Sign Up for our Free Newsletter
menu
Solicitors Journal Homepage
  • Home
  • News
  • Digital Edition
  • Practice Notes
    • Area of Law
      • Agricultural
      • ADR & Mediation
      • Asylum & Immigration
      • Aviation
      • Bankruptcy and Insolvency
      • Charities
      • Children
      • Clinical negligence
      • Commercial
      • Competition
      • Construction
      • Conveyancing
      • Costs
      • Crime
      • Data Protection
      • Discrimination
      • Education
      • Employment
      • Energy
      • EU
      • Expert witness
      • Family
      • Financial services & Tax
      • Health & Safety
      • Human rights
      • Inquest
      • Insurance
      • Intellectual property
      • Legal Aid
      • Litigation
      • Maritime
      • Media
      • Mergers & Acquisition
      • Pensions
      • Personal injury
      • Police & Prisons
      • Private client
      • Procedures
      • Professional negligence
      • Property
      • Public Law
      • Regulation
      • Residential
      • Road traffic
      • Vulnerable Clients
    • Management
      • Business Development and Marketing
      • Career development
      • Covid-19
      • Education & Training
      • Equality & diversity
      • Ethics and Compliance
      • Finance
      • Human Resources
      • Knowledge management
      • Leadership
      • Legal services
      • Marketing
      • Pro bono
      • Professional indemnity
      • Regulators
      • Risk & Compliance
      • Technical legal practice
      • Technology
      • Wellbeing
  • Opinion
  • Business
  • International
  • Interview
  • Features
  • More
    • About
    • Contact Us
    • Subscribe
    • Newsletter
    • FAQ
    • Guide to Authors
    • Media Pack
    • Site Map
  • Contact Us
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Cookie Policy
  • Privacy Policy
  • Follow us:
    Twitter
    LinkedIn
© 2023 Solicitors Journal in partnership with the International In-house Counsel Journal | Picture Credits: Freepix, Unsplash and by permission of the authors
Dana Denis-Smith

Dana Denis-Smith

Trustee / CEOSpark21
Quotation Marks

“Obelisk Support was founded on the principle of #HumanFirst – and everything we have learned … reinforced the … benefits of putting people at the centre of what we do.”

All is not well – time for a cultural reset?

Thu May 05 2022Opinion
All is not well – time for a cultural reset?

Dana Denis-Smith argues organisational culture needs to change to tackle the ongoing problems of mental ill-health, bullying and harassment

Are we surprised there’s a wellbeing crisis in our profession? Not really. And covid-19 has made it worse. LawCare argues the organisational culture of the legal profession needs to change to tackle the ongoing problems of mental ill-health, bullying and harassment.

A substantial survey it carried out last year found that 69 per cent of lawyers had experienced mental ill-health in the previous year, while 22 per cent said they had experienced bullying, harassment or discrimination in the workplace. Nearly three-quarters of respondents were women.

Who is affected?

Law is a stressful career – we all know that. But it still has a culture with strong echoes of an earlier era defined by men bearing stiff upper lips. Only, ever increasingly, that’s not what the profession looks like. Women and ethnic minority lawyers are pouring into the junior ranks, while the older (largely white male) generation is retiring. Look at the Bar – the number of female barristers increased by 1,026 between 2015 and 2021, compared to 194 men, according to the Bar Standards Board’s 2021 diversity report.

It’s going to take bold leadership to make law firms fit for the future but, with millennials closing in on the levers of power, a new breed of disruptors is coming. Is the profession ready?

Our latest report Legal Reset dentifies four key ‘pillars’ needed to drive a new culture, namely: the need to practise with purpose; embracing genuine flexible working; moving away from a partnership model fuelled by billable hours; and driving innovation through technology.

A radical reality?

A new future is possible.

We need to work out why we exist. It’s not enough any longer to say simply that firms exist to provide legal services. More is expected of organisations, especially those that make the kinds of profits many big firms do. We have to reset the profession’s values.

