Legal Service Consultancies: Talent Acquisition Strategies Post-LegalWeek20

From a talent acquisition perspective, it’s always interesting to see what companies are exhibiting and sponsoring sessions at LegalTech in New York.  When market leaders from the consulting world highlight certain topics, it is an obvious indicator that their clients are experiencing a need for solutions to business issues related to those topics.  With this knowledge, we can identify companies that are among the first to recognize the need for solutions to their client’s likely future business issues.  Consultancies that remain among those aware of newly developing solutions become known for their innovative work which then causes existing clients to remain loyal while helping to attract new clients.

Some of the timeliest business issues we noticed as hot topics at LTNY20 in New York this month included the following:

• Cross-border litigation: Compliance with foreign and domestic laws when importing and expiration data pertaining to US discovery requests
• Data privacy in additional jurisdictions: It’s not just the GDPR and CCPA anymore, we have the Japanese Act on Protection of Personal Info (APPI), Canadian Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and many more
• Hiring in-country vendors, counsel, reviewers: Technical Issues, management concerns, and dealing with foreign language documents with special characters and alternate alphabets
• Compliance with laws of foreign jurisdictions: Anticipate the need for eDiscovery services in various and time zones, processing data and depositions in multiple languages and characters, and then find local resources who know the cultural and technical landscapes

This got us thinking…  How do consulting firms anticipate future business issues in order to proactively create solutions ahead of the curve?

Having team members able to identity trends in legal technology, and who then relay that information to the developers, senior management, and/or acquisitions team is vital to a practice becoming and remaining a major player in the constantly changing legal tech consulting world.  It is critical that practice leaders create a collaborative culture fostering an environment in which the employees out there in the field feel empowered and encouraged to pass along this critical market intel to management so new solutions may be developed in anticipation of clients’ upcoming needs.

How do we make this happen?  Legal Tech Talent Network doesn’t just recruit talent – We consult with our clients to help them find ways to attract and retain the best talent in the field.

Here are a few tips:

• Hire for cultural fit, not just skills
• Ask the right questions during the interview process
• Create incentive and award programs to recognize contributions that are outside the scope of an employee’s general duties, for those that go above and beyond
• Create a stable work environment. Constant changes to territories, compensations plans, and management structures make employees feel uneasy – why would they want to go the extra mile today if they fear they may lose their job tomorrow?
• Get rid of sales quotas! This one might sound crazy, but it is important to consider the fact that employees add value to an organization in many ways so their “value” may not be fairly measured by the traditional metrics.

We’d be happy to share more tips and help you implement new policies to achieve your goals.  If you are interested in learning more about our services, please contact us at David@LSCNetwork.com to schedule a call.