Collaboration in a Law Firm

Transcription

Graeme R. Swainson

“And welcome back to the SMP Podcast. My name is Graeme Swainson. I’m here with Jordan Smith. Say ‘Hi’, Jordan.”

Jordan W. Smith

“Hey, Graeme. Hey, Ryan”

Graeme R. Swainson

“We are here with Ryan Kemp.”

Ryan C. Kemp

“Hello, sir.”

Graeme R. Swainson

“Today we’re going to talk about something that’s important to us and should be important to basically everyone in the legal industry. And that is collaboration within a law firm. Again, it’s something we pride ourselves a lot on at our shop. I think it helps us serve our clients better. It think it makes all lawyers more efficient. I think it makes lawyers better but unfortunately, it’s just not something that happens a lot. We lawyers like to be lone wolves sometimes and kind of operate within our own little cocoons. So, Jordan, I’ll start it with you. You know, how do you collaborate within a law firm? I guess first we’ll talk about collaborating with other lawyers.”

Jordan W. Smith

“Yeah. Well, in my view, it starts with having, you have to have a relationship with people. I think for that to really work properly, that’s first and foremost. I think we generally get along here, and that helps. I think it’s as simple as, you know, you have people that you get along with and from there, you get them involved on the file early on. For example, if I’m working with an associate coming up or whatever, I don’t wait until, you know, I’ll drop something on their desk and say ‘Can you look into this and let me know in an hour what you think’, because I’ve been in that situation. So to me, I think it starts with, again, the relationship aspect. I think also it’s when you’re collaborating, it really is an active process through the whole file. You have to, I think, start collaborating right at the beginning of the file. You can’t start collaborating when you suddenly realize you need advice or help. What do you think about that, Ryan?”

Ryan C. Kemp

“Yeah. I agree with everything you said. I mean, obviously, you know, collaboration is sort of one of those buzzwords that people like to throw around, but I mean, it is really, really important. Touches a number of aspects. In all of our practices, you can benefit from collaborating other lawyers sort of on an internal basis. Certainly in Graeme and my practice areas, you can extend that to external collaboration with opposing counsel on a transactional file. Certainly collaborating even with you support staff, I think is important. Some of the most rewarding experiences that I’ve had as a lawyer, on complex transactions are when you’re fortunate enough to work with counsel on the other side that is prepared to take a collaborative approach. It’s a common goal. We’re both around the table to try to get the deal done. Maybe it necessitates thinking out of the box a little. Being reasonable, making concessions where you can, those are by far and away the more rewarding files that I’ve worked on. When you’ve got opposing counsel that’s prepared to work with you, with a common goal in mind, it’s…”

Graeme R. Swainson

“Nice being a solicitor sometimes when you’re trying to actually get a deal done rather than just fighting with people. Jordan, you made a great point about just involving people early. Yeah. We’ve all been there, I think as junior associates where a senior partner drops a file on your desk and says they need something right away. And you see that the last correspondence on the file is three weeks ago.”

Jordan W. Smith

“Yes.”

Graeme R. Swainson

“That’s never fun. So yeah, involving people early cause at the end of the day, this is all just helping the client. You know, you get the right person on the job as soon as possible to make sure that, you know, the client gets the results that they want. As much as we always think that we can, we can’t do everything. We need that help and we need that support, especially again, lawyers trying to do, you know, be a jack of all trades, practice in every single practice area. I know if I get a wills and estates matter and if I get an incorporation or a reorg or anything like that, I’m not trying to do that myself. There’s people around here that know how to do that stuff much better than I do. And so why wouldn’t you involve the best person. You’re not putting the quarterback out to return punts. So, put the best person on the job and go from there.”

