A blog by Joel Barolsky of Barolsky Advisors

Posts Tagged ‘professional service firms’

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Karate Kid lesson for law firms

In Articles, Commentary on 12 July 2021 at 11:49 am

There are two broad scenarios for the future of the Australian legal market: Vax On and Vax Off (with apologies to Karate Kid fans).

Vax On describes a scenario of buoyant demand and a growing legal market. Vax Off is the opposite.

Events over the past three weeks have increased the odds of the Vax Off scenario from highly unlikely to a distinct possibility.

The scenarios

Vax On is centred on the idea that Australia will be successful in vaccinating its population relatively quickly and emerge strongly into a post-Covid normal state within six to eight months. Most of the current drivers of legal demand are positive and will continue to be so in a Vax On world.

The Vax-Off scenario is based on slow vaccination rates and conservative health policy settings.

On 2 July 2021, the Morrison Government announced a four-phase plan to return to Covid Normal. If the snail-paced vaccination rates continue as they are, we may only reach Phase 2 in the second quarter of 2022 and Phase 4 in 2023.

Vax Off will mean we stay with closed borders and disruptive lockdowns for quite some time yet. A prolonged period before Phase 4 will have significant implications for the broader economy and law firms.

#1 Brain drain

In the Vax Off scenario, the UK, USA and other legal centres may return to a Covid normal state 12 months ahead of Australia. Many ambitious, talented young Australian lawyers will see major benefits working and living abroad. The pitch is compelling – do great work, earn good money, live without lockdowns, and put your passport to good use.

The current tide of talented ex-pats returning home will shift from a small flow to a major ebb.

This brain drain will hit Australia’s law firms when these resources are needed the most and firms have few viable Plan Bs. A second-order impact might be a significant spike in average salaries and benefits paid to those lawyers that have remained at home. 

#2 A depressed commercial property market

Lockdowns mean full-time work in the office is off the table. Border closures will result in fewer international students, tourists and migrants.

In combination, all these factors point to a significant drop in demand for commercial properties, hotels and high rise residential real estate.

A depressed property market will directly impact real estate lawyers, but it could also affect other related areas like construction, banking, project finance, and funds.

#3 Collapse in travel, tourism and education

Government support packages and insolvency moratoriums since April 2020 have kept most businesses in the travel, tourism and education sectors alive. In a Vax Off world, a vast majority of these businesses are too small to save, and the liquidators will eventually move in.

At one level, that’s good news for law firms’ insolvency practices, but the flow-on impact of significant job losses and the fall of iconic brands will lower consumer confidence and GDP. 

#4 A return of protectionism

Leading economist Saul Eslake recently argued that the long-term economic damage from closed borders might have a similar impact to the trade barriers that lowered Australia’s living standards up until the 1980s.

An extended Vax Off period runs the risk of Australian businesses and law firms becoming less relevant in global markets and losing out on major deals and projects.

#5 Disrupted operations

Almost all of Australia’s Top 30 law firms have some kind of international alliance or connection. Herbert Smith Freehills, for example, is a financially integrated global partnership. Maddocks is a member of ADVOC – a network of independent firms spread across the world.

Most cross-border collaboration is going to be negatively impacted in a Vax Off scenario. There will be no physical meetings and limited joint business development activity. International client and referral relationships that have taken many years to cultivate will weaken.

Scenario planning is often done when there are two or three alternative futures that are possible, uncertain and beyond any party’s direct control. In the case of the Vax On or Vax Off scenarios, our political leaders can have a major influence on which future we have.

Let’s hope they soon find the courage of Karate Kid’s Daniel Laruso and the wisdom of Mr Miyaji.

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Hey partner, do you know where you sit on the career curve?

In Articles, Commentary on 28 June 2021 at 7:59 pm

The full text of my opinion piece first published in the Australian Financial Review on 10 June 2021.

In nature, a seed is planted, begins to sprout, matures, becomes an adult, and then eventually regenerates. While not as unequivocal as the laws of nature, the careers of partners in premium law firms generally go through five distinct phases.

