As digital transformation continues apace across organizations, contracts are gaining more and more attention as an area crying out for automation and data. One leading technology advisory firm reports significant and continued year-over-year growth in inquiries around contract lifecycle management (CLM) as companies grapple with ongoing market disruptions that impact their contractually defined commercial relationships.
For legal operations, this focus on contract technology can be a double-edged sword. Legal is heavily involved in contracting (naturally), and, in theory, contract technology should make contract processes faster and easier for law departments and for the benefit of the entire enterprise.
In practice, however, two common challenges emerge:
In some cases, legal teams get put in the proverbial back seat with contract transformation efforts when other departments take the lead in choosing a solution that works best for their use case—one system for procurement contracts, another for sales, a third for corporate contracts like NDAs. Legal is left jumping between disparate systems for reviews, approvals, template management, etc.
In other cases, legal teams take the lead on contract transformation in their organizations but focus on what the technology can do for legal, not the rest of the company. Little surprise, this approach leads to solutions gaining little to no adoption from other departments that generate the agreements.
Both these outcomes point to the unique challenge contracts present when compared to other legal processes: they require input and cooperation from across the enterprise. One report, from World Commerce & Contracting, suggests that 25% of a company’s workforce plays a part in managing contracts. Ostensibly, that means any contract management system should be accessible and enabling to a quarter of a business. No small feat!
The good news is that it can be done. The better news is that legal operations professionals are in the best position to make it happen.
In one of my favorite examples, the legal operations department at a major technology company worked with its procurement and IT teams to stand up a contracting system that 220,000 employees could access to self-service sourcing contracts. These users are generating 150,000 SOWs a year with little to no help needed from expensive legal resources.
Key to this successful deployment is the teamwork shown by the legal operations team. They engaged outside stakeholders early and often, understanding what their users need and how they can support them. To borrow a phrase from John F. Kennedy, they asked not what CLM could do for legal, but what legal could use CLM to do for the enterprise.
This enterprise focus goes right to the heart of CLOC’s description of the desired state for technology: Create a clear technology vision that spans all of the needs of your organization” (emphasis mine).
From this and other success stories, three important considerations emerge for legal operations teams that want to drive successful contract transformation efforts across the enterprise:
Listen & Learn: A successful team should work to understand what matters to other departments. Each division will have its own frustrations with contract processes, will see different risks, and will have a wide array of opportunities. A successful blueprint depends on accurate information, which in turn comes from a thorough survey of needs and requirements.
Integrate: Integration is the key to widespread adoption. It’s much easier for departments and teams to adopt new solutions when the technology is presented in tools they already use. For legal, this might mean Microsoft Word; for procurement departments, it might be Ariba; for sales teams, Salesforce. Notably, integrations are often overlooked in CLM projects – a recently survey of hundreds of legal operations professionals found that only 1/3 had integrated their CLM into other systems.
Align on KPIs: Nothing builds momentum in digital transformation like showing improvements in the areas that matter most. When the team knows which KPIs to measure first, analyzing data can provide definitive results. For example, procurement might say their biggest pain point is the delay in getting suppliers under contract. If so, have the team measure how contract turnaround time improves. When stakeholders can see the immediate benefits of digital transformation, they become CLM champions.
Contracts don’t stay inside the four walls of the legal department, and neither can any digital transformation effort aimed at gaining value and efficiencies from these critical documents. With the right cross-functional approach, legal operations can get in the driver’s seat for a consequential digital transformation project that will pay significant dividends for the entire organization.
To learn more about your legal operations peers are addressing the challenges and opportunities facing them today, access this free copy of the 15th annual LDO Survey.
The role of legal operations is having its well-deserved moment in the spotlight. There are wide-ranging benefits of adding this team of professional efficiency drivers to your legal team. Publishing firm Legal 500 also pushes General Counsels (GCs) to “unbundle internally” – and establish a legal operations department to improve planning, technology, communication, and financial management – everything beyond giving legal advice.
The advantages are clear, but it’s challenging to go from creating a legal ops team to building one that runs like a well-oiled machine. In this blog, we’ll cover principles that will transform your legal ops team. Let’s dive in!
Build bridges within your business with legal ops.