This is not just about being seen to do the right thing. If working in large firms is to remain an attractive proposition to Generation Z and those who follow behind, it has to offer more than just money.

How we work also needs to be reimagined. Remote working has become an accepted facet of working life post-covid 19, but it is not the same as flexible working: the number of employment tribunal decisions relating to flexible working increased 52 per cent last year, according to the law firm GQ Littler, with cases often brought alongside discrimination claims.

Pillar of progress

Obelisk Support was offering flexible working in legal jobs when nobody else knew what it was. Before setting it up, I worked in journalism, an industry where the focus is all on the outcome, not when you clock in and clock out.

It is an approach that firms, with their focus on billable hours, have struggled with even as they have sought to build lower-cost offshoots for certain types of work – or just hand over staff on secondment for free. The goal is retaining clients and access to their more profitable work, rather than helping lawyers work in different ways and deliver what clients want.

We have to be more innovative. Where is the training of management to be able to manage a flexible workplace in a positive way? Where are the job shares and part-time workers? The compressed hours, flexitime or staggered hours?

Beyond billable hours…

The death of the billable hour has been announced many times – and yet it remains dominant. But it is at the root of many of the problems we have identified. When we hear Georgia Dawson, as the leader of a firm the size of Freshfields, talk about focusing on “outputs, not just inputs”, as she did in her Fiona Woolf Lecture, maybe progress is on the horizon.

The heritage wrapped around the law is one of its glories. It is also arguably its greatest weakness. Structures that have stood for so long are crumbling in the 21st century and we have to move on.

We envisage that the firm of the future will be values-driven in a way that supports diversity in its many forms and creates the platform for motivated staff to deliver for their clients. Obelisk Support was founded on the principle of #HumanFirst – and everything we have learned and achieved in the 11 years since has reinforced the business benefits of putting people at the centre of what we do.

Dana Denis-Smith is founder and CEO of Obelisk Support

Tags:
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement
Latest News

Legal Services Board survey on tech innovation in the legal services sector

Tue Jun 06 2023

Prime Minister details progress made to stop illegal border crossings

Tue Jun 06 2023

Law Society and Bar Council sign MoU with the Bar Council of India

Tue Jun 06 2023

APPG for Crypto and Digital Assets calls for urgent regulation in the UK

Mon Jun 05 2023

UN Child Rights Committee publishes report on the UK

Mon Jun 05 2023

Regulator of Social Housing publishes latest financial trends report

Mon Jun 05 2023

SRA details factors influencing outcomes for Black, Asian and minority ethnic candidates

Fri Jun 02 2023

Competition and Markets Authority publishes green heating and insulation sector report

Fri Jun 02 2023

Sentencing Council publishes new business plan

Fri Jun 02 2023
Featured
Saudi Arabia’s evolving business laws
InternationalTue Jun 06 2023
Saudi Arabia’s evolving business laws

Dr Hamid Harasani and Samaher Alsobeihy explore how Saudi Arabia has reformed its companies law per its Vision 2030 ambitions

Love-bombing recognised as a sign of abuse
Practice NotesMon Jun 05 2023
Love-bombing recognised as a sign of abuse

Samantha Farndale explores how family lawyers can recognise and address love-bombing in abusive relationships

Personal data protection in the UAE
InternationalThu Jun 01 2023
Personal data protection in the UAE

Ashish Mehta examines the data protection regime under the new federal personal data protection law in the UAE

Navigating India’s investment landscape
InternationalThu May 25 2023
Navigating India’s investment landscape

While India offers many attractive investment opportunities, there are various regulatory factors to be aware of

SJ Interview: James Fulforth
SJ InterviewThu May 18 2023
SJ Interview: James Fulforth

The Solicitors Journal spoke to James Fulforth, Kingsley Napley’s newly appointed Senior Partner, about his experiences in the law, his thoughts on the UK’s tech sector and what he hopes to achieve in his new role

Long-awaited reports and controversial bills dominate
ForewordTue Apr 25 2023
Long-awaited reports and controversial bills dominate

Sophie Cameron takes a look at the news in the April Foreword