  • Phase one: find my feet. Partners typically work hard to validate the business case for their promotion. They spend time working out how things really work, who calls the shots and what it takes to succeed.
  • Phase two: create backbone. Partners cement their anchor clients and referrers. They build the team and technology necessary for efficient service delivery and a compelling client experience.
  • Phase three: make hay. Partners really hit their straps and use their strong personal brands and honed business development skills to win and deliver an increasing flow of profitable work.
  • Phase four: widen contribution. In addition to growing their own practice, these partners collaborate actively across the firm, expanding existing client relationships, cross-servicing and seeding new opportunities. They share their knowledge and contacts widely and help monetise their IP in new algorithms, products and thought leadership. Some also take on practice and firm leadership roles.
  • Phase five: transition to others. Senior partners in this phase commence the development of designated successors. They start to let go of the reins and lend their social capital to others.

Proactive conversations about a partner’s desired career curve – shape, angle, timing and gaps of the phases – can be of significant benefit to the individual and the firm.

The shape of the arc

The duration of each phase varies significantly from person to person. It is not simply an average 30-year partner tenure divided by five equal phases.

Many partners would have a career that follows a classic “S” curve, with ordered progression through the five phases. There may be a few “J” curves or hockey-sticks that reflect a flat or declining phase one followed by continued rapid growth.

There are partners who have a career arc that looks like a series of angled “Ws”, going from boom to bust to boom, reflecting an innate ability to reinvent themselves.

In more recent times, there are career arcs that have missing chunks as people take extended time out for other commitments.

The early days

In the past, it was common for phase one and two partners to be left alone to sink or swim. It was assumed that, on promotion, the individual became all-knowing and capable.

But many progressive firms now offer tailored training and coaching support to build resilience and keep them on a positive trajectory. Most firms also recognise that these early days often coincide with major changes in partners’ personal lives, like starting a family and taking on more debt. Work-life integration at these early stages is beset with competing demands.

A missed opportunity

A firm filled with phase three “haymakers” sounds wonderful, but recent Harvard research indicates that there is much more to gain if they instead develop a strong collaborative culture with a healthy cohort of phase four partners. These benefits include more valuable client work at higher margins and greater staff engagement.

But going from phase three to four is easier said than done, especially for those individuals who are hard-wired to work autonomously.

Each firm should clarify what the “widen contribution” phase looks and feels like to them and whether there are any practice-area variances. Alignment of measurement and reward to create more phase fours is a good next step, with measurement used to improve not just prove.

Leaving well

Phase five is quite often dealt with too late or superficially. This may be due to a reluctance of a senior partner to let go, the inability of the next generation to step up, the risk of client defections and/or the financial circumstances of the individuals involved.

Like at all other phases, every partner should be asked, and should ask themselves where are they on the career arc, what to prioritise to succeed in the current phase, where next and how?

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How law firms can do more with less

In Articles, Commentary, Legal Technology on 5 March 2021 at 6:22 pm

The full text of my opinion piece first published in the Australian Financial Review on 4 March 2021.

Commercial law firms face constant pressure from clients to do more for less.

They can respond in three ways: say it can’t be done and risk losing out to competitors, drop their prices, or make a step change to improve productivity.

Most are pursuing option 3 and are looking to legal operations to make it happen.

What are legal operations?

Legal operations usually include some or all of these disciplines:

  • Business Management – commercial managers focused on improving profitability, increasing revenues and optimising efficiency.
  • Service Design – workflow and client experience specialists that evaluate, accelerate and support legal process improvement projects. They also often assist with new product development and act as incubators for new business ideas.
  • Legal Project Management – project professionals that make legal work tractable, trackable and transparent, for both lawyers and clients.
  • Pricing – pricing experts that help partners to have better client conversations, align price with value, protect margins, and where appropriate, use alternative fee arrangements.
  • Alternative Legal Services – a team of paralegals, legal technologist and lawyers focused on high-volume process work including e-discovery, transactional and dispute support, language editing, document review and IP management.

Australian experience

In Australia, some very large national firms have embraced a centralised approach to legal operations. Others have adopted a more decentralised model with each major practice group acquiring the resources specific to their needs. 

Over time, I would expect most firms will move to a model of centralised governance to avoid duplication and facilitate the sharing of knowledge and applications. At the same time, operational specialists need to work right at the coalface to find smarter ways to deliver more for less.

Innovation roles will be also subsumed into legal operations. Legal secretaries and assistants will still work directly with local lawyers but will be more connected with and directed by legal operations.

In medium-sized and smaller law firms, a new business service function will likely emerge with the status of HR, marketing and finance. It will often start with outsourcing basic IT services – hardware, software and helpdesk – and the insourcing of specialist tech-savvy resources to help lift productivity and client connection in key practice areas. Once this is established, other roles involved in supporting legal service delivery will enter the legal operations orbit.

