How can law firms widen the talent pool for client value roles?

How can law firms widen the talent pool for pricing, legal project management and profitability roles?

Over the past decade, law firms have evolved. Commercially focused roles, once few and far between, are now embedded into most major practices and many smaller firms.

An explosion in client value vacancies during that time, such as Pricing, Legal Project Management (LPM) and Data Analysis and Innovation, led to high demand coupled with small candidate pools – pushing salaries up.

Now, although these roles are more well established, there is still a lack of talent coming into this niche area. As we’ve highlighted previously, there is a bottleneck when it comes to talent entering the market – and this is often because of the requirement for a legal background.

If firms are willing to look to other sectors, they will be able to tap into a talent pool that offers better value with a similar skill set. Legal knowledge can be trained once in post.

Routes into client value roles in law firms

Traditionally, those working in legal Pricing, LPM, Analysis and Innovation have come from a legal background. Often, their role evolved into one that encompassed client value or commercial responsibilities, either as additional responsibilities or as a new, sideways move. Transitions were made from:

• The law firm finance department.  Finance Analysts, Finance Managers focused on the bottom line
   
• Legal professionals. With a background in law, they have transitioned to focus on client value
   
• Legal operations.  Already familiar with processes and systems, it’s an easy switch into a project management role.
   
• Legal technology. Have worked with legal software, automation, data & analytics

Where else could law firms draw talent from?

Law firms believed that an essential pre-requisite for a career in client value or legal business services roles was a law background. Above everything else.

But, what if the requirements were flipped? What if firms hired for the skill set rather than the industry sector knowledge? Surely, these skills are transferable and relevant?

There are a lot of other industries with developed skill sets that savvy law firms could draw from, adding the legal know how afterwards.

One area to investigate is industries with similar ‘billable hours’ business models. Such as marketing agencies, accountancy firms, management consultancies, digital agencies and PR agencies. Ok, the worked hours are spent on very different tasks, but the way they are priced, analysed and presented to clients have plenty of similarities.

Then, there are commercial businesses with in-house legal departments. By definition, these are laser focused on delivering a strong bottom line by meeting the needs of their customers and maintaining a competitive advantage. Commercial enterprises are customer - and profit - focused. If law firms are following their lead, could they gain from in-house experience?

What roles should law firms target?

The sort of positions with good, transferable skill sets from the business and commerce world would include:

• Finance analysts
   
• Pricing and revenue management specialists
   
• Data analysts
   
• In-house legal teams, in-house finance & pricing analysts
   
• Logistics analysts
   
• Tech programmers/business intelligence/analysts
   
• A combination of technical and people skills

The benefits of hiring outside the legal profession 

Rather than focus on what candidates from outside the sector don’t know, our advice to firms is to think about the benefits they can bring. Law firms can be behind the curve when it comes to adopting new technologies and practices. It could be to their competitive advantage to embrace change and lean into different ways of doing things. 

New external hires can bring: 

• Insight and best practice from other industries for a fresh perspective
   
• The ability, experience and confidence to challenge the legal norm
   
• New and additional skill sets, particularly around technology and AI
   
• A different mindset. The traditional ‘billable hours’ model clashes with the ‘customer centric’ ethos of the commercial world. 
   
• A strategic market view, looking at the competitive set and striving for ways to carve out an advantage
   
• A more dynamic, adaptable and agile approach. The ability to make things happen and instill change

Of course, there is another benefit. For some time now, salaries in this niche have been pushing upwards due to the lack of talent versus demand. Bringing in people from outside allows firms to hire at a lower or entry level salary and develop staff internally, without artificially high price tags. And, for the candidate, even the starting salaries may offer a significant increase, helping to attract them into the sector.

Firms can then put in place retention strategies and accelerated career progression with real impact, offering salary increases to bring them into line with established market and sector rates.

The recruitment process will have to evolve too!

If firms are to recruit into these roles and seek talent from other industries, it follows that the recruitment process will need to change as well to focus on technical skill, not industry experience. Not all people will be suited to the culture of a law firm after a career in a funky digital agency, for example. Law firms need a process that can identify potential and filter out candidates who just won’t thrive in the legal world.

The process also has to eliminate bias. Law firms are keen to overcome old-school stereotypes, show that they are making progress on diversity and welcome candidates from all backgrounds. Their recruitment has to be fully inclusive, avoid putting off potential talent who are considering transitioning over from other sectors that may be more advanced in embedding diversity and inclusion practices.

Widening the talent pool – it’s a win win!

With an increased focus on driving profitability in a competitive sector, the rise in pricing, LPM, analyst and innovation roles at law firms shows no signs of slowing. Whilst bigger firms have been hiring into this space for some time, smaller firms are gradually getting on board too.

Firms who can get past the ‘must have legal experience’ mindset and look to other industries may find they can bring in highly skilled people without the price tag for law firm experience.

Together with other benefits, such as bringing in new skills, adapting to emerging technologies and increasing the diversity of their teams, hiring outside the industry is a way of creating a new pipeline for the future.

Ready to talk about your legal client value roles hiring strategy? Contact Simon Taylor for deeper insights into the current market and how to find the best talent.

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