Harmony and analytics: Reshape your law firm with big data analytics

Within some high-tech corporate mantras is the desire to recreate one’s position and opportunity in one’s organisation every 18 months to three years. This comes with the implicit understanding that static steps stagnate. All organisations – including law firms – must continually be in motion, looking forward and evolving with the times, or see market disruptions within their industry put them out of business. This mantra is accelerating due to the intricacies of big data and predictive analytics.

Something to consider from this mindset is the belief within the self and the firm, how we share and how we, as managers, motivate the collective self and organisation toward an overall vision of the future. Reorganisations can be difficult; individuals can be hard to rally and movement forward in achieving a collective vision can seem momentous, but it must
be done.

Music can be used as a metaphor for how big data and predictive analytics waterfall through an organisation and alter our approach to time, distance and harmony within our collective workflow. Building a predictive organisation through big data and analytics requires a look forward through disruptive technologies, while remaining in continual harmony with the evolving business realities of our times.

Let’s dig into the metaphor of music and how it relates to big data and predictive analytics, and how thinking in adaptable ways can enable you to reshape your organisation so that it’s built to last through disruptive times. It’s an exercise that
will help you to look at your firm in a different way.

A symphony orchestra has violins, violas, cellos, bass, horns and percussion, all interacting and anticipating the movements of others. The key is understanding the importance of anticipation within the workflow of
the symphony.

Within the workplace, we have our associates, partners, project assistants and teams, marketers, client relations specialists, human resources, finance, leadership and, of course, knowledge, technology and innovation departments. Rather than thinking in separate departments, it’s important to think in ways that tie these departments together so that we’re on the same sheet of music, anticipating each others’ moves, sharing goals and all playing collectively within symphonic movement.

This approach is similar to how social consumerism targets us through data mining and analytics using our given preferences and behaviours for advertising. These social organisations create, mine and anticipate through predictive data analytics as the collective symphony mirrors, echoes and anticipates movements in music. It’s these subtle changes that help to shift an organisation and are models that we can use to evolve our firms forward.

Social consumer systems

There is nothing that social consumer systems desire more than for us to collaborate, share and interact within their respective systems. Doing so allows our behaviours and preferences to be tracked with the most efficiency and increases the relevance of targeted ad revenue.

Increasing numbers of the younger demographic (aged 18 to 34) are leaving Facebook and pursuing other social mediums like Instagram and Snapchat. Targeted advertising through news outlets and social/sports programmes evolve to include these emerging mediums, catering to the movements of multiple generations.

An example in popular culture is present as well-known personalities use Instagram and Twitter, essentially as direct communication with the press, in addition to their followers and their sponsors’ customer base. Specific examples range from Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers providing updates on his achilles rehab to Neil deGrasse Tyson’s critique and support of the movie Gravity. It’s also recognised by production companies, television networks and programmes inviting their viewers to follow them through their social media platforms across the globe.

We can leverage this phenomenon both through our communications models with our clients and internally within our staffing models. Understanding the big data and predictive analytics present within these social media companies and the moving parts between analytics, ad revenue and predictive behaviour mirrors how sections of the symphony play in harmony but also anticipate the movements, melodies and entrances of the rest of the collective
group. It’s important for law firms, business and industry to anticipate what movement is next.

Using social networks and online search engines as an accessible analogy is a strong start toward understanding how big data and predictive analytics reshape an organisation. These are tools most of us use on any given day. Three examples for the legal industry to take notice of are:

1. data mining as we’re searching: not only as individuals, but also as categorised groups and regions;

2. the way these systems are built to connect us to one another as individuals, categorised groups and regions; and

3. how these systems make money through their online ad revenue models built off tracking our collective preferences and behaviours, while forming evolving business models.

Just as our individual lives subtly transform through habits and preferences made available to online advertisers, we can also leverage this technology to reshape our organisations to coincide with evolving client needs, platform evolutions and alternative fee billing model evolutions.

A specific example lies within the insurance industry and how relevant data mining and predictive analytics becomes necessary to track injury settlements, litigation and payouts. At Bradford & Barthel, our primary clients are insurance companies. So, our products must shift to incorporate these realities from the budgetary process to pricing and profitability to our negotiated billables, with flat and alternative fee structures. We’re looking forward with the full knowledge that our clients are running these same kinds of analytics on both our firm’s and our competitors’ case history, settlement history, litigation history, attorney interactions and fees relative to years of experience within the firm.

This practice will only continue, and at an exponential pace. We’re taking steps to reshape our firm based on individual and collective lawyer and client preferences, behaviours and relationships, all tracked through analytics. Our goal is to stay ahead of the market disruptions that big data and predictive analytics are already beginning
to bring to our industry.

The Snowden effect

As we’ve discussed, social networks and social search engines leverage predictive analytics in their approach to data gathering and leveraging their data mining efforts worldwide. The revelations of Edward Snowden and the NSA illustrate the reality that there is virtually no place that information sharing and gathering doesn’t touch or cross borders.

This ‘Snowden effect’ illustrates that, while one region or geographic area is no longer immune from the reach of another, a ‘Big Brother’ perspective isn’t the only takeaway. There is also an extremely positive effect within the realities of predictive analytics, big data and data mining for our industry, and that is the ease of use within information sharing and how it can better connect us with our clients. The more we collaborate, share and are in tune with one another, the more connected and efficient we will become.