New career pathways

This emerging area of legal operations is also creating an alternative – and attractive – career path for lawyers.

They benefit from a deep knowledge of the intrinsic needs within a legal workflow, but also enjoy the respect of the various stakeholders involved in migrating to a new way of working.

MinterEllison offers new lawyers the option of entering its Legal Operations Graduate Program. The program gives candidates exposure to lean six sigma, design thinking, change management and agile methodologies. The firm recently graduated its first cohort and is reported to be delighted with the outcomes so far.

The growth of legal operations is not just confined to law firms.

Stuart Fuller, the global head of KPMG Legal Services, recently predicted that “half of the [in-house] legal team will not be lawyers by 2025”.

Fuller says the use of automated solutions, chatbots and other forms of productised legal services will rise, and these will need support from lawyers as well as a more multidisciplinary workforce with different skill sets. As a result, the proportion of legal work done by paralegals, data analysts, operational experts and other specialists might rise to the point where legal professionals become a minority.

The key message is that the path to improved productivity is not pressuring lawyers to bill more time, but rather working smarter with the evolving disciplines of legal operations.

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Partners or owners: the law firm divide

In Articles, Commentary on 14 December 2020 at 9:40 am

The full text of my opinion piece first published in the Australian Financial Review on 11 December 2020.

One of the most striking statistics from The Australian Financial Review Law Partnership Survey is the wide variation in the ratio of equity to non-equity partners across Australia’s top 50 law firms.

In some firms, like Colin Biggers & Paisley and McCabe Curwood, only 20 per cent of partners have an equity stake.

At the other end of the spectrum, nine firms report that 100 per cent of their partners have equity. However, partners in these firms are often not on an equal footing. Newly minted partners in these firms can earn as little as 25 per cent of a full share. In other firms, individual partner earnings are based more on an assessment of their annual contribution instead of the level of their shareholding.

Further analysis of the survey data suggests there is no discernible factor that determines the equity ratio. Variations can occur within and across tiers, service range and practice area.

The role of non-equity partner was first introduced as a form of trial period to assess whether a candidate should be made an equity partner. The “partner” title would allow the candidate to command the respect of clients, peers and staff necessary to build a successful practice and prove their worth. Being extra cautious in the final step to equity was prudent given the complexities in dealing with bad choices or established equity partners leaving.

In a similar vein, firms used the non-equity partner role as an entry point for new lateral hires on their way to equity partnership.

Over the past decade, the non-equity partner role has evolved into a de facto career position in some firms with the candidate having little chance of being offered an equity stake.

A large non-equity partner cohort can improve profitability – by lifting leverage and average billing rates – help share some risks and distribute the management load.

Challenges

While there are these benefits, a tightly held partnership does come with potential challenges:

  • An “us and them” schism emerging between the two classes of partner;
  • Flight risk of those non-equities who feel they can get a better deal elsewhere;
  • A lack of drive among non-equities who feel their careers have capped out;
  • A perception of inequity when the firm records super-normal profits that accrue only to a select few;
  • A cynicism that the non-equity role allows the firm to achieve its partner diversity targets without the need to share power;
  • A narrower base of internal funders and underwriters;
  • Duplication of partner communications and meetings; and,
  • A smaller pool of partners to select from for senior leadership roles.

A widely held partnership, on the other hand, faces the risk of being too conservative and too slow to promote top talent. A burgeoning bottleneck at the senior associate level can set the scene for a feeding frenzy for aggressive competitors.

To create a sustainable business and a positive culture, it is critical to make all partners, regardless of stake, feel and behave like business owners. They should be guardians of the firm’s assets and values, while embracing the agreed principles and disciplines of partnership.

Financial gain or pain

With senior equity partners, the money does a fair bit of the talking. The prospect of immediate financial gain or pain can help facilitate a proprietorial mindset.

For those with a little or no equity, their voice is often a bit softer, the risk is a bit higher and the task is that much harder.

The determining factor is the quality of leadership.

It means working with each partner to align firm and individual purpose, communicate what’s expected, provide the requisite support, give and get feedback – and hold them to account.

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Is HWL Ebsworth Limited a buy?

In Articles, Commentary on 30 August 2020 at 12:35 pm

Full text of my opinion piece first published in the Australian Financial Review on 27 August 2020.

Earlier this week, the Australian Financial Review reported that HWL Ebsworth (HWLE) was preparing to list the firm on the ASX with a $1 Billion-plus valuation.

