ATL’s Innovation Interrogatory: Dean Boeschen Of Husch Blackwell
‘The only thing innovation really requires is the courage to look at things a different way.’
Ed. note: This is the latest installment of The Innovation Interrogatories series, brought to you by Lake Whillans Capital Partners. This recurring feature will highlight insights and experiences around ongoing innovation efforts at law firms.
What is driving law firms to create the CINO position, or positions like it?
The business model of a law firm is not hard to understand. There are relatively few levers available to drive organic growth, especially during the downturn that was dominated by lower demand and extreme sensitivity around fees. While the current outlook has improved in that regard, being able to provide clients with the highest levels of service while remaining profitable remains a challenge, particularly for those firms outside of the 20 or 30 most profitable.
Innovation is one way to give the clients a different look. Allowing us to drive efficiencies and deploy our talent on higher-end complex work, while providing clients with measurable value; however, left on its own, innovation rarely happens at the time and place of our choosing. In order for innovation to be directed toward real-world business objectives, you have to take a more intentional approach, and that requires an administration structure that can harness and focus a firm’s efforts.
What objectives you are trying to meet? What is the biggest problem you are trying to solve?
The objectives for innovation must align with the mission of the law firm, which is to say, innovation needs to be part of the client experience, satisfaction and value. So for us at Husch Blackwell, we frame the question by looking at it from the client’s perspective — how does the client benefit from the technology and tools that we create and implement? If you get that part right — if the answer to that question is easy to get your head around — then you can pivot to all those challenges that come from developing new services or products and making them profitable.
Can you identify an under-hyped (or at least relatively overlooked) technology or trend that will eventually have a significant impact on the delivery of legal services?
One area that I would not have thought, even a few months ago, would be trending is chatbots. While they’re great for certain functions (I’m thinking troubleshooting on a bank’s website), I thought they would be of limited use inside a firm. Maybe I am still recovering from Clippy (Word’s paperclip chatbot). Or, I still think of that SNL skit with the older folks trying to get information out of Alexa “Silver,” created for the “greatest generation.” Its main feature was it was super loud and responded to any name remotely close to Alexa (Alaina, Allegra, Aretha, Alisha, Alfonzo, Aldis, Arashel, Excederin… you get the idea).
However, with the new AI functionality available now and the ability to connect all of our systems and provide staff and attorneys with a one stop shop for information and automation, I see this area taking off quickly. I expect this trend will continue to grow and find new avenues in the delivery of legal services.
Innovation and technology are often conflated. To what degree does the “innovation” imperative at law firms extend beyond technological solutions?
Technology is often necessary to innovation, but hardly sufficient, and there is a lot of innovation that we can drive in the legal industry today that has very little to do with the development or application of new technology. The only thing innovation really requires is the courage to look at things a different way. Take for instance Legal Project Management — while technology is clearly involved, it is more about planning the work, working the plan, communicating regularly with stakeholders, and doing a postmortem review. We have also developed an internal vetting protocol to attack our innovative ideas, draft initial business plans, and test prototypes with clients. A certain amount of courage is required to break away from old ways of doing things and not being afraid to fail, but if you have the right talent in place and ask the right questions, that courage is a little easier to come by.
Is litigation finance an innovation that you’ve considered? If no, why not? If yes, in what ways do you think it will help meet your innovation goals?
We are very creative when it comes to alternative fee arrangements and work to partner with our clients to help share risks but have not found the right opportunity to venture into litigation financing.
Dean Boeschen is the Chief Growth & Innovation Officer at Husch Blackwell. He is responsible for driving firm expansion and innovation through strategic planning, technology, attorney recruitment and forward-thinking solutions. He has 28 years of experience in law firm finance, client development, and operations management.
