Learnings from The Lab #4
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This workshop series was designed to explore the relationship between In-House and Private Practice as jointly responsible parties capable of making substantial change and impact in the way legal services across the Industry are managed. We started this session with a “Setting the Scene” exercise in an attempt to understand both the outstanding problems and needs when both parties interact with each other.
The Setting the Scene exercise included:
Two columns, one for In-House and one for Private practice. Both columns had a side for pain points and needs.
The task was to identify the pain points and needs for both In-House and private practice in the context of each other. Eg. What are the pain points of In-House interacting with private practice - and vice versa.
Key Findings:
We spent a little time understanding the benefit of differentiating between Pain Points and Needs. Pain Points was really an opportunity to vent and Needs was an opportunity to share the best case scenario of what would be needed. It is interesting to note that the same meaning may be intended from both a pain point and needs perspective but the opportunity to phrase it as a pain point (or need) would potentially resonate more depending on the situation. Having both encourages a neutral stance and promotes empathy across all members who are exploring the topic with the focus on discovery and building common understanding.
Pain points and Needs don’t have a 1:1 ratio. One pain point may have several corresponding needs and vice versa.
Pain points from In-House covered themes including:
Surprise invoices.
Advice being theoretically correct, but not in business context.
Legal work is being mismanaged.
Pain points from Private Practice covered themes including:
Briefings are not structured which force further inquiry.
We are given problems and asked to quote without qualifying assumptions.
Last minute briefings and micromanaging costs block moves toward efficiency and deploying better models.
Needs from In-House covered themes including:
Contextual, business-oriented advice.
Advice to consider strategic/political and “social licence to operate” of clients.
Price/Cost transparency.
Needs from Private Practice covered themes including:
Forecasted/continuous pipeline of work.
Proper client feedback (possibly facilitated by 3rd party)
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Q.