Ryan C. Kemp

“It might be that there’s a laundry list of things that, unfortunately, law school can’t prepare you for. One of them is how to properly work with staff and that’s something I think we generally do well here [at SMP]. I mean, of course there’s always room for improvement, but there’s, I’m sure lawyers that all of us have come across in our careers where it’s clear that the relationship between lawyer and staff is much more of a superior-subordinate, quite frankly. That obviously leads to an environment that’s not conducive to everyone feeling fulfilled on whatever task that you’re working on. So certainly, that’s an ongoing process. I mean, I’m a 2011 call and I don’t profess to know everything by any stretch of the imagination. That’s something that I’ve had to work on and that I continue to work on because, you know, I strive to leverage staff in the best way possible, make things more rewarding, and fulfilling for them. The best way that I can do that is to involve them as much as possible on file work.”

Ryan C. Kemp

“You know, there’s that coordination across people and the firm to kind of have an understanding of how that engine works really. And that’s number one. But number two, I think, you have to give up control to some degree. You do. And so I think the idea that we’re going ot collaborate, but you better not make a mistake is very dangerous.”

Jordan W. Smith

“Right? Because, you know, people don’t work well when they’re fearful, right? Having the thought that, I went to law school and somebody didn’t, so they can’t do this, is wrong. Not only that but there’s a lot of things lawyers do that they don’t need to do.. Um..lots. So when you really think about it, we have a lot of very, very bright people, as I expect other firms do as well, and you could be really under utilizing people when you have a narrow mindset or attitude.”

Graeme R. Swainson

“The whole, you know, catch someone a fish versus teaching them how to fish analogy, right? It’s the training that is such an important aspect of collaboration because whether it be with a brand new legal assistant, a paralegal, a junior associate, anything like that, you need to take the time to sit down with them, explain how things work, give them that contextual information that allows people to perform with the knowledge of not only how to do something, but why they are doing something. That has allowed a lot of our people here to become empowered to take ownership of their work and to be more invested in it. I think, you know, it’s been so important in my career, to have those people, both of you [Ryan & Jordan], our other partners around here, and frankly, a lot of our senior paralegals around sit down with me and take the time to go the extra mile and explain stuff. So, it’s also a pay it forward thing. You have to put the time in. You have to train people to do things properly. Because then, once you do that, they know what they are doing, they know why they are doing it and they become very good at their jobs. Empowering you team will have you going from touching every little point on a file to having fewer touch points because you trust that your team has done, say, the first 50% of the file correctly. You’re just reviewing, making sure everything is on track. You’re dealing with the more complicated bits, and again, going back to who really benefits from that.. it is the client. Everything gets done better, more efficient. At the end of the day, the client’s goals are furthered. So again, it’s extremely important. I know we hammer down on it all the time around here. You know, we’re a team and doesn’t matter what your title is, you fill an important role and you know.. Bill Belichick – ‘do your job’, right?”

Ryan C. Kemp

Yes. That’s all it is. Well, I think the three of us, we may be sort of uniquely situated in the sense that I know for certain, Graeme, in the real estate field, and in the commercial practice, we have opportunities on files all the time to involve not only lawyers of varying levels of seniority, for lack of a better description, but staff as well. Right, it’d be great to kind of go back to something you said before, I’m a big proponent in the right tool for every job. So what better opportunity when you have files like that to take a collaborative approach? You know, of course it puts to onus on the individual matter owner to properly delegate down. It’s a fantastic training ground for junior lawyers. It’s a fantastic way to have your staff, I think, feel invested in the file. Quite often, I mean, you and I have a file that we’re working on right now, that crosses disciplines. Without being prepared to take a collaborative approach and work with your fellow partners, work with associates across departments, I mean, I don’t profess to have the expertise in the corporate commercial field that’s necessary to execute on some of these files. So like what you said, it absolutely is a client services argument to be made because I don’t have the acumen to do it all by myself. And if I tried, not only would, you know, the people in my group suffer, but my client suffers as well..”

