Change reaction

Looking to the future with PSL training and development at UK firm Shoosmiths. By Susan Way.

Shoosmiths recently won the accolade of ‘Management Team of the Year’ at The Lawyer Awards 2006. The basis of the award was not only the firm’s outstanding financial results, but also the strength and diversity of its teams. Integral to the success of the teams is the contribution made by the six professional support lawyer (PSL) members of the firm, who provide support to its 80 partners and 1,300 staff over seven offices.

The breadth of PSL work has grown over the past five years and our PSLs now provide support over a range of practice areas, such as corporate, commercial, property and employment law. It became clear to us that as PSLs, we needed to develop ourselves in order to continue to provide a high-quality service to our many fee earners. We decided to begin by analysing the knowledge, experience and skills required to be a successful PSL, before deciding how we could best develop those areas.

Skills
We recognised that this is the most important element, often differentiating a good or average PSL from an excellent one. There are many aspects involved in performing the PSL role at Shoosmiths – both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ skills (see box one). Other ‘must haves’ included a willingness to help, being constantly aligned with business planning, self-motivation and influencing skills, having the ability to prioritise, and time-management skills.

Why offer training to our PSLs?
We realised that no single PSL had come to the role with all of the attributes mentioned above, and also that we were in danger of becoming less valuable as we moved away from the ‘coalface’ of practising law. Just as we advocate, manage and deliver training to our lawyers, we felt entitled to the same support in order to perform our PSL functions to the best of our ability. This is made easier by the fact that our firm carries out meaningful job appraisals every year, which enable PSLs to identify areas that we feel need updating, developing, or even discovering. We try not to get so tied up and preoccuopied with our fee earners’ needs that we neglect our own.

Implementing effective PSL training
As with all new programmes, we first had to identify exactly what our training needs were. Some of us spoke to our fee earners to find out what they thought we needed to improve upon. This produced some interesting responses, including that the PSLs had a dilemma of how to get up to speed on new developments, while staying up to date on their own area of expertise. Also, that PSLs needed to decide on their priorities rather then trying to do everything, and should be available around the clock.

After working out what level of intervention was most appropriate, timely and cost-effective, we then had to assess the value of PSL training and demonstrate it to our budget holder. With some ingenuity, we were able to achieve maximum use of a limited training budget to our own professional advantage.

Developing the PSL role
Most PSLs will know of Richard Susskind, an IT lawyer who wrote the very influential book The Future of Law, in 1996. One of his main themes is client-driven commoditisation of legal services, on a continuum, which runs from bespoke, to standardised, to systematised, to packaged, through to commoditised services.

At Shoosmiths, we recognised quite a while ago that there was an appetite (among our clients) for packaged services. We now offer commoditised services for conveyancing (Property Direct) and personal injury (Legal Expenses Division). These services operate outside London and employ almost 700 people – only ten per cent of which are qualified lawyers. They have a very satisfactory gross fee income and are generating good returns on investment. Significantly for us, these services are highly systematised, sold on price and very dependant on the use of technology. They do not employ a single PSL.

Like it or not, the type of legal services our firm provides and the way in which we provide them is bound to change – and sooner than we think. What can PSLs at Shoosmiths (and elsewhere) do to ‘future proof’ our own jobs? Can training or development provide any, or all, of the answers? We feel that the most appropriate way forwards is based on the following:

PSLs must keep ahead of developments in legal technology generally, while trying to assess the likely impact of these on their role;
PSLs should always be proactive. Do not wait to be asked, be the one with the new ideas and innovative behaviour;
PSLs should build bridges with learning managers (who form part of the human-resources function at Shoosmiths), IT professionals and business-development teams;
Know what is going on in your firm and contribute to it. What is the next growth target? How can you contribute to business development? Also, think about what you can do to promote inter-departmental working and cross-selling;
Join networks. At Shoosmiths, we use the Legal Education and Training Group, Networking for Knowledge, the Association of Property Support Lawyers, the Society for Computers and Law, local law societies, and networks relating to our old colleges or universities.

Future requirements
All of us as PSLs need – and deserve – training. However, as with many other aspects of the role, we all have to be self-motivated and proactive to receive this training.

In his book, Susskind commented: “Will the legal profession crumble in the next ten years? Not a chance. Over the next 20-30 years will we see seismic changes? Yes, we will.” At Shoosmiths, we PSLs hope to fully anticipate these changes, and develop and adapt our skills accordingly, so that we continue to be relevant ten years from now – and further into the future.

Susan Way is a professional support lawyer at UK firm Shoosmiths Solicitors. She can be contacted at susan.way@shoosmiths.co.uk