One of a law firm’s key challenges in the modern age is to ensure that lawyers feel supported in meeting their goals and those of their business. In this webinar with Simmons Solutions partner Lucy Shurwood and Advanced’s managing director Doug Hargrove, we shared a multitude of practical tips and insights as to how they do that.
It is now easier to talk about mental health and wellbeing in a workplace environment and the panel agreed that the days in which people are expected to ‘say nothing and struggle on’ is improving, although there is much more to do.
What fee-earners look for in an employee is good quality work, and that includes technology that either streamlines or takes over entirely some of the routine, time consuming tasks that fee-earners are expected to do.
One example given by Hargrove is a client portal, where clients can find updates on their matters and much of the information they need instantly, which is time saving for everybody.
Technology can be leveraged in so many different ways to create efficiencies, but it is not a silver bullet and needs to be implemented responsibly. Just because you are contactable 24/7, doesn’t mean you should be.
Shurwood was previously a partner at Pinsent Masons, which is a founding member of the Mindful Business Charter. She gave an example of some of the principles of the Charter being put into action on a deal where if the proposed deadline was hit, it would mean getting people to work over a bank holiday weekend. The law firms involved in the deal were part of the Charter and there was a discussion as to whether that was necessary to effect the end result, which it wasn’t.
What is required in order to achieve wellbeing and productivity is a combination of technology and culture, and this webinar includes some enlightening thoughts on how both of those things come into play.