#BizDevTip

Can a falling A$ make selling Australian legal services easier overseas?

As regular readers will know, I have written a fair amount in the past (see here and here) about how a depreciating Australian Dollar (A$) is likely to be unkind to the Australia-based partners of international law firms operating here. It was, therefore, pleasing to see a post ( ‘Will international ﬁrms still call Australia home?’) on the Australasian Lawyer website yesterday that largely echoed many of the comments I had previously made.

So, with (1) the Australian legal press and a number of eminent managing partners echoing my views, and (2) an A$ hovering around the 87c on the US$ mark, a new question now comes to mind:

Can a falling A$ make selling Australian legal services easier overseas?

The answer here will depend on your law firm, its culture and client base. But, assuming that your firm actively encourages cross-border collaboration (and there is a whole different post there), the short answer should be yes.

If that’s the case, then some of things you need to be considering include:

How recently did I update my website profile/CV? Are all my deals Australian-based? Am I showing regional experience? Indeed, am I using regional keywords in my website profile or only local Australian used ones?
What sectors in Australia are likely to benefit from a falling A$ (tourism?)? Do I have expertise or a story to sell here?
A falling A$ should make assets in Australia more attractive to international purchasers (case in point: pension funds looking at real estate?). What am I and my colleagues doing about this?
What is the Australian Government’s current policy towards a falling A$ and foreign direct investment (FDI)? Is there a story to tell here (and there most likely is if you look closely enough)?
Are there regional developments that I could take advantage of (for example, development of arbitration courts in Singapore and HK?)?
Are there any free trade agreements (FTAs) in pace that make the falling A$ attractive (export markets?)?
When was the last time I talked with my clients to see how they were being affected by market/currency fluctuations and what steps they are putting in place to get the most out of this (manufacturing/FMCG?)?
Is there any way I can help my clients out with the current environment (put them in contact with clients in Asia?)? Maybe I can/should attend a regional trade or industry conference.
How often am I communicating with my colleagues in Asia, US and Europe to discuss work opportunities (including the chance to work in US$s?)? [time differences may have put this off before; but if I can bill in US$s, suddenly 2am conference calls don’t look so bad!]
What local or regional opportunities (tenders, capability statements, etc) are my business development team working on? Is there any way I can get in on this?
What regional panels are my firm on and can I look to develop these? If so, who is the relationship partner?
Should I be considering a secondment to another office in our firm network or to a client outside Australia (Asia, Europe, US) [especially if I can charge US$ for it!]?

Clearly you will need to make sure that you are meeting your clients’ expectations. You will also need to make sure you have in place a fee mechanism that is considerate of the exchange rate, while being beneficial to you and your firm, and also allowing everyone to prosper from the situation.

But, at 87c on the US$, the value proposition of an Australian lawyer active outside of Australia (such as in Asia) should have become a lot easier to communicate today than it was a year ago.

Now for a word of caution:

if you have been billing a client (especially one outside Australia) for several years in A$s, now is not the time to suddenly, and without notice, start billing that same client in US$s.

Strange as it may seem, clients will quickly see through this move. So make sure you give this issue careful consideration (as clients have also been known to talk with each other!).

A word on the inter-generational issues going on at law firms

When I was growing up, my Grandmother used to tell me that my generation (‘X‘) had never had it so good. Not that we were lazy mind, but that we didn’t have the work ethic of her generation. When I complained one day to my Mother about this treatment she told me that I misunderstood: my Grandmother wasn’t complaining about my slack arse nature, conversely she was pleased that my life was easier than hers had been – she now felt she had succeed in life. I said that I still didn’t understand and my mother told me that she doubted I would until the day I had children of my own. And while I still don’t have children, I do understand this deep need to try and make sure the life of generations to come will be easier than mine and that of my Mother’s (‘Baby Boomers‘).

So it was with interest that I read the recent post on the Australian Lawyer website by NSW Young Lawyers president Thomas Spohr – ‘A dangerous game: How older lawyers diminish their Gen Y colleagues‘ – and the subsequent response by Ken Shepherd, the principal of Shepherd Legal – ‘A dangerous game: A matter of perspective‘.

Both posts are entertaining and raise serious issues and are well worth the reading time. Underlying them both though is a feeling that I’ve had this discussion somewhere before.

Now if you want to read an excellent post on how disenfranchised Millennials (or Gen Y) lawyers must be feeling as they enter the workforce, then you don’t need to go past a post written by Michelle Silverthorn on 17 July 2014 entitled – “My Generation” – which I now consider to be the final word on this issue.