Communication gaps erode performance. Enterprises often experience these in two areas: financial reporting and sales cycles. But a well-tuned legal ops function bridges these divides.
Financial Reporting
The Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC) guides legal operations professionals to pursue activities that maximize resources through sound financial management. Often, companies need more visibility and predictability in their budgeting and forecasting. This leads to material cash impacts, including shortfalls and a lack of economic context when making investment decisions.
Given its proximity to deals and contracts, legal ops can share critical reporting that boosts finance team effectiveness. Opportunity areas include:
Streamlining invoice review
Allocating legal costs to business areas
Deriving spend insights from vendor contracts
Supporting budget development with centralized reporting
Legal ops teams have become an indispensable part of budgeting and financial planning by supporting activities like these.
Sales Cycle
When legal and sales fall out of sync, the deal pace slows. To avoid this, legal ops must pinpoint problem areas. This often means eliminating communication gaps by centralizing and integrating both teams’ data and systems.
Practically, this should include creating processes that move contract drafting and management workflows out of the inbox. LinkSquares, for example, built a Salesforce CRM integration within its contract lifecycle management (CLM) platform. This becomes a low-hanging fruit opportunity for many to reduce the email clutter that’s compounding poor communication. Reps benefit from automated contract status updates, and managers sharpen their ability to forecast, assess time-to-close, and predict revenues.
To support sales (or any critical business function), legal ops must also understand what their colleagues need and expect. This doesn’t mean becoming an order taker. Spend time defining common sales cycle disruptors and identifying process risks. Talk to key stakeholders; come up with step-by-step procedures and workflows to improve ownership, clarity, and accountability.
When teams don’t discuss these, sales process confusion turns to frustration. As one legal leader told us, “Communication missteps are rare when everyone knows who is doing what by when.” Once exposed, legal ops must rebuild the processes that once slowed down deals. Consider deploying tools to speed up contract creation by allowing sales to draft or request agreements directly from their CRM. Additionally, consider pre-approved terms or contract language that sales or customer success teams can use without interacting with legal.
Explore self-service reporting as well. Legal ops may streamline communications by adopting software to give business users access to custom contract reporting. For example: Does the revenue ops team need to pull reports on how many contracts renew this quarter or understand how many clients are headquartered in London?
Automate it – eliminate back-and-forth emails that paint the picture of other teams waiting on legal to comb through contracts. Ready now? Download this guide today.
The rapid growth of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) promises to fuel seismic changes throughout every aspect of the business world. A quick glance at recent headlines gives a good sense of just how the expanding power of AI-spawned text, images, and media is reverberating:
IBM is launching a new “WatsonX” studio for organizations to create their own generative AI workflows.
A Goldman Sachs survey forecast “significant disruption” to labor worldwide from Generative AI — potentially affecting up to 300 million jobs.
The legal industry will be in the middle of the Generative AI revolution. But what will that transformation look like for the legal world — and how can the industry best take advantage of its promises and potential?
Three areas of transformation
These three legal areas will see meaningful opportunities for value from generative AI:
SPEND MANAGEMENT. Generated AI can also boost departments’ ability to make sense of their tens of thousands of lines of invoice data by delivering insights into value, helping departments understand exactly what they are paying for. These quick, accessible insights are a powerful way to stop the attorney habit of “rubber-stamping” invoices and address capacity concerns for busy departments. It also increases the quality and speed of invoice review, flagging patterns that can violate billing guidelines (especially for lengthy, complex invoices).
Additionally, generative AI can assist with vendor management — particularly tough conversations around rate, value and performance. When backed by detailed, insightful data, it is easier to have productive, emotion-free, and surprise-free conversations.
EXAMPLE: Invoice summarization. Onit integration with ChatGPT provides a quick, insightful summary of a contract’s tasks to analyze overall value – allowing users to glimpse into the hours spent per task, the work done by specific timekeepers, and much more.
CONTRACTING. With Generative AI’s ability to generate content such as summaries and redlines, Contracting is a natural place where the technology will have significant impact. In fact, contracting is one area where we see more mainstream adoption of AI — for example, most of Onit’s CLM customers use AI in contracting. Fueling this growth? The improvement in legal comprehension by Generative AI; for example, GPT4 passed the bar exam, scoring in the top 90th percentile on one 2023 tryout.