Jordan W. Smith

“Agreed. I mean, what is it? It takes the child to raise the village or something like that, or maybe the opposite of those things. I think its the opposite, I think it actually does take the child to raise the village, in my opinion. But anyway, the point I’m makingis that, when you think about it, when you talk client management, at the end of the day, that’s part of the legal services we’re selling, right? That’s what we’re doing. We’re doing that to ensure that we’re advising our clients directly, that are correctly, that we’re giving them the best possible service standards and all of those things. And yet, I think going back to what I had said earlier about the crew, I think sometimes lawyers want to perform at a high level, the thought is that they’re doing that kind of on their own, and part of it, quite frankly is, to be quite blunt, I think is a control aspect of, fear of losing control of a client, quite bluntly. Well, if I don’t, you know, if I don’t do all of this, if it’s not always, if the call isn’t always mine or if I’m not ensure that every small detail is done exactly as I would there could be a mistake, and I could lose this. Well, I’ll tell you what, how you can actually lose a client is not getting back to them, is not being able to get the work done right. In four or five years as a solicitor, there will be something in the agreement you might overlook or a detail you didn’t appreciate cause you aren’t able to look at it as practically as a senior lawyer so you weren’t the right person to look it over so get a senior involved.. I’ve recently had discussion with clients that have related that the reason they wanted to work with me was just that they had been with a different firm and they felt that maybe they always had to speak to a specific lawyer. And maybe they weren’t getting a response quick enough or whatever and again, it goes to the reliance and trust you have with your team. At the end of the day, it’s a, I don’t call it a risk, it’s not a risk, you know, it’s just the way you have to do business. It’s the reality. Somebody might make a mistake, it’s possible. Maybe you didn’t get back to the client as quickly as you would’ve wanted or something wasn’t completed the way you would have but the bottom line is, again, with training and mentorship that could lead to corrective action and you will still be better. You need to be able to rely on your team. If there are things in the team that you think you need to work on, work on them. But you don’t fire a team and do it all yourself, right?”

Ryan C. Kemp

“I think that the monopolization of client contact, I think it probably speaks to larger sort of culture issues, at particular firms. You know, look people are self interested. Lawyers are no different. If you are in an environment whereby I feel like I’m competing against you, and I feel it’s born out of self-preservation, then I may be motivated to try and monopolize every touchpoint with that client so I can, I can kind of understand that, and that’s an unfortunate byproduct of what may be less than healthy culture. And I know that’s something that we buck against strongly here.”

Graeme R. Swainson

“..And that’s kind of just, anti-collaboration. Right, it’s keeping it every, it all, to yourself and exactly, trying to be that one touch point for the client because you’re worried that the next lawyer is going to form a better relationship with that client and quote unquote, get credit for the billings and that. Again, to your point, Ryan, it’s just a culture killer. If you don’t foster an environment of collaboration, and we should all be working together, and to steal a great Jordan Smith-ism, believe that ‘a rising tide floats all boats’ and if we’re all working together, we’re all making each other better. And that’s for the good of the firm. Going back to the fact that the client benefits from that, right? Because again, they’re not in this situation where they only have one person to call and that person isn’t answering the phone call because they are on vacation or they have a bunch of fires going on. They have, you know, closings that they’re busy with or what have you. So, back to the client, what do they need? They need, yes, a main point of contact always, someone that is going to foster that relationship and be the main touchpoint but they need other relationships with other lawyers of that firm so that they know, if I can’t get ahold of Jordan, I’m going to call Ryan. It’s extremely important, you know to share clients, for lack of a better term. Jordan, you touched on another good point that, mistakes happen. Like you’re delegating, you’re trying to collaborate with people, they’re not always going to do things exactly the way that you are going to do them. That’s like, Ryan, you were talking about losing a little bit of control. When you’re doing that, at the same time, you have to realize that if I delegate this, and a mistake is made, that’s my mistake. And as you know, as the touchpoint for clients, mistakes are always going to be your mistakes. You’re going to be the one taking ownership of that and that builds loyalty from, not only your clients, but again, those people that you’re working with. They know that you’re going to fall on that grenade, if you have to. And that you are not going to be throwing anyone under the bus because, I’ll tell you a sure way to eliminate loyalty is by throwing someone under the bus. You know, so and so made that mistake and I’ll make sure that’s rectified, it just makes you look bad..”

