The Evolution of the “New” Legal Professions

By Terri Mottershead –

For a long time now, law firms have categorized their staff into two broad groups: lawyers and non-lawyers or professional and support/general staff. The categorization often and unfortunately, has gone hand in hand with a hierarchy or belief that lawyers and what they do is somehow more important than the work done by others in the firm. This importance seems to have been predicated on the view that lawyers in a firm are solely responsible for the firm’s income. If this were true, why do law firms employ support staff? Who are they supporting? And what are they doing if they are not assisting in the generation of income?

Of the many changes in law firms in the “new normal,” one of the most notable has been the change in support staff roles, responsibilities and stature. These non-lawyer roles in law firms have arguably contributed more to reimagining, reinventing, rethinking and reshaping the way law firms are led, managed and operated than the lawyer roles. Not a lot has changed in the practice of law – lawyers still give legal advice or act as advocates for their clients. But technology fuelled increase in volume and access to information, prohibitively high legal fees and an unwavering client–led demand for change, has given rise to the evolution of non-lawyer professional leaders and managers in law firms as well as non-lawyer providers of legal services like LPOs.

Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary defines “profession” as “a type of job that requires special education, training or skills.” A quick scan of the CVs of just about any person in a chief or director level position in a law firm in professional development/talent management, HR, IT, marketing, finance, pro bono, diversity & inclusion, COOs, CEOs, just to name a few, will provide an impressive list of university degrees, qualifications, certifications and membership of associations usually closely associated with the roles and responsibilities that each performs. And, then there is the plethora of new jobs in law firms like those associated with practice group management, alternative fee analysis, knowledge management, risk and compliance management, case/matter management, and many more. These highly skilled, knowledgeable and competent people may have grown up in law firms or come from other industries but, the many years they have spent honing their skills in law firms means, they too are “legal professionals,” not lawyers, but professionals in the legal industry nonetheless.

The point here is that changes in the legal industry have spawned not just different business models for law firms and different staffing models (career tracks) for lawyers, but also new, different and broader groups of professionals beyond paralegals, clerks or professional support lawyers. All of these professions are represented in many if not most law firms. They are no longer accurately described as “support” roles because they are highly specialized and integral to the successful operation of business and, ultimately its profitability. They are professionals in what can only be described as a multi-disciplinary organization and, that remains true whether or not they are permitted to also become owners of the law firm itself.

For professional development/talent management professionals, this presents a new addition to a firm’s talent management strategy and a new set of opportunities and challenges:

• Talent management strategies need to expand beyond a myopic focus on lawyers to all professionals in the firm.
• Exceptional opportunities exist to expand and create new or different learning and development courses and programs that leverage the entire resource pool of skills, knowledge and competencies for the benefit of the firm, multidiscipline experience sharing and the sort of innovation, adaptability and competitive advantage that can only come from hearing different approaches, different points of view and agreeing on different solutions.
• Significant challenges in changing the long held mindset in law firms that investment in recruitment, retention and career development for top performing non-lawyers is every bit as important as for top performing lawyers.

At a time when law firms are wondering if they have changed or changed enough to succeed in the 21^st century legal industry, perhaps one quick litmus test might be whether or not they recognize, value, reward, engage and leverage ALL the talent in their firms!

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