These advancements mean the industry can use AI as a co-pilot to run contract playbooks. AI serves as a powerful tool to help reduce some of the repetitive manual work plaguing this part of the process and improve consistency.
What about post-signature? In an era of constant mergers and acquisitions, regulation and compliance demands, companies often find themselves with questions about the contracts in their repository. AI-driven analysis gives a valuable look into these contracts and their clause libraries, allowing the new company to quickly identify risks and remediate them.
EXAMPLE: Contract analysis. Onit’s AI Co-Pilot sits alongside you as you review your contract. You can ask it to spot issues, suggest redlining, compare against your template language and flag deviations from your standards.
LEGAL REQUESTS. This impact is one our CGI panel and audience were extremely excited about; sometimes, the most beneficial use of AI is to remove manual work (like form filling), remove friction and encourage the adoption of our tools and processes. AI technology can help to kick off the workflow with minimal user intervention, automating legal request creation, determining routing priorities, and establishing tracking — removing significant administrative tasks for attorneys. It can also assist as the “first response,” automating common business requests before they go to Legal.
EXAMPLE: Creating a legal request. Onit’s AI integration can read an email chain and automatically generate a legal request.
This is what our audience at CGI 2023 said when we asked them about the impact of Generative AI. Do you agree with their thoughts?
Next steps for Legal: Three things to remember
As Legal takes its next steps into the AI world, it’s a good idea to have these general principles in mind:
Keep on top of technology. Designate some time for yourself or ask a team to keep up with the possibilities and enhancements of Generative AI. In a world where rapid advancements happen weekly (if not daily), education and knowledge are king.
Address the fear of the unknown. The disruptive effects of new technology can be intimidating for many. Don’t rush or push anyone into this new world; encourage them to learn and engage with the space, focus on opportunities and use carefully tested and validated tools.
It’s no secret – the number of tools we use on a daily basis has ballooned over the last decade. In fact, a recent study found that “a surplus of digital workplace tools places a cognitive burden on employees, as it takes time for people to stop and think about where to find each tool.” Sound familiar?
At Ironclad, our goal is to streamline the contracting process – from end to end – to make contracting faster, more efficient, more impactful, and, simply put, easier. In December of 2022, we launched the Ironclad Ecosystem, a network of strategic partnerships featuring the tools you already know and love, like Salesforce, OneTrust, and Zapier. By connecting contracts to the wider business ecosystem, your contracts sit right alongside your tech stack – allowing you to work in (and get more value from) the tools that you’re already using.
Introducing Slack to the Ironclad Ecosystem
Today I’m excited to announce our newest addition to the Ironclad Ecosystem – Slack. This is a prime example of connecting Ironclad to the critical tools you’re in on a daily basis to drive efficiency.
With the new Slack integration, teams across legal, sales, finance, and more can:
Stay up to date on your contracts without leaving Slack: Ironclad’s Slack notifications allow you to review workflow details, read comments and get alerted when you need to approve.
Customize alerts to meet your needs: Executives who are doing the signing usually need different notifications than, say, a legal team member who wants to be alerted about every approval. With the Ironclad Slack integration, each user can customize their own notifications preferences, to get as many – or as few – notifications as they need.
Launch a contract right from Slack using a Slash common: Users can simply type “/request-ironclad-contract” to request a contract, select the contract type from (inside Slack), and then get automatically redirected to Ironclad to complete the exact form you need to start your contracting workflow.
To learn more about how you can bring the power of Ironclad to Slack, book a demo with our team.
Make Salesforce a one-stop-contract-shop with powerful new feature updates
Salesforce is arguably the most used tool in sales – which means teams are spending a big portion of their day in it. To help sales teams move faster while staying compliant, we’ve invested heavily in our Salesforce integration over the years to bring the contracting process directly into tools they use regularly. In fact, through Ironclad’s Salesforce integration, we’re seeing contract launches happen four times faster when launched from Salesforce, saving your sales users significant time as they try to drive revenue.