Ryan C. Kemp

“Yeah, you can’t be professing to collaborate on one hand and bus chucking on the other, those are not consistent with one another…”

Jordan W. Smith

“No, no, I agree. I don’t just think about it from a different way in terms of collaboration because I think, you know, internally we’re just kind of on the same page there, on a lot of my files, I find that there is more collaboration with other professionals. There’s obviously, you know, if we’re doing transactions or tax reorganization, or frankly just any other transaction where we’re dealing with other accountants, it depends on the situation, collaborative aspects. I’ve had recent files where there’s shareholder dispute that’s being negotiated through, whether it might be, other mediation or other elements involved as well. So, when I’m looking at that though again, I’, looking at collaboration in a broad view with external parties as well. I have more of that than there used to be. When I look at it though, you know, I don’t get it as often as I’d like either. I guess, that’s the point. On the files, I do get it, I find they go a lot better. There’s a concern of cost. A client might say, ‘Well, I don’t want you to phone on my account. This is simple. You don’t need to talk to them.’ Okay, well maybe, maybe I do. A very obvious one for my practice area where a client might say, ‘I just want a simple shareholder agreement.’ Okay? So you start talking about these issues and you start talking about how many shareholders there are and what the intricacies of their business. You start realizing, we should probably think about this and key insurance and these other things. I don’t know if you found that experience that when you have that collaboration with external professionals or other counsel. When you think about collaboration, right, you think of clients that want to be a part of something. Then it’s not just send me a service agreement or send me a shareholder agreement, but they are wanting to be part of the process. That makes the result so much better.”

Ryan C. Kemp

“Yeah, no I agree. You know, I always enjoy being put in situations where I’m part of a professional services team, working with a number of other external advisors, all working towards the common goal, providing that particular client the best service in that particular transaction. Typically, in my context, you’re talking about dealing with tax consultants, for example, in your corporate commercial practice. I know Graeme and I have had a number of opportunities to work with commercial real estate brokers and talk about a double-headed monster. You’ve got a great broker that knows the market for backwards that can speak to the business terms, and then you put season counsel on the file as well to attack that lease. Attack that purchase and sale agreement, now you’ve really got the dual threat and the client is gonna be ultimately the benefactor of that. I mean, I’ve had the opportunity to work with some great, great brokers and I mean they add value and play off one another. When you look back at the end when you’ve had an opportunity to work on that type of environment, you look at the end result, generally, the results are fantastic.”

Graeme R. Swainson

“Yeah, I mean, Jordan you kind of touched on two things is one, just, you know, collaborating with other professionals, and other people in the industry. It’s huge because as Ryan says, you know, in our practice, you know, dealing with a great broker on a file, a great realtor, it really makes life a little bit easier. You know, it becomes a trust thing. The more you get to know these people, the more they involve you earlier in the files. I think that kind of goes back to, you know, even collaborating with your client. We always talk about how much easier our job is when we are involved at the outset of a deal. Rather than, you know, after an offer has been signed or what have you. So we can be, involved in those early discussions. There we can pick up red flags right away and kind of deal with issues before they even become issues. When you do that, you frankly, make other people look good. I think a huge part of it is that when you collaborate with these other professionals, whether it be be, tax consultants, accountants, realtors, what have you, you can help each other look good. That builds loyalty. Then at the end of the day, those are your referral sources. That’s how you are going out and getting new work, and new clients, because they’ve seen you do it before and they know that you’re going to do what’s best for their client. They have a vested interest in making sure that things get done. Again, all of those professionals I just talked about, including lawyers, are deal facilitators. We’re there to make sure that the client gets what they want, we make sure that happens in the best way, which was one of the first things you touched on. The second thing you touched on was just dealing with your clients and collaborating with your clients to make sure that they know you have that vested interest in their success. You’ve also kind of touched on, maybe the client doesn’t want you to call her accountant because they’re, you know, cost conscious, or what. That goes back to collaboration with the client, knowing that my job is a whole lot easier if I get involved in the outset of a deal. And frankly, my best advice to you as a client might be, ‘don’t do it.’ And that’s where you go. And.. we’ll have, I’m sure another very exciting podcast episode on, you know, legal fees and how to deal with that. You know, it’s often the elephant in the room, as we say. If your client’s afraid of it, that they’re going to get a bill every time they pick up the phone and call you, then yeah, they’re probably not going to want to collaborate with you as much if they know that, you’re going to send them a bill when the deal gets done. For us, if every 20 minute exploratory phone call doesn’t render a bill, that makes it so much easier to collaborate with your client and again, get involved in the outset and provide them with frankly, more useful advice because it’s so much easier to tell someone, don’t do something than it is to tell someone ‘you shouldn’t have done that.”

