Typical Lawyer! Clones, clients and fitness for purpose in times of change

Crowder, Mark and Shephard, Catherine ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2805-4943 (2015) Typical Lawyer! Clones, clients and fitness for purpose in times of change. In: CEPLER Working Papers. Working Paper. University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK.

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Abstract

The legal sector is experiencing ‘a time of unprecedented change with consumer demands, technology and the regulatory system fundamentally changing the way that legal services are delivered’ (Solicitor’s Regulation Authority, 2013). The deregulation of the sector, meaning that non-lawyers can now own and manage legal services firms, has swollen an already competitive market, and, more than ever, the client is king. Lawyers must be able to innovate and manage client relationships, and the issue of team working is becoming increasingly relevant. In this paper the authors combine their knowledge and expertise in management and law respectively to further explore this issue. During Author B’s time in legal practice she observed a paucity of ‘creative types’ and hypothesised that the recruitment process was likely to prevent the progress of such people into law firms. Some years later, the authors taught two cohorts of students attending a UK University management programme. The students, who all managed lawyers, comprised a mix of lawyers and non-lawyers, such as human resources and finance professionals. The authors observed a distinctly different approach between the lawyers and the non-lawyers. The observations referred to above ignited a desire in the authors to explore: (i) whether there is a ‘typical lawyer’ in terms of a lawyer’s preferred role in a team, (ii) if so, the impact this may have on the ability of law firms to manage client relationships and to innovate in times of change and increased competition, and (iii) how these findings might inform the education, training and recruitment of those working in the legal services sector. The authors used the Belbin model, which Author B had encountered in legal practice, to undertake a small pilot study of preferred team roles within the legal profession. Students in the two cohorts mentioned above each completed a Belbin questionnaire, and when the results were analysed, it became clear that there may indeed be implications for the sector and a need for further research into this topic.