With the latest updates to our Salesforce capabilities, companies can now:
Upload contracts for contract review (redlines) and fully-signed signature packets
Access Ironclad’s powerful document viewer, including version comparison, document labels, DOCX and PDF downloads
Communicate via embedded internal comments
Share documents to the counterparty directly
… all without having to leave the Salesforce interface. And these updates continue to build on the existing integration capabilities, which allow teams to:
Launch, review, negotiate, and approve contracts without leaving Salesforce.
Automatically import Salesforce datainto contract workflows to eliminate duplicate data entry.
Ensure data consistency with Salesforce metadata updates automatically reflected in Ironclad.
Stay up to date in Salesforce for things like contract approval and signature status to keep all parties updated on where the contract stands.
Centralize agreements associated with an object to see all relevant contracts for a customer in one place.
Act on contract data by including contract metadata in Salesforce reports.
An Immersive Week in Las Vegas
We announced all these Ironclad Ecosystem updates during CLOC Global Institute, CLOC’s recent annual conference in Las Vegas, where Ironclad was honored as a Diamond Elite Sponsor and the team hosted several sessions on Ironclad product deep dives, customer spotlights, and the future of generative AI and legal work. (Spoiler alert – CLOC celebrity and Ironclad Chief Community Officer Mary O’Caroll says engaging with AI is no longer a choice!). They also gathered customers and industry experts for networking and drinks at an incredible afterparty at the Cosmopolitan’s hidden gem of a bar, The Barbershop.
Looking Ahead
We are excited to continue building out the Ironclad Ecosystem throughout the year – and have some big plans for additional partner integrations in just the next few months. Click here to learn more about the Ironclad Ecosystem, or request a demo for a live walkthrough at ironcladapp.com!
Consolidated Edison Company of New York Inc‘s Law Department recently concluded a two-year long, Department-wide, Transformation Initiative. Using CLOC’s Core 12 as a guide, the team spent a year in research, analysis, and development. As a result, they were able to produce consistent, standardized processes, implement automation workflows, and improve customer service metrics. They incorporated ideas from customers and stakeholders, focusing on three pillars: (1) enhancing the internal and external customer experiences, (2) optimizing the worker experience by streamlining bulky processes and bolstering professional development opportunities, and (3) promoting sustainable change by equipping lawyers with practical tools and coping mechanisms.
Fundación Appleseed México is a non-profit that provides pro bono legal assistance to Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) that encounter legal compliance issues through its internal lawyers and through a network of law firms. Even with caseload increasing, many CSOs were dropping out of the lengthy process without solving their legal issues. In response, Appleseed partnered with stakeholders to analyze and improve their operating model using lean six sigma and design principles to create a centralized case management and analysis database, a CRM web application, and customer satisfaction surveys. These improvements reduced case length and abandoned cases by 50%, increased law firm participation 2.4x, cut response times by more than half and improved efficiency 10x.
Nationwide’s Office of the Chief Legal Officer (OCLO) was seeking to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of its outside counsel use over the long term. Prior to changes, costs were high, firm relationships were transactional, and internal attorneys and business partners were working inefficiently due to administrative burden. In 2022, OCLO conducted an RFP process with current outside firms, developed a firm selection tool, created a simplified governance process for requesting exceptions and reporting spend, and established centralized firm relationship management. The 79% reduction in outside counsel firms resulted in a savings of $4.5M+ in 2022. Additionally, these changes resulted in stronger relationships with outside counsel, better results, and more consistent, time-saving processes.
In a recent CLOC Ask the Experts webinar, legal operations experts from the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, Uber, NCR Corporation, and DocuSign shared why the digital transformation of contracting processes is essential for legal teams today. A modern contracting process can make your legal team more efficient, unlock scalable support for other business teams, and unearth a trove of useful data. By transforming your contracting process, you can drive efficiency and contribute real value to your organization.
Here are the three important reasons why legal departments and legal operations should modernize their approach to contracts.
Improve efficiency while reducing risk
With increased pressure on margins and a challenging economic climate, legal is beholden to budgets more than in the past. According to Nancy Kumar, law vice president at NCR Corporation, these new constraints make driving digital transformation and continuous improvement all the more critical. By partnering with sales and members of the legal department, legal ops can improve contracting processes and save their organization significant time and money.