Jordan W. Smith

“I think that’s a good point, Graeme. I mean one of the other things too, I think with all of it is, sometimes with counsel, there can be a desire to find problems, right? They perceive value in, I want to say, creating work. But creating issues potentially is not, you know, finding issues and then solving them so there’s value. Cause look what I did. When you collaborate and things go smoothly, maybe it’s a little harder to point to, but look, I did this. Remember we had this hiccup and then, but it’s just a different way to view it and frankly, in my view, much better to view it as everybody’s on the same team, right? You know, when I am doing a transaction and there’s some tax planning involved, for example, we’re on the same team, we’re acting for a mutual solution and should be no different than a realtor or a broker. The reality is again, the end result, I think we have a common goal. I think again, it’s a different perception of adding value and even what value means. In my view, value means getting a deal done for your client because you should be deal facilitators anyway. It means getting the best deal you can for the client. In order to get the best deal, frankly, coordinating with others, including internally, is the way to go.”

Ryan C. Kemp

“On the topic of being a deal facilitator, I think if you take the approach with external, with opposing counsel, maybe framing them as opposing counsel is not a great way to start in the first place, but if you look at your relationships with the lawyers that are on the other side of the file, look for opportunities to work together and just start with the basic premise that everybody’s here to get the deal done. That’s why both parties are at the table. Let’s get the deal done in a way that, adequately protects both parties. Get it done in an efficient manner. I think that if you take that attitude going, and I don’t know, maybe you could speak to the size of the real estate industry, it’s a small group, and if you have that attitude and build a reputation as a facilitator, and a deal ‘doer’, good to deal with, you know, prepared to get creative in finding solutions.. Pretty soon, I mean, it doesn’t take too long until you’re doing another deal with that lawyer again, and they will remember the experience that they had with you and just bringing that context into the next transaction I found makes things way, way smoother. More pleasant for everybody involved as opposed to the opposite being, you know, you get a new file and you figure out who the counsel is on the other side and you just, know it will be issues from the start. So, I think if you take that collaborative approach with opposing counsel, it just helps. It helps on future transactions cause, invariably, you’re going to come across that name again sometime.”

Graeme R. Swainson

“You don’t want your name to elicit a groan from anyone. So yeah, I mean, I think we’ve covered pretty much everything that i think we set out to cover on collaboration. I think, you know, to summarize for all the lawyers out there, you’re not alone. Again, you know, collaborating with other lawyers in your firm, staff in your firm, with your own clients, with other lawyers, with external professionals. It all makes your job so much easier. It makes you a better lawyer. And at the end of the day, it all goes towards, making your clients happier, which is what we’re here to do. So, unless you have anything else to add?”

Jordan W. Smith

“No. Right, I’m good.”

Graeme R. Swainson

“For the SMP Podcast, I’m Graeme Swainson here with my colleague Jordan Smith and Ryan Kemp. For any of you that want to know more about our firm you can find us online at smpllp.ca. We’re also on socials, on Insta @smpllpyeg and on LinkedIn at ‘Swainson Miki Peskett LLP’. Thanks so much for listening and we’ll see you next time on the SMP Podcast.”