While details are scant at this stage, it is worth asking whether stockbrokers will recommend a BUY when the HWLE Limited prospectus is issued?

My prediction is they will give this IPO a thumbs down for five main reasons.

#1 Insufficient surplus

As a listed entity, HWLE partners will have to share a portion of the firm’s profits with external shareholders. For the sake of argument assume the current partners enjoy average earnings of $1.5 million per annum. In the future, partner earnings – salary plus bonus minus profit share – might reduce to say $1 million. The incumbent partners will most likely accept a reduced annual income given their significant capital gain upon listing.

This business case seems logical but misses one key point – there is a fiercely competitive market for top talent. Many of the best HWLE partners are proven rainmakers will still be able to command incomes around $1.5 million or more at other non-listed law firms or by setting up their own practice when their employment and escrow handcuffs come off.

At $1 million – the maximum the firm can pay and still maintain dividend payments – HWLE Limited will be way off the mark in attracting any new ‘$1.5 million’ partners.

Over the long term, there’s insufficient surplus to keep both partners and external shareholders happy.

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#2 Clients don’t buy the firm

When Shine Justice Limited first listed on the ASX, they presented strong evidence that their personal injury clients chose them because they trusted the firm’s brand and were largely lawyer agnostic.  When IPH listed, investors were enticed by a large proportion of annuity income from patent and TM renewals and an ambitious plan to scale.

When it comes to HWLE’s mostly business-to-business relationships, research shows that clients are much more discerning around who does their work.

HWLE external shareholders will not be buying a company with a strong brand with sticky institutional client relationships. They will be buying a collection of individual portable practices, each with their own reputation and client following.

#3 Vague growth story

External shareholders examining the IPO prospectus will be looking for a compelling growth story. They will want to see how a fresh capital injection will drive shareholder value.

Under Juan Martinez’s leadership, HWLE has a solid track record of acquiring legal practices without the need to splash much cash. Economies of scale work well in mining but less so in premium legal where even boutique firms can generate supernormal profits. Despite all the hype, there’s no legal technology yet available that will create a sustainable cost or client service advantage. Creating a multi-disciplinary practice or moving offshore is fraught with risk.

So, unless I’m missing something, the growth plan beyond more of the same seems less than convincing.

#4 Key person risk

From interviews with former staff, it appears that Juan Martinez has a robust directed leadership style. Overheads are kept to a minimum and all lawyers are encouraged to be on the tools all the time to compensate for below-market pricing.

This is the operating model that has been the bedrock of HWLE’s success to date.

Given Mr Martinez’s tenure and track record, the market will have many questions over the strength of HWLE’s bench. If the proverbial bus had to arrive who will keep the firm together and herd the cats? I’d imagine the firm’s value will be discounted heavily because of this key person risk.

#5 More losses than wins

Future investors in HWLE will have a good look at the investment category and proceed with caution. A 20-year analysis of law and accounting firm IPOs in Australia reveals far more losses than wins, especially for external investors. This includes firms like Stockfords, Harts and Slater & Gordon.

One of the reasons for these failures is the loss of the partnership culture that underpins their initial success. This culture comes from the incumbent partners’ sense of proprietorship, stewardship, collegiality and identity. Shifting from partner to employee is a big shock to many. Financial transparency, share price volatility and an added compliance burden all often have a negative cultural impact.

In conclusion

I have drawn strong conclusions about the potential float of HWLE without access to any specific details. I look forward to reviewing their IPO prospectus and seeing how wrong I am. But if I’m not, buyer beware!

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How your law firm can limit virus hit to bottom line

In Articles, Commentary on 7 August 2020 at 3:42 pm

The full text of my 7 August 2020 opinion piece first published in the Australian Financial Review.

There is every chance that COVID-19 will mean a big hit to your firm’s revenue for the 2020-21 financial year. So, what levers are you using to limit the downside impact on profitability?

Greg Keith, the chief executive of accounting firm Grant Thornton, recently indicated he was anticipating a decline of 8.5 per cent in revenue and 33 per cent in profit.

It means that for every 1 per cent drop in income, they are forecasting a fall of nearly 4 per cent in profits.

Accounting firms, like law firms, are mostly high fixed-cost businesses that are super-sensitive to changes in revenue – both on the downside and the upside.

To limit the profit impact, firms tend to first cut non-essential spending like travel and entertainment. After these “easy” savings are exhausted, reducing staff numbers comes into the frame.