Sandy MacDonnell, senior manager of legal operations at DocuSign, saw this firsthand. By implementing DocuSign esignature at her former workplace, she saved the company an estimated $1 million in the first year alone. “We no longer had stacks of papers sitting around,” MacDonnell says. “Legal was no longer being that cost center.”
Just as electronic signature tools and digitization have improved efficiency for countless legal teams, so too can building integrated contract management processes across the organization. A contract lifecycle management (CLM) tool like DocuSign CLM consolidates all contracts and related data in one place, and automates key generation, approval, and signature tasks, allowing for more connected workflows.
It also makes it easy to track obligations and milestones, which can greatly reduce contract value leakage, says David Silbert, senior director of Agreement Cloud strategy at DocuSign. “Everyone works so hard to get their favorable terms into an agreement, but if you’re not actually tracking what you’re entitled to under that agreement in the real world…you’ve left dollars on the table.”
Improving contract management not only enhances efficiency but also helps legal teams reduce risk. Centralized repositories and systems lead to better security and allow you to easily find critical documents, while best contracting practices prevent recency bias or missing unfavorable terms during negotiations.
Allow your legal team to scale
Historically, legal teams have taken a reactive stance to address problems in the contract process instead of a proactive one, entering the picture after a problem has been identified. This hinders an organization’s ability to scale, notes Dan Linna, Jr., senior lecturer, and director of law and technology initiatives at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law and McCormick School of Engineering.
“Through innovation and transformation, we really have an opportunity to shift to a prevention mindset,” says Linna, Jr. “We need to think about how we can design systems and processes to identify and prevent problems early when the cost of addressing them is lower.”
A potential solution lies in automation and data. By leveraging automation, legal can build processes that provide employees in other departments access to legal guidance, as well as self-service options like pre-approved terms and clauses. These new systems and processes are not only more efficient, freeing up time and supporting growth, but they also mitigate risk. Pre-approved terms and contract workflows, for instance, help catch non-standard terms, reducing risk exposure. Meanwhile, analytics can help identify and predict outcomes, empowering legal teams to avoid undesirable downstream consequences to poorly written contracts or unclear obligations.
Unlock more and better data
With a digitized contract management system, legal ops can gather useful information to improve legal processes. Features like centralized storage, automation, and analytics all allow for greater insight and provide legal ops with critical data points, including contract volume, time to signature, and context on where escalations occurred.
Document generation forms, which allow your sales team to stay within Salesforce when generating agreements and other sales documents, are another key tool for gathering data. By looking at document generation templates, legal ops can gather metadata to better support their colleagues, advises Jonathan Johnson-Swagel, senior legal and business operations manager at Uber.
“When groups think intelligently, carefully, and preventatively to identify that metadata at the outset of designing the CLM product and those document generation forms, they end up with a treasure trove of valuable data,” says Johnson-Swagel. “This data can be visualized and tailored to the audience to help them identify and understand trends, highlight risks, and drive business decisions at the management level.”
Kumar adds that document generation forms also provide insight into how often people in the organization use templates. If usage is low, legal operations teams can make adjustments to better meet their needs. Ultimately, better data allows for better decision-making, from financial decisions to hiring.
For Sibert, having technology that provides structured information at scale removes the guesswork from establishing and achieving goals. Rather than answer complex questions about the use case or the business based on best practices or estimates, he can now answer them based on actual information.
“I used to have to explain to people, yes, there’s this thing called AI and it can apply to contracts,” he says. “Now we’ve moved so far past that. People are all bought in on the idea…But the key is having people and organizations think about what they want to attempt to solve for and how to get there.”
Legal ops as drivers of contract transformation
Legal ops teams are well-positioned to help their organizations design and meet goals around digital transformation of contract processes. For one, because the contracting process touches so many disciplines, legal ops works with multiple departments, making them qualified to lead and facilitate cross-organizational change.
Legal ops teams are also practiced at building relationships across the organization and understanding stakeholder needs—essential skills for launching a digital transformation initiative. Kumar suggests legal ops teams consult stakeholders throughout the process to avoid delivering a solution that doesn’t meet end users’ needs.
“As you look for types of transformational activities or process improvements, look at your end-user…and bring them along in the journey,” Kumar says. “You need to understand what their pain points are and what you’re trying to solve for.”
