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<\/p>\nThe legal industry is overrun with counterintuitive and counterproductive expectations about innovation. The demands for radical innovation seem to grow louder every day. The more frustrated we are with the lack of progress, the more extreme we are with our demands. But here\u2019s a simple question: is the purpose of innovation to show our CEOs and clients that we are exploring the latest fashionable technology? Or is the purpose of innovation to increase revenue, value, and client satisfaction?<\/p>\n
Innovation Isn\u2019t Everywhere or Everything<\/strong><\/p>\n Despite the fact that there are still some lawyers holding onto WordPerfect, on the whole, lawyers aren\u2019t the laggards we\u2019re made out to be. Innovation is important and seems pervasive, but most companies don\u2019t prioritize it. According to a worldwide survey of over 5,000 board members, only 30%<\/a> consider innovation a top strategic challenge. For law firms, the story isn\u2019t much different. Only 31%<\/a> of legal ops professionals say the law firms they work with are innovating.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a lot of fanfare when big-budget innovation initiatives are launched, so you may feel that everyone is going big\u2014and that nothing else is worth pursuing. But the fact is that, of companies that are innovating, only 25%<\/a> are engaged in active transformative efforts. Most are engaged in incremental, reactive improvements.<\/p>\n And chasing big breakthroughs isn\u2019t the same as actually achieving them. Research<\/a> has shown that big innovation budgets and risks lead to failure more often than big rewards. In fact, 85%<\/a> of new offerings fail. But, we seem to brush off the downside of big risks. Survivorship bias<\/a> leads us to fixate on those bold strategies\u2014and discard all others that are not sufficiently radical.<\/p>\n Innovation Comes In All Sizes<\/strong><\/p>\n As Ron Friedman<\/a> discussed, lawyers tend to see innovation as a binary: revolutionary or evolutionary. But, there\u2019s more to it than that. Innovation comes in all sizes. Some are more difficult to achieve than others, but they are all worthy. According to 40-year study<\/a>, this is how it breaks down:<\/p>\n In reality<\/a>, for most law firms, it makes more sense and is more profitable to pursue incremental innovation. A narrower scope with a smaller spend<\/a> puts the focus on improving the firm\u2019s most valuable offerings, and addressing real client concerns.<\/p>\n Embracing Incrementalism<\/strong><\/p>\n Incremental innovation typically involves looking at the market and planning how you will use your current resources to react to those trends and opportunities. It\u2019s a calculated, step-by-step improvement. It\u2019s less exciting than shouting \u201cEureka,\u201d but it works.<\/p>\n A benefit of incremental innovation is that it can be top-down, or bottom-up. When innovation is driven by management, those top-down<\/a>\u00a0innovations tend to be updates and extensions planned to ensure continuous progress. When innovation is driven by the front-line, such as associates and professional staff, it leads to small-scale breakthroughs that add significant value.<\/p>\n Opportunities for Incremental Innovation<\/strong><\/p>\n Let\u2019s revisit one of my favorite overlooked innovation opportunities: document creation. We create documents to deliver our advice and counsel, to record transactions and agreements, and to advocate or persuade. At the end of our representation, the documents we create are often the only tangible deliverable.<\/p>\n For many clients, the time spent and presentation of our documents can be the only way that they can assess the quality of our work. If the process is slow or the document is sloppy, then, to them, the quality is poor. Research shows that perceived quality<\/a>\u00a0is the top factor in determining value received. If a product or service doesn\u2019t meet the minimum standard for quality, no other element or combination of them can overcome the client\u2019s view that value is lacking.<\/p>\n Document creation is something that all lawyers do. This makes it ripe for impactful, incremental innovation. According to Jason Barnwell<\/a>, \u201cModest innovation applied to a process that happens at scale can be more valuable than grand innovation applied to an infrequent process.\u201d I agree. And other than email, I can\u2019t think of anywhere we spend more time.<\/p>\n There\u2019s also a lot of opportunity<\/a> for innovation in the document creation process because many lawyers still lack basic word processing skills and most firms aren\u2019t working to optimize how they work in MS Word or create documents overall. Firms that improve this process make headlines<\/a>.<\/p>\n There are several small steps firms can take to address the document creation process. Start with assessment and training to develop basic skills. Then analyze and optimize your document creation workflow. After that, introduce some MS Word add-ins to enhance efficiency and improve quality. With a redesigned workflow and better technology, you can consider staffing and push lower value work down to less expensive staff.<\/p>\n Staffing and service delivery improvements are innovative. The improvements will be noticeable. Moreover, this is the innovation that clients care about and expect you to do. In the 10th Anniversary Legal Ops Report<\/a>\u00a0the authors encouraged legal professionals to start with incremental innovation and the \u201clow hanging fruit.\u201d MS Word certainly qualifies. Major innovation is a long-term goal, but with incremental innovation you can have immediate success.<\/p>\n Putting Revenue, Value and Client Satisfaction First<\/strong><\/p>\n Since innovation is such a buzzword, you may feel that you\u2019re getting left behind while others are producing breakthrough innovations. That\u2019s almost certainly not the case. According to a McKinsey survey, just 6%<\/a>\u00a0of executives were satisfied with the outcome of innovation efforts. So for most firms, one of the best things you can do is scale back expectations before widespread disillusionment sets in.<\/p>\n Instead, let\u2019s revisit incremental innovation. Incremental innovation is a worthy goal\u2014and it is real progress<\/em>. A \u201cgo big or go home\u201d attitude toward innovation is myopic and discourages firms from trying to make any changes at all. An innovation needn\u2019t make headlines to serve an important purpose in an organization. Isn\u2019t increasing revenue and value by creating more satisfied, loyal, paying clients supposed to be the whole point of this innovation frenzy?<\/p>\n There has never been a better moment to get back to it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Isn\u2019t increasing revenue and value by creating more satisfied, loyal, paying clients supposed to be the whole point of this innovation frenzy?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71800,"featured_media":5336,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2371],"tags":[2544,493,3035,2750],"class_list":["post-5330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-practice-management","tag-document-automation","tag-innovation","tag-ivy-b-grey","tag-workflow-solutions"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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Ivy B. Grey is an accomplished lawyer and writer. She is the creator of American Legal Style for PerfectIt<\/a>, which is a proofreading and editing add-in for lawyers. Ivy is also a Senior Attorney at Griffin Hamersky LLP. She focuses her practice on bankruptcy, which includes distressed transactions and some litigation. She’s been named as a Rising Star in the New York Metro Area for five consecutive years, and her significant representations include In re AMR Corp. (American Airlines), In re Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP, In re Eastman Kodak Company, In re Filmed Entertainment Inc. (Columbia House), and In re Nortel Networks Inc. You can follow Ivy on twitter at @IvyBGrey<\/a> or connect with her on LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n