In her post, under the paragraph titled ‘Reframe The Discussion’, Michelle writes:

“I’m often told that Millennial lawyers lack commitment to their employer, that we start looking for another job five minutes after starting a new one. That’s a fair criticism, but look at it from a different angle. Assume that, on average, the youngest Millennial lawyer completed law school at 26. That means that, on average, the youngest Millennial lawyer started practicing in 2007. The majority will be starting their practice in 2014 and later. This entire generation of attorneys will therefore have started working in an utter paradigm shift in the legal market [post 2007]…”

Wow! – given that Australia has a 5 year undergraduate Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) program, that equates to an entire generation (Millennials/Y) of new lawyers in #Auslaw for whom the #NewNormal has been nothing but ‘normal’.

Further, in Australia that’s an entire generation of lawyers who have never experienced a recession but who have operated – in a professional capacity – under circumstances never experienced in living memory.

Quite simply – that’s powerful. And to my shame, I had never even looked at it like this before.

So when Michelle then goes to say:

This entire generation of attorneys will therefore have started working in an utter paradigm shift in the legal market, where traditions have been upended, expectations have proven false, debt seems overwhelming, and jobs simply aren’t there. Not to mention the whirlwind of layoffs, stalled promotions and hiring freezes that started in 2009 and continue today. In other words, when you ask why Millennial lawyers won’t stay committed to an organization, ask yourself what in the past seven years has demonstrated that an organization will stay committed to them?

it makes me realise two things:

First, Michelle is wise beyond her years.

Second, my generation has failed in our duty to the next generation. We haven’t made life any easier for them – desite our bitching and moaning to the contrary – and the only question that now remains is whether or not there is enough time left to fix the problem and restore the equilibrium?

RWS_01

Let’s talk about your law firm’s “collegiate culture”

“Collegiate“:

‘consisting of several colleges or parts’

very formal: ‘sharing ideas and responsibilities with the people you work with, in a friendly way’

– Source: Macmillan Dictionary

Business development professionals, like myself, often talk about the need for businesses to have a “collegiate” culture if the business is to have any real chance of turning a profit. Obviously when we talk about “collegiate” here what we mean is:

“the sharing of ideas and responsibilities with the people you work with in a friendly way”

rather than:

“consisting of several colleges or parts”.

But for business development professionals who operate in the professional services space, the thought of a firm actually having or implementing a “collegiate culture” is more along the lines of a ‘nice to have’, than a reality.

There are lots of reasons why this is so, and to be fair most of them have more to do with the benefits and rewards system that breeds behaviour in law firms than a lack of willingness on the part of any firm to implement this type of culture.

And so it was with great delight that I read earlier this week the CEO of Shoosmiths (Claire Rowe) saying that a collegiate culture was how to keep staff happy and turn a profit.

Imagine, the nirvana of happy staff and making a profit.

Actually, where:

“We have a transparent and open environment, there are no secrets. We have very honest conversations with our people to set our plans. Our staff enjoy a set-up which means they can achieve their personal objectives in a supportive way”

it really isn’t that hard to imagine.

It also shouldn’t be that difficult to implement such an environment.

So it was with equal disappointment that I read the following day, on the same website, how DWF were to “take account of non-billable work in [their] new appraisal model” (my bold for emphasis).

I’m not sure if the management/HR team at DWF are aware quite how polar opposite their publicly stated approach is to that of Shoosmiths. And to be fair to the management of DWF, they may not have been aware when talking to the publisher of the website that the Shoosmiths story was going to be published the day before.

Regardless, the message to young lawyers is clear: At Shoosmiths we believe in transparent and open environment with personal respect; whereas at DWF if you are not billing, we will give you credit for whatever it is you have done, but we are not overly happy about the whole situation!

And it is worth noting that, from an #Auslaw perspective, it is not only the young lawyers who get this message. As far back as September 2010, Bob Santamaria – ANZ Bank General Counsel – stated in the Australian newspaper that:

“Law firms now are being run more as businesses and for profit, and that is affecting lawyers, good and bad”

going on to say:

“There will be very, very good lawyers who are jaundiced by some of that approach that is applying in the big firms.”

In other words, if you can get the foundations of your culture right – and preferably making this a collegiate culture – you are some way to attracting some of the best talent around and, hopefully by extension, some of the best clients.

I happen to agree with Bob Santamaria. Indeed, I will go one step further:

If you can get a collegiate culture going in your firm that has values aligned with those of your client, you will almost certainly be as happy and profitable as Shoosmiths.

So how collegiate is the culture in your law firm?

RWS_01

ps – if you are interested in what a firm’s values might look if they were selected by their client, Cordell Parvin’s “If Your Clients Could Choose Your Law Firm’s Vision and Core Values” is a good starting point