While there are obvious short-term benefits – staffing can comprise 60 per cent of all expenses – there’s a significant risk of not having enough of the right resources on hand when demand picks up. So, the 2020-21 saving needs to be weighed up against the full cost of re-hiring and training in the future.

In my view, there are two areas where firms could do a lot better to enhance profitability without letting people go – pricing and the sharing of resources.

Pricing for profit

Over the last few years, most mid-sized and large firms have worked on their pricing practices.

With a significant market downturn and price war on the cards, one firm recently redoubled its support for partners to preserve and capture value through price. This included video training modules on value articulation, gamified programs around price negotiation, improved analytics, new pricing tools [like Price High or Low 😀] and more direct hand-holding for new business pitches.

Some firms are adopting a range of creative strategies to meet client needs rather than merely dropping price. They include:

  • Adjusting payment terms and conditions so strapped clients are more willing to brief the firm rather than others;
  • Offering non-time-based pricing structures such as subscriptions, contingency fees or amortising fees;
  • Special promotions in ‘ring-fenced’ service areas to avoid across-the-board rate cuts and safeguard the firm’s brand position; and
  • Offering options at different price points.

One law firm offers its clients three pricing options on every new matter. They’ve adapted Qantas’ pricing approach by offering the equivalent of the airline’s Red e-Deal, Flex and Business Class options.  As with Qantas, each option has the same core benefits around quality and reliability but differ in terms of the format of the deliverables, roles, timing and scope.

Another firm analysed their top 100 clients to determine how each was being affected so they could tailor messages and offers. In one instance, this led to a new digital service offering as some clients moved to virtual selling and distributed operations. In another case, they shifted to a self-service model for a client going through a major cost-cutting exercise.

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Resource sharing

I was recently advising a law firm where analysis of time records revealed that some individuals and teams were extremely busy while others were well below capacity.

When I asked why resources were not shared to even out workloads, the most common response was that lawyers could not easily work outside their area of specialisation.

Not satisfied with that objection, I delved a bit deeper. My enquiries revealed a range of constraints – cultural, structural and personality – to collaboration. For some partners, “letting my people go” was a sign of failure. For others, they didn’t see any direct financial incentive to share resources, so they didn’t bother. In one office, each practice team saw itself as a self-contained business, and the prevailing mindset was more competitive rather than co-operative.

In good times, there’s often enough fat in the system to ignore these problems, But if your firm is looking at an equation that means every 1 per cent drop in revenue leads to a 4 per cent drop in profits, then you might need to change your thinking.

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Will new partners need to keep grinding away?

In Articles, Commentary on 13 July 2020 at 6:18 pm

Full text of my opinion piece first published in the Australian Financial Review on 9 July 2020.

Most practice teams in the larger law firms have been set up with partners as the “finders” and “minders” and associates as “grinders”.

A decade’s worth of time records analysed by Thomson Reuters Peer Monitor shows that associates have around 10 more billable hours per month on average than partners in the same firm.

However, in April and May 2020 – the first full months of the COVID-19 lockdown and remote working – this long-term trend reversed and partners recorded more billable hours than associates.

There are two questions worth asking. Why are partners producing more now? Can all the new partners in the Financial Review Law Partnership Survey expect a permanent change in their role? In other words, will they have to be finders, minders and grinders?

AFR July

Why now?

Many law firm clients went into crisis mode with the onset of the coronavirus. Deals needed to be completed quickly. Funding needed to be secured urgently. Disputes on unfulfilled contracts needed rapid resolution. Almost daily changes to government regulation needed interpretation and action.

To deal with these pressing and complex issues many clients indicated a strong preference to get more direct access to partners. This meant fewer opportunities for delegation to associates.

Cost-conscious clients also had less tolerance for juniors being allowed to learn on these matters. As one general counsel put it to me: “I was happy to see one maybe two people [from the law firm] on [Microsoft] Teams, but not a football team.”

Another factor that has led to the increase in partner hours at some firms is partners holding on to more work due to fear of a broader market slowdown so they can hit their personal billing targets.

During the GFC, many large firms cut partner numbers through a combination of de-equitisation, early retirements, dismissals and reduced promotions.

While many firms now prefer measuring the contribution of a team rather than an individual, having a healthy personal practice can strengthen a partner’s case for retention if things get tough. In recent weeks, it appears that some partners and associates have been getting a little tired of working from home.

