…or is it?

For the past couple of weeks, one of the most common themes I’ve been seeing about COVID-19, insofar as it relates to the legal profession, is how it has changed, and continues to change, the industry/profession. COVID-19, I’m being led to believe, is a “game changer”.

To this end, I have seen (and read) articles that I would not thought possible three to four months ago written about:

• the changing nature of remote working in the profession, and
• the importance of Zoom/Skype and Microsoft’s Teams,

to name but a few.

But I want us to stop here, take a step back, and ask: “Is this really likely to be the long-term outcome?”

When I ask this, keep in mind that this is a profession that has fought tooth and nail to keep to the same business operating model for over 30 years (if not 100) despite having already recently lived through one of the worst global economic downturns of all time (the GFC).

So I ask: “What can we really say is different this time?”

For sure we can say we have given our business continuity plans (BCPs) a tough workout. And, to be fair, I’d bet that even the most conservative of BCPs didn’t factor in a COVID-19 event.

And while we now know that most of our workforce can work remotely and, ironically enough, with the use of timesheets, we can also claim that they remain ‘productive’ whilst working from home – whatever that term may actually mean to a knowledge worker, does this truly foreshadow a change in the manner in which the industry is going to be managed?

My take is this:- while all of the above is true, it is taking place in circumstances that most of us had not predicted and many of us feel uncomfortable even being in (I’d bet there are very few people out there who are happy being locked up at home for four weeks – family or no family).

But this is a far cry from saying we will see the dawn of a ‘new normal’ whenever normality (whatever that may look like without a vaccine, which I am told is no sure thing) returns.

Because, while it’s critical that understanding our purpose is now more important than ever, and while we cannot hope to survive if we do not look to find the solutions our clients seek and need – which (as I mentioned last week) will be changing – in a post-COVID-19 world these will not necessarily bring about a change to the structure of how a law firm operates and is managed.

As any reader of this blog would know, it has been my long and strongly held view that to see real change to the business model of law, we need to start with the way in which we incentives and reward our partners and employees.

And to start this process we need to start to truly align our firm’s internal incentives/rewards to those of our customers so that we start to help create value for our customers. In short, our incentives/rewards must be aligned with our customers’ needs and incentives.

And yet nothing I have read in the thousands – possibly even tens of thousands – of words on how COVID-19 will change the legal profession has this even come close to being suggested or even discussed.

So my take from all of this is this:

If we want what we are currently going through to be truly more than a mere ‘stop-gap’ solution, if what we want from a post-COVID-19 world is true structural and ongoing change in the profession, then we need to start to have a conversation around the fact that the way in which we incentives and reward our staff is broken and worry a little less about where our staff are doing their job from.

And right now is the time to be having this conversation.

Failing which, all we really have is a stop-gap solution.

These are just my views, as always interested in your thoughts/views/feedback.

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