The desire of any social network or consumer search/ email/ communications system is to keep us within its respective systems so it can most accurately track our preferences for targeted advertising. Our industry can use this reality to best tie us with our clients, keep them within our preferred systems and us in theirs, while also building relationships internally
and externally that can survive these evolving times.

Posture, positioning and timing

A compelling perspective that will allow your firm to take action is delivered by the musical metaphor for an organisation’s posture, positioning and timing. As technology continues to evolve at an incredibly disruptive and rapid pace,
your firm will need to ensure these steps are followed.

1. Posture. Where is the firm heading, what is its main agenda, what is its competitive strategy? Your firm can move in tune with what ramifications predictive analytics and big data will have, not only on your client base but also in leveraging what clients will perceive, interact with and share through targeted and tracked data analysis over time.

2. Positioning. How is the organisation positioned internally? Do you have a management and departmental structure that allows a free-flowing information environment that is adaptable to future market disruptions? Are predictive analytics and big data leveraged to allow a transparent workflow within your firm, while ready to share externally with clients for the use of alternative fee arrangements?

3. Timing. Can your firm capitalise on leading transformational and disruptive market changes (like big data and predictive analytics) seen first in the consumer marketplace? If clients suddenly lower rates based off evolving innovations in big data and analytics, that allows them to demand transparency with workable alternative fee arrangements. Has your firm done the research and made the correct investments and internal moves to be able to move on time and transition smoothly?

Achieving posture, positioning and timing is part of how an organisation restructures itself through predictive analytics. The idea that everything we do online is searchable, archiveable and discoverable is only gaining traction, understanding and usage within the corporate world.

In restructuring your firm to operate in this fashion like a connected symphony, it’s important to understand that no one working entity is independent of another; this is at the heart of knowledge management. Predictive social tools that are continually embedded and integrated within enterprise business-side applications across all industries are only making this more prevalent. The tracking and analytics within social tools towards their targeted audience is what makes them so successful.

Leveraging organisational change

Law firms can leverage this by creating different organisational structures within their environments. Something we’ve done at Bradford & Barthel along these lines is our innovations in our account management structure. We’ve organised our client interactions internally to focus on a
series of account managers who can be either a frontline associate or an experienced partner.

So, rather than manage by region, we manage by client; this allows us to have the client at the forefront of our experience. Internally, we’re able to track how our lawyers are performing per case, file, location and client interaction. Over time, through these analytics, we are able to fine-tune our client interactions through the individual strengths of the lawyers. Using overarching circles as a visual medium to organise our lawyers, clients and matters, we use the concept of a spherical model as our business model in this instance – and have created a consultancy geared towards our clients integrating these aspects.

To put it simply, some attorneys are strong at litigation, others at research and still others at client relations; just as within a symphony orchestra, composers leverage harmony and contrast melody across violins, violas, cellos and so on. So, why not leverage the individual strengths of our lawyers, regardless of title or rank and, for a moment, do so absent thought of the traditional billable structure?

As many law firms are finding and already investigating (absent the traditional billable structure), the possibilities for organisational restructuring are profound. What the UK provides is a glimpse into that future through equity restructuring based on non-lawyers able to become equity partners. In the same vein, just as each member and section of the symphony orchestra is strong in his positions, when all are brought together, there’s cohesive harmony.

Predictive analytics run this way through the organisation can allow a law firm to run efficiently and jointly with client processes. And, through a shared experience, the processes become more efficient, collaborative and important to the firm
and its clients.

Continuing in the musical and evolution vein, a law firm modelled as a symphonic orchestra must now have the pre-planned spontaneity found in jazz music and employ the ability to improvise and adapt to the evolving anticipatory needs found in big data and predictive analytics.

A disruptive future

As we face a future of increasing market disruption, law firms will need to look at their approach to change, while realising the exponential effect of big data analytics. Investments made in nanotechnologies and biotechnologies are tying directly back to consumer systems. Consumer systems leveraged in this way will allow data mining and data search directly through our brains.

The ability to mine and anticipate incredible amounts of data through an evolving online interface across all regions of the globe works in this biotech example, but with full playback and discovery. Current investments demonstrate the reality of bio-integration, where interfaces interact directly with the brain. In this way, we’re provided online access to memory and mining extensions. This will soon place individuals and organisations in a position where our day-to-day senses, visuals and memories are leveraged through online interfaces. Three of many examples include:

1. future – embedded versions of Google Glass within our eyes;

2. present – evolutions in contact lenses currently in use to measure glucose levels; and

3. future – evolutions in wireless receivers within our bloodstreams that grow, cohabitate and age as we age.

The possibilities for the future of technology and the ramifications to our industry are exponential, while also feeling incredibly sci-fi. The reality is that current and future disruptive evolutions like these in the marketplace only highlight the more subtle changes happening all around us, and within our firms and client interfaces.

We live in a reality now where we can and must reshape how our firms are run through big data and predictive analytics as more information becomes available, searchable, mineable, discoverable and therefore predictable. These are not sci-fi concepts, but are exactly what many clients are currently running on our firms and what many more in future will demand from us as forward evolutions in our billing processes. Just as evolutions range in music from the symphonic orchestra to the improvisations and anticipatory aspects found in jazz, so must our industry and firms evolve forward in the predictive and anticipatory reality of future market disruptions.

Eric Hunter is director of knowledge, innovation and technology strategies at Bradford & Barthel (www.bradfordbarthel.com) and executive director of Spherical Models (www.sphericalmodels.com)