Bloomberg Law
Jan. 7, 2019, 9:46 PM UTC

The Value of Client-Driven Collaboration

Henry Nassau
Dechert LLP

If expertise is the engine of growth for a law firm, then collaboration is certainly its accelerator. Vigorous collaboration ensures that people’s best ideas are brought forth, refined through constructive dialogue and put into action. This drives better thinking, greater client value and, thus, greater success for the firm and its people.

But, there’s a critical challenge: these vital ideas – the better answers – are dispersed, and need to be captured, because talent is segmented into practice areas and, in our case, from dozens of offices globally. Productive collaboration can be affected by cultural norms, reflecting the need to be deferential or adhere to certain protocols. Some law firm hierarchies themselves can constrain collaboration, which is why associates’ creativity and innovation can too often go untapped.

So, what’s the solution? As a start, a firm’s leaders must nurture a culture of inclusiveness and mutual respect, while at the same time encouraging candor. Without such a culture, collaboration cannot thrive. Articulating a vision can help to define what such a culture should look like. But, ultimately, what’s important is how it feels to be part of the firm – experiencing its opportunities, successes and commitment to excellence every day.

Building from this cultural foundation, firms can spark greater collaboration through an intense focus on serving clients exceptionally well. Through client-centered collaboration, the firm’s diversity – whether it involves culture, race, gender, age, LGBT, organizational level, geographic location or other factors – accelerates value creation for clients by engaging the full spectrum of the firm’s talent. In essence, collaboration and value creation are one, cohesive action.

Here’s an example of what I mean by client-centered collaboration. In one of our firm’s key practice areas, which I led for several years, we organized multifunctional teams to more ably serve significant clients. These clients tended to have global legal issues, so our teams comprised members around the world, and encompassed senior and junior practitioners. Every two weeks, each client team would have a team video call, scheduled so that members everywhere could reasonably join (and be fed!). The call was limited to one hour. The only rule: everyone who called in had to share something about the client, some news or issue that others on the call should know about and comment on.

As you’d guess, this approach broadened everyone’s knowledge of the client’s condition and challenges. Very quickly, team members working on a narrow issue could see how it fit into the bigger picture. The insights from the calls made their work stronger and appear more integrated to the client. Stovepipes, real or apparent, were made to vanish. Value to the client increased.

Just as important, the team itself opened up. Previously reticent voices were heard, hurdling barriers of culture and hierarchy. Junior associates posed tough questions of senior partners. Team members universally shared their best ideas, issued watch-outs, drew on history with the client, and connected discrete facts to gain headway on complicated and sometimes persistent client problems.

Tellingly, even though the call was never mandatory, most team members made it a priority to join every week. They valued the interactions, insights and feeling of inclusion. By serving the client, they were serving themselves, and making Dechert’s business culture that much stronger.

Editor’s Note: The author of this post is a lawyer at a large law firm.

Learn more about Bloomberg Law or Log In to keep reading:

Learn About Bloomberg Law

AI-powered legal analytics, workflow tools and premium legal & business news.

Already a subscriber?

Log in to keep reading or access research tools.