Trial Magazine

Long gone are the days of legal secretaries typing letters from dictation and long hours in the office reading reams of paper. Now, lawyers can access files 24/7 and conduct meetings via Skype from anywhere in the world. With an ever-changing ­technological landscape, the traditional law firm model is outdated. And not only has technology changed the way law firms work, so has a new generation. 

Millennials now outnumber all other age groups in the workforce.¹ Unlike their baby boomer parents and Gen X cousins, money is not a major priority to most millennials. Instead, they are motivated by office culture, and they prioritize environments in which their ideas are heard and their input valued. They hate an office where politics reign, and where a lack of organization, ambiguity in authority, favoritism, competing interests, and unclear rules fuel a chaotic environment. It’s no wonder that more than half of millennials want to change careers.²

So what can a leader do to account for these changes, while retaining employees and still providing excellent customer service? Gene Hopper, a business coach in Oklahoma City, advised me that it is essential to create an office culture where politics are not allowed. To meet this goal, leaders must focus on their organization’s shared values and create work systems with accountability measures to ensure those values are respected.

Start With a Vision

Like any organization, the modern law firm must focus on a common goal to be successful. When my partner and I formed our firm, we sat down with the entire team—including lawyers and staff—to create a mission statement. The key to this process was getting input from everyone. By asking the group to come up with our mission, each person was engaged and invested. Our mission statement is:

We level the playing field by empowering our clients with the resources necessary to meet their legal needs regardless of who or what they are up against. We are the last resource to hold corporations accountable to their duty to safeguard the community and to their promise to protect us.

At the same time, we drafted a list of firm values—what we expect from each other. We expect our team members to be respectful, honest, hardworking, collaborative, positive, tenacious, passionate, and intelligent. These values are the guiding principles we use in both our hiring and firing decisions. Each team member is held accountable in maintaining and cultivating these values. 

Create Well-Defined Job Responsibilities

When I started a new firm, I had the luxury of being able to take a step back and thoroughly analyze how I wanted things to work. Over the 18 years I had been practicing, I had—in one way or another—performed every function in a legal practice. I learned what happens when systems and processes are not used across the board. I also learned what works and what doesn’t. Starting my own firm was an opportunity to eliminate chaos.

Because I handle mostly insurance bad faith cases, I knew I was not going to be a sole practitioner. The complexity of the practice area demanded that I have help from other lawyers and support staff. In the past, I had worked with legal assistants, many of whom did not know what our cases were about or what our clients’ needs were. I’d also worked with young lawyers who performed legal research but never learned what part their research played in the case. This created disengagement, which slows productivity and efficiency. 

To tackle this at our own firm, my partner and I dismantled the traditional law firm’s hierarchical structure. Instead of the “one lawyer, one file” system—or a system in which a senior partner hands down files to be managed by junior partners, associates, and staff—our process is linear, with all case tasks separated into discrete “stages.” Different team members are responsible for specific tasks during each stage. This way, instead of team members trying to do everything on a file, they are experts on the tasks they perform for each case. 

For example, the first part of our process is “intake.” Our intake team is responsible for looking at each potential case to determine whether we will accept it. The team does all necessary legal or factual research, including writing a case narrative detailing what happened to the client and potential liability theories. The assessment, which is tracked via our docketing system, must be completed within a certain time frame.

Once we decide to take a case and sign a contract with a client, the case enters “stage one,” in which the team prepares to file the case. Because the intake team already wrote a case narrative, the stage one team can set a case budget, investigate the facts, plan case strategy, and draft the complaint. Similar to intake, stage one tasks must be completed within set deadlines.

“Stage two” begins once the complaint is filed and is divided into two phases: The first phase encompasses the first round of written discovery, and the second phase focuses on depositions and trial preparation. Once again, the intake team’s case narrative—which is updated as new information is gathered and ­strategy has changed—guides what happens during stage two. To keep cases on track, we have set parameters for scheduling and extensions.  
A case enters “stage three” when it is resolved. The stage three team specializes in releases and lien resolution, as well as payment. Our “stage four” team prepares and argues any cases that enter an appeal.

Since implementing this process, we have learned that two elements are essential to its success. First, every team member must consistently use case management software so the case’s movement from one stage to the next is seamless. Each team member is accountable for recording pertinent events—such as phone calls with clients or opposing counsel, or changes to case strategy. Because everything is well-documented and easily accessible, we can effortlessly perform case reviews. But more important, a client can call our office and any team member can quickly identify the case’s progress with a few keystrokes.

Second, everyone must complete his or her tasks. A case might move to the next stage, but if any of the previous stage’s tasks are unfinished, the individual responsible completes them. This ensures that requisite tasks are completed on every case, and it also eliminates redundancy and reduces jockeying for position among team members.

Implement, Review, Refine

Business consultant Seth Godin has stated that you get the culture you deserve.³ An organization must cultivate its culture to maintain it. Employees must not be treated as fungible goods—if they are, they will be dissatisfied and ultimately leave to go elsewhere. A strong culture cannot be based on a revolving door mentality, and this is why we sought each employee’s input when establishing our firm’s mission and values.

Further, we test our processes by conducting employee performance reviews, which help us learn what works and what doesn’t—and where the inefficiencies, redundancies, or holes in the system exist. We also use these reviews as an opportunity to hear what our employees are experiencing in the workplace, so we can tackle issues before they ­permeate the entire firm. Our team members know they can discuss things with us, which greatly reduces potential conflict that otherwise might occur.

As part of the generation that bridges baby boomers and millennials, I see a need for change that maintains the values of the older generation while incorporating those of the future generation. Change takes time, imagination, and discipline. But we owe it to our firms and our clients to embrace it.

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Simone Fulmer is the founder of Fulmer Group in Oklahoma City. She can be reached at sfulmer@fulmergrouplaw.com.

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Notes

1. Richard Fry, Millennials Overtake Baby Boomers as America’s Largest Generation, Pew Res. Ctr. (Apr. 25, 2016), www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/04/25/millennials-overtake-baby-boomers/. 
2. The Huffington Post, Poll Finds 80 Percent of Workers in Their 20s Want to Change Careers (July 1, 2013), www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/01/workers-change-careers_n_3530346.html. 
3. See generally, www.sethgodin.com.