After the rush of adrenalin in dealing with the crisis and keeping connected during March and April, there’s now slightly less enthusiasm for the weekly video drinks – and growing frustration with the clunkiness of a distributed workforce.

Supervision, training and delegation is hard enough when everyone is co-located and physically present in a purpose-designed city office. It’s that much harder when associates are working from a kitchen table in a shared rental apartment with variable NBN speeds.

As time moves on, some partners might resort to the easier – though strategically flawed – option of doing most of the work themselves.

Will there be a permanent change?

No, and yes.

Leverage of non-partner fee-earners is at the heart of the law firm business model. The economics of having lots of associates doing lots of production will not change in the years ahead. Effective and efficient delivery of larger transactions, projects and disputes will still require teams of lawyers, paralegals and legal technologists at different levels.

Over time, firms that don’t tailor their approach for each project will lose out to those that do.

When demand returns, the issues around less delegation should ease. Intransigent hoarders will get caught out and move on – or be moved on.

As technology and workflows improve over time, the clunkiness of the remote workforce should diminish and become less of a handbrake.

One change that will hopefully stick is that of the law firm partner as the client’s primary strategic risk advisor. The coronavirus crisis has revealed the relevance of experienced lawyers in assisting clients on things that matter. This period should hopefully build their confidence as strategic advisors from a legal perspective and not just narrow technical legal specialists.

The discussion above suggests that perhaps the finder minder grinder characterisation is a little out of date.

A better description of the role of partner is that of a strategic advisor and leader – a thought leader, a team leader, a client account leader, a project leader and a sales leader.

The winners will be those firms that recruit and develop outstanding legal leaders and not just see their associates as high-billable grinders.

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Does your law firm really need a barista?

In Articles, Commentary on 11 June 2020 at 2:14 pm

Full text of my opinion piece first published in the Australian Financial Review on 4 June 2020.

For the past three months, many law firms have been in crisis management mode.

The focus has been on ensuring staff safety, staying close to clients, sustaining productivity and shoring up financial reserves. The mindset has been mainly about conservation and survival.

It’s time now time to look up and to look ahead – to work out what’s needed to succeed in the next normal.

Here are four things to think about in creating your future.

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#1 Organise for a hybrid workforce

Most law firms will seek to capitalise on the success of remote working and will adopt a model in which people work two or three days a week in the office and the balance at home. While this offers benefits in terms of staff flexibility, reduced commute times and lower occupancy costs, the rhythms of office life will be very different from life before coronavirus.

Firms will need to help their staff create boundaries and new work habits. This includes setting clear ‘office hours’; finding new ways to socialise that replace the serendipitous corridor bump; ensuring consistent supervision of graduates and clerks; and providing regular and balanced performance feedback.

#2 Speed up decision-making and execution

During the ten days from March 16-26, most law firms discovered that if push comes to shove, they can execute big decisions very quickly.

My advice: keep going!

The short-term public health crisis helped concentrate decision-making power. And it appears that in the main those vested with that power acted promptly and professionally.

Firms should build on this experience and streamline decision-making processes for times when things are back to normal. It could mean less consultation on trivial matters, fewer meetings, better communication and greater respect and appreciation for leadership roles.

Most law firms are designed as network organisations with self-managed practice teams as nodes and a small central bureaucracy. In theory, this should make them agile and responsive, but the reality is often quite different. Firms should harness their structural strength to move earlier and faster.

#3 Plan and budget with less inertia

The coronavirus crisis has given firms the opportunity to assess the merits of every revenue and expense item.  Recent McKinsey analysis shows most organisations only reallocate 2 to 3 per cent of their budgets year to year. But those that do more—in the order of 8 to 10 per cent—create more value.

While starting each year’s budget with a blank sheet might be overkill, reviewing each item on a two- or three-year rotating cycle should ensure smarter allocation of resources.

Revenue targets might set with an honest assessment of market potential and how your team stacks up against key competitors. Expense items can be set with a clear-headed view on value creation.

#4 Personalise the client experience with scale

The client experience pre-coronavirus included numerous face-to-face meetings; document preparation shared via email; and multi-touch file handling.

The evidence from the past few months is that productive client meetings can still be held without a barista on call; documents can be prepared collaboratively in real-time and remotely; and that most aspects of file management can be automated.

In designing the firm of the future, think about creating a client experience that is personalised, streamlined and scalable.

This is the time to start imagining your firm as it should be. If you stay in conserve mode too long, you will land up being two or three steps behind those that are determined to create their own future.

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