How GCs Can Get Their Team On Board With Change

It's inevitable. As business carries on, new technologies and processes come to the fore and general counsel may realize that the time has come to update their departments' legal operations.

This update may consist of new technology, new document management techniques, or a new method to dole out assignments. But one thing is likely to prove consistent: the notorious path dependency displayed by attorneys as a group.

"The law is an old institution," said Liz Lugones, chief operating officer and a senior advisor with UpLevel Ops, a legal operations consultancy. Tradition is important, she added, as is reaching the correct conclusion and managing risk. One might say resistance to change is baked into the profession.

So, if you as general counsel are convinced that new ways of doing things will improve efficiency and make work life better for everyone, how do you get your people to cooperate? In other words, what is the best approach to change management?

The Evangelists

For Ben Sachs, president of consulting firm The Landing Group and an expert in management, strategy, negotiation, and communication who also serves on the teaching faculty of the University of Virginia School of Law, his first advice is to woo the influencers.

"You can tell people the same thing three times and they still might not change their ways," Sachs said. "So, when you're thinking about change management, the biggest thing to do is to recognize it's not about what you say. It's what people hear."

Sachs advises GCs to focus on "the evangelists," the one or two influential people on a given team, but not necessarily the most senior people.

"Think about the people who do the day-to-day work and see if you can convince them that this is an awesome new tool," he said. "And if they are skeptical, listen."

The evangelists may have a good reason for their skepticism and close attention may reveal a path forward. You can use your knowledge of the new processes or tools to show them how and why the changes will work for them.

"If you can identify a couple of things the team absolutely loves, you can sell those features as ways to get people excited," Sachs said.

He offers the example of version control. No attorney wants to use an out-of-date version of, say, a vendor agreement. An old version increases the chances that a mistake will make its way into the document ultimately sent to the other party. If you can demonstrate how the new processes will make such errors less likely, you can expand from there.

"Even if it's not the primary purpose of the tool, it can be a great way to get started."

Once you gain some traction with a few key people willing to evangelize the rest of the team, you are on your way, Sachs said. "It takes more time, but it's how you get more impact."

The Power of Persuasion

Of course, you could always be confronted by a recalcitrant attorney. Or 10. Sachs noted that you may have to exercise your lawyerly powers of persuasion.

"The same way a good trial lawyer draws the sting on direct to weaken the cross, you have to acknowledge the skepticism when you walk into the room."

A promise to be open to feedback could be useful.

"You can say look, please trust me enough to try this for 30 days. We'll evaluate," Sachs said. He suggests that at regular intervals -- 30 days, six months, one year -- the law department send around a five-minute survey. Meetings with key people are another option.

The GC can ask attorneys what they did and did not like, and whether they can see a fix or if they think the law department should go back to its old ways.

"From a leadership standpoint," Sachs said, "this is a way of saying: 'I'm not forcing you to do this, I'm asking you to try it. I'm going to keep listening. We're going to iterate on our tools and processes until we get it just right.' And that's a much more collaborative approach to change management."

The Importance of Empathy

Sachs emphasized that authority is not enough. A GC must influence. And influence is earned.

"Could you force them? Of course, you could. But then, you're using up your capital. Every time you do that it makes it a little harder the next time. . . . If you force your attorneys to do something, they're going to sabotage it or drag their feet."

You must act with empathy, Sachs said. After all, changes add stress to an already stressful position. Many a person might harbor the fear that technology meant to improve efficiency might improve them right out of a job.

Sumi Trombley, a senior advisor with UpLevel Ops, noted that "the improvement of legal operations involves much more than technology."

A law department may need to ask how and where it stores its documents and whether they are easily found, Trombley said. Or perhaps the issue is the approval process and whether approvals should be given in the same order all the time, to make the process easier to remember and more efficient.

The Integration Handbook

This brings us to another important facet of change management. Your attorneys may be perfectly willing to learn the new technology and adopt the new processes, but this hardly means that when they're feeling the crunch, they won't revert to old habits.

Nor should new attorneys be left to fend for themselves to learn your legal operations. Attorneys waste a lot of time figuring out the hard way how their teams are managed, Sachs said. For example, they might spend three months "learning through osmosis" how their fellow attorneys use Slack, when their colleagues email, and when they text.

Sachs explained there is an easier way, a type of onboarding that has nothing to do with human resources, which can also benefit your experienced attorneys when they're confronted with big changes in legal operations.

"Think about team onboarding and team integration," Sachs said. He suggests that law departments maintain a legal team handbook that describes processes such as how files are named and maintained.

The handbook can be "a set of shared documents that everyone can contribute to, with best practices, that is continuously updated," Sachs said. For best results, this handbook should be a shared responsibility that lives in a central place in the system.

This resource, where attorneys can go for quick answers to their questions, should save everyone time and ease the grumbling that often accompanies change.

The Wrap Up

Change can be difficult, especially among attorneys. As general counsel, you can ease the transition toward more efficient legal operations by working with a small group of influencers who can persuade the rest of the law department that the new tools and processes are to their benefit.

Periodic evaluation is another important element of change management, to engage the skeptics and make sure their voices are heard.

And finally, a process handbook can save everyone time, as well as help seasoned attorneys avoid a reversion to old habits and smoothly integrate newcomers.

Elizabeth M. Bennett was a business reporter who moved into legal journalism when she covered the Delaware courts, a beat that inspired her to go to law school. After a few years as a practicing attorney in the Philadelphia region, she decamped to the Pacific Northwest and returned to freelance reporting and editing.