online tools and processes to deliver a consistent level of quality across all clients.

AdventBalance was awarded a place on the inaugural LexisNexis/Janders Dean Legal Innovation Index for their approach to internal communication and knowledge sharing which included a number of projects and a wide range of solutions. "Our lawyers join us for flexibility and not all tools work for all people, so we need a range of solutions to meet all requirements," explains Anita.

An important part of ensuring the lawyers identified with AdventBalance rather than the clients where they are placed, was to encourage collaboration and sharing successes across the network.

"We use Yammer, the Facebook of the professional world, to share photos of social gatherings, to connect our lawyers for questions and answers and to celebrate our successes as well as a monthly e-newsletter for behind the scenes information and an overview of the business," says Anita. "We understand the importance of our remote workforce understanding how they contribute to our overall strategy, regardless of where they are working from".

"Importantly we created a 'virtual corridor' that lists all of our lawyers and their particular expertise so if any of our lawyers need advice on an area that is not their speciality they know they can reach an expert very quickly."

Since the roll-out of the internal communications and knowledge sharing program AdventBalance has seen an increase in the responsiveness and engagement of its remote workforce who feel a valued part of the team.

There is a large and increased take-up in internal training and company-wide initiatives such as the Global Corporate Challenge with very positive feedback from clients also.

As a company that was created to shake-up the Australian legal industry, being placed in the Legal Innovation Index is very important to AdventBalance. "Externally, it demonstrates to the market a hard-to-see tangible, and has helped us to get the message out about our innovative practices, and we are recognised as a market leader," concludes Anita.

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Chen Palmer

Chen Palmer understands that to help the greatest number of people understand Government, and the rule of law, and to participate in our democracy and, it needs to share its methods and processes with the public in a format that is easy to understand.

Chen Palmer’s unique approach to diagnose and solve client needs in public and employment law in Australasia. In May 2012, Mai Chen of Chen Palmer authored the online and print LexisNexis^® publication, “Public Law Toolbox”. The ‘toolbox’ is an indispensable resource for lawyers and reflects an important element of Chen Palmer's commitment to open sourcing public law. Chen Palmer also published Practical Guidance – Employment Law for Business, have hosting a Public Law Toolbox conference at Parliament in Wellington in May 2012, and deliver numerous seminars and training sessions to clients, businesses, communities and not for profits, Kiwi, Maori and Pasifika groups on how to use the practical tools set out in the Public Law Toolbox to help them work more cost effectively and efficiently with government and parliamentary processes.

The IP captured and leveraged in ToolBox distinguishes Chen Palmer from the rest,” said Denise Farmer, Head of Strategy and Innovation for LexisNexis^® Pacific. George Beaton said he was “struck by the pioneering nature of this firm – a specialist boutique way ahead of its time.”

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Emil Ford

Emil Ford successfully landed a place on the 2013 Legal Innovation Index by harnessing the solution that is Paradocs. Described as an e-brief provider, Paradocs appears to be an excellent example of a creative solution to a deficiency in the process collaborative way of practising; perhaps more a opportunity for the nominee and its clients to collaborate online and therefore work more efficiently.

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For their innovative strengths-based approach to people management, and their diversity programs.

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King & Wood Mallesons

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Marque

Marque Lawyers articulated its philosophy to demonstrate its innovative approach to knowledge sharing and collaboration.

Marque is innovative because of its culture, which is a function of the values and styles of the senior partners,” said George Beaton, Executive Chairman, Beaton Research & Consulting Australia. “Culture is one of the greatest sources of competitive advantage – and for this reason alone [Marque] is commendable.”

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Australia’s biggest class action firm, Maurice Blackburn has recently emerged as a successful example of how a law firm can evolve to meet the needs and challenges of the 21st century client.

Maurice Blackburn prides itself on the advocacy for the underrepresented and those seeking restitution which is evident in their www.wefightforfair.com.au microsite which contains snippets of information that addresss common legal questions clearly.

Maurice Blackburn recognise that innovation and engagement are only as successful as its staff. Following a 74% score on an employee engagement survey, they created a working project titled ‘Evolve’ to deal with management, communication, analysis, training and support for the implementation of a new system infrastructure at the firm. This Evolve group lead the innovation and engagement for workflow, practices, knowledge, iKnow (Endeca), office upgrade and MatterSphere implementation to all users in six months.