Another strength of legal ops teams is that they’re well-versed in tech evaluation and process improvement, both of which are important for digitizing contract management. They understand the value of an integrated platform, from centralized systems to integrating with other enterprise solutions.
Contracts impact stakeholders across the organization, from legal to sales to finance. Panel members agreed that it’s important to take initiative and not to wait for a business-critical event like a missing contract to start thinking about this technology.
“Everybody should own [this] and be at the table,” says Johnson-Swagel. “CLM is sort of the watering hole where all of the animals of the savanna come together to drink. It’s a peaceful place where we all make business efficiencies and magic happen together in the kingdom.”
To hear more about how and why legal ops leaders are transforming the contract process at their own organizations, watch the full webinar here.
Hiring and retention issues continue to challenge managers in the legal field. Key personnel have been quitting their jobs voluntarily, and in record numbers since the spring of 2021.
Many employees remain confident about their prospects in the current hiring market, which means that hiring managers must continue to be on the lookout for the possibility of their top performers leaving. So, what can employers do to reduce attrition? Managers must be aware of the latest trends in compensation to better address job candidates’ salary expectations and professional concerns, such as wellness benefits and workplace culture. Free resources like the 2023 Robert Half Salary Guide can be helpful tools that offer the latest employment insights.
Here are some important hiring trends that managers in the legal field need to know.
Legal specialists seeing sizable salary increases
The need for specialized expertise is driving hiring in the legal field but nearly 9 in 10 managers (88%) are challenged to find skilled talent. To navigate the competitive candidate market and open new verticals or specialty areas, law firms are hiring associates from adjacent practice areas and corporate legal departments.
On the flip side, corporate legal departments also are expanding internal teams. Many are hiring corporate counsel, paralegals, contract managers, and other specialists to support rising workloads. Many candidates for these roles are seeing sizable pay increases. In addition, corporate legal departments are providing current staff with raises to compete with law firms that try to recruit their employees.
In-demand practice areas include litigation, healthcare and labor and employment, among others. Top candidates for midlevel corporate counsel, paralegal, contract manager and litigation support/eDiscovery director roles are seeing sizable increases in compensation.
Here are several examples of average starting salaries at the national level from Robert Half’s 2023 Salary Guide, which contains salary ranges for nearly 50 positions in the legal field.
The salaries are listed by percentile: 50th percentile for candidates with average experience and most of the necessary skills; and 75th percentile for candidates with above-average experience and all the needed skills. Bonuses, benefits and other forms of compensation as well as practice area expertise, special skills and certifications are reflected in the salary ranges and should be taken into account separately.
When weighing a raise, consider both an employee’s value to the firm and the costs of replacing them. To help benchmark compensation packages, the Salary Guide offers average starting salaries for numerous roles in the legal field. Go to the “Find your local salaries” section of the guide and select the city nearest to you to get local salaries, which reflect regional living costs, talent availability and other factors. Some examples of local starting salaries in San Francisco and Washington, D.C., are below:
Title
50th percentile (San Francisco; 35% higher than the national average)
50th percentile (Washington, D.C.; 33% higher than the national average)
Location flexibility can assist recruitment and retention
Over the past couple of years, high attrition rates have left many teams stretched thin, facing inflated workloads. Many employees are experiencing burnout and companies are reporting increased turnover rates.
Employers in the legal field can’t eliminate turnover, nor should they desire to do so because every business benefits from an occasional infusion of new talent. But a consistent exodus of professionals with in-demand skills and experience is unhealthy, particularly when these top performers are difficult to replace in the current, candidate-driven market. Flexible work arrangements that support employees in maintaining their work-life balance can be the cornerstone of a successful hiring and retention strategy. Contract managers, corporate counsel and litigation support/eDiscovery specialists are among the legal roles that are expected to remain remote long-term.
Contract talent is changing the game
Contract employees with strong legal backgrounds, who can jump right in and be added to or removed from teams based on changing needs, are being used by more and more companies and law firms.
This approach not only gives law firms and companies more financial flexibility and the ability to diversify their legal services, it also can boost the morale and motivation of permanent staff, who may take on new projects without being concerned or overwhelmed as their workloads increase. That might be one of the reasons 44% of hiring managers plan to increase their reliance on contract professionals in the upcoming year.
