Collaboration, Law Firm Style, Part One.

Collaboration: An introduction.

It’s a pleasure to commence my SlawTips collaboration with David Bilinsky by focussing on…

What else?

Collaboration: Law firm, style.

And by that I simply mean assessing how your practice group works together, and seeing whether adding some planning, systems and efficiencies might increase the sum of your group’s parts.

We’ll be looking at this in a bit of depth over the next few weeks.  For now, an introduction.

Allow me to pose some serious questions at the outset.

How does your law firm optimize its intra-firm collaborations? Does your practice group really work together? Do you give much thought to ensuring individual contributors play to their strengths?  Do you have seniors doing junior work and juniors doing senior work?  Does your team perform as well as it could?

And who’s steering the ship, anyways?

Now David and I may indeed come at this question of collaboration from different perspectives in the legal universe.  However, one thing my BC colleague has in common with this Toronto lad is local experience with the Brian Burke school of general management and team-building. (I agree Gary – that collaboration is all about bringing out the best in all team members in order that the group is much stronger than the sum of the individuals.  And that Brian could do that in spades).

I’d suggest the approach required to build and maintain a winning team on the ice has much in common with the development and management of a successful law practice group.

Sports analogies are nearly irresistible, of course, in this sort of discussion, but  who could resist the ideal of a well-oiled professional team, benefitting from carefully-recruited and talented contributors, well-defined roles and a coherent system, precisely and enthusiastically executed? (And Dave here..using the right technology to facilitate the collaborative process!!)

How might this kind of planning be translated from the coach’s corner to the corner office of your professional practice?

Let’s talk about it…