“Innovation comes when risk and opportunity create a positive change,” said Denise Farmer, Head of Strategy and CDI, LexisNexis^® Pacific. “Maurice Blackburn seem to be at the forefront of innovation as a firm and showed innovation across all criteria including their CALC outreach program and their attention to corporate social responsibility.”

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Pod Legal

Taking marketing into the stratosphere is not something one generally associates with legal firms, but that's precisely what Pod Legal owners Karan White and Jamie White did and it won them placement in the inaugural LexisNexis/Janders Dean Legal Innovation Index in 2013.

Determined to reinforce the firm's expertise in social media which is a key area of the business, Karan and Jamie conceptualised and implemented a 'sticky note' series which shared bite size legal information including dispelling legal myths on copyright law in two or three sentences via social media channels Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and Pinterest.

More like a creative agency than a traditional law firm, one of Pod Legal's biggest challenges is looking for like-minded team members. As Karan says "We are not for everyone, and many law graduates expect to be positioned above the client and that's just not us. Nor are we a perfect fit for every client. We tend to work best with entrepreneurs, start-ups and smaller businesses as they tend to be social media, technology and IP savvy and so are we."

Without doubt innovation and keeping on top of changing technologies will be the cornerstone of Pod Legal's future. "Social media makes news old very quickly so we have to continuously innovate in the conversations we have and the way we are having them," Karan says.

Pod Legal's focus on maximising the potential value of new technologies comes as no surprise to anyone who knows Karan. She was one of 10 Australian women selected to visit Silicon Valley for one-on-one time with IBM, Cisco, Facebook and LinkedIn. These companies gave her a toolkit of information and new ideas that Pod Legal will use to fast track its innovation journey.

Not surprisingly, securing placement in the Legal Innovation Index is not wasted on Pod Legal. Internally it has further enhanced morale as the team know they're onto something great while externally the Index logo takes pride of place on all the firm's marketing collateral.

"We want to be recognised for innovation in the legal industry because that is exactly what we stand for," Karan concluded.

Read the full article at Lawyers Weekly: http://www.lawyersweekly.com.au/news/change-will-do-you-good

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Watermark

Watermark patent, trademark and IP lawyers take a fresh approach to the provision of traditional IP services to assist clients capture and manage their intellectual assets for profit and growth.

Watermark secured a place on the 2013 Legal Innovation Index through its Waterlink, a secure, web-based extranet system that gives client’s near real-time visibility into their IP portfolio as managed by Watermark, and Patent Mapping technologies.

Internally, they have developed an online ‘Watermark Wiki’ for staff to access and us for knowledge sharing - from case law decisions to breaking news and other news worthy entries. It also assists in the continuous up-skilling and training of professional staff by providing examples of concepts in practice by way of client case studies.

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Westpac

For Justin Moses, Westpac's Head of Knowledge & Development, placement in the Janders Dean/LexisNexis 2013 Legal Innovation Index not only positioned the banks' legal and compliance group as innovative and aligned with the Group's company-wide drive for innovation, it has also encouraged Justin and his colleagues to participate in robust external conversations that will significantly enhance not only their services received, price benefits and relationships with their panel firms but also their connections with other in-house legal departments.

Key to securing their placement in the Index, the Westpac team created a dedicated leadership role for knowledge sharing and development in the legal team, a structural and cultural innovation.

"Importantly, we created a vision for the legal function that was aligned with that of the broader organisation, we engaged more broadly with others in the bank and our panel firms, we established expert forums across the function involving thought leaders in specific disciplines including project management, brand & marketing, and digitisation to best leverage our intelligence across the whole team," Justin explains.

"We made full use of technology: from better understanding the time demands on our lawyers to building sophisticated intranet sites with document and process templates. And we fully embraced the high performance philosophy with extensive internal training, learning and development in legal technical requirements as well as soft skills," he added.

Since going down this track, the engagement of Westpac's in-house legal team has been measured with an annual employee perspectives survey with results in the high 80s (which is higher than global high performance norms) and is now working collaboratively with its 21 panels firms to achieve greater cost and performance efficiencies.

In addition, over the past four years, small Westpac teams travelled overseas to experience best practice not only in the finance sector but in other large global companies including Vodafone, British Aerospace and Barclays that had successfully addressed similar challenges in both in-house work and how they interact with their external partners.

Summing up Justin says 'to our Australian counterparts, we can honestly say there are trends we can observe and conversations we can have that will have a market changing effect for every in-house team in Australia."

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