Employees’ expectations have changed
Since the start of the pandemic, employees’ expectations have changed and the demand for flexibility is here to stay. Our research reveals that 46% of legal hiring managers have had a strong candidate turn down a job that doesn’t offer remote work options. Law firms and companies that are offering more flexibility and remote or hybrid roles are attracting higher numbers of skilled applicants, and these businesses are also retaining key employees.
Employees also want a clear career path within their company. Offering training (upskilling and reskilling) can help keep them engaged while addressing skills gaps and strengthening teams.
Perks and benefits in demand
More than 4 in 10 legal hiring managers (44%) surveyed for our research said inflated workloads and burnout are the primary reasons for their retention struggles. And although money still talks, work-life balance is an important part of the conversation.
When given at least some control over their work arrangements, employees frequently increase their productivity and reduce their stress levels. Flexible schedules, remote work options and condensed work weeks are some of the perks and advantages that are most in demand since they directly support work-life balance.
Employees also are looking to enhance their health and wellbeing, and these benefits go beyond just health insurance and subsidized gym memberships. Fitness, stress reduction, nutrition, mental health, increased vacation time, mindfulness and meditation classes, and financial wellness and retirement planning are a few issues and perks that employees are interested in.
Make professional developmenta priority
If legal professionals feel their careers are stagnating, they will make the rational decision to move elsewhere. To increase employee retention, launch professional development initiatives, make investments in their training, and assist them in identifying a career path.
Offer training in skills that are in demand in the current business environment. Upskilling in litigation software, online document management, and e-filing systems, for instance, will be welcomed by support personnel, while attorneys will value continuing legal education (CLE) that helps to expand their practice area knowledge.
Reward and recognize achievements
Don’t forget about additional compensation or benefits. Signing, year-end and performance-related bonuses can make employees feel appreciated. Expanding the availability of popular perks or adding new offerings also can help to move the needle.
And keep in mind that showing your appreciation for a job well done and explaining to your legal team how their efforts contribute to the overall success of your law firm or company can go a long way toward improving employee job satisfaction. It might also be a thoughtful gesture to give a token of appreciation, such as a gift card to a favorite shop, restaurant or meal delivery service.
Reassess succession plans
While no law firm or legal department wants to lose senior leaders, a strong succession plan can help to mitigate the damage. Here are some tips to help identify and prepare emerging leaders to succeed:
Expand your talent pool — Create a group of talented lawyers and managers who could one day take on leadership responsibilities rather than relying on a single leader. A group with leadership and law practice management skills will always be valuable, even if not everyone in it makes it to the top.
Make advancement easier — Top prospects for leadership roles in the future are eager to advance. With these high achievers, time is of the essence because if they don’t have a clear career development plan, they’ll probably leave. Taking away any barriers that can hinder their development will help facilitate their growth. Where necessary, change their usual schedule to provide them time to manage a firm project or work pro bono for a deserving cause or nonprofit. Their ambition for more senior responsibilities may be piqued by the increased difficulty and change from routine. Inform them frequently of their progress and move them up the in-house ladder as rapidly as you can. If these employees invest their time in training but receive no results, they may become frustrated and take a legal job elsewhere.
Provide mentoring — While free CLE and attendance at legal conferences are important benefits, nothing compares to the guidance and expertise of a master mentor. When veteran leaders take the time and effort to share their accumulated knowledge with the next generation, the organization moves one step closer to a smooth transition.
Employers in the legal field that offer work that is both remunerative and flexible stand to gain a competitive edge in these uncertain times. Employee attrition is lower when workers feel appreciated, encouraged, adequately compensated, and given opportunities to grow.
For more strategies to recruit, engage and retain legal professionals, listen to our podcast.
Jamy J. Sullivan is executive director of the legal practice at Robert Half, the world’s first and largest specialized talent solutions firm. Robert Half offers contract and permanent placement solutions, and is the parent company of Protiviti®, a global consulting firm. Visit RobertHalf.com.
* Data referenced is based on online surveys developed by Robert Half and conducted by independent research firms. Respondents included executives, senior managers and employees from small (20-249 employees), medium (250-499 employees) and large (500-plus employees) private, publicly listed and public sector organizations across the United States.
