Episode 5 - Running the Business: Behind the Law Firm

What is the main thing that you miss about being a lawyer?

I miss, I think there is an element of missing a job being done.

I do quite like a to-do list and I like completing a task.

So when you're working on a transaction, you very much do that.

And depending on your level of experience as a lawyer, you will have your set of responsibility and you will complete that.

And then you see the deal getting done.

And I think there's huge satisfaction for you on behalf of your client of seeing the job being done, a job well done for the client, a happy client.

So I do miss that.

And then very occasionally when I worked on some quite high profile deals and you'd see them in the newspaper again, you've got a sense of satisfaction at doing that.

Yeah, I think that must be such a cool part of your job.

Yeah, it is.

I've heard a lot of people here say that sometimes they're like family and friends and actually really understand what they do.

And then you can be like, turn on the news and then you'll actually see what I've been working on.

It just sort of adds, you know, context.

It does.

And

that sense of accomplishment and achievement of when you see something you may have only have been as a trainee, a tiny part of it, or as an associate or as a lawyer, a much bigger part, knowing that you played a part in that is, you know, that is very cool.

Yeah, absolutely.

What do you actually find to be the biggest challenges of running kind of the operational side of a law firm?

I think the biggest challenge probably the overall biggest challenge is managing the expectations of the partners and the managing partners who own the business with the actual day to day management of the office.

So there are lots of day to day activities that have to be done that don't necessarily sort of tickle the boxes immediately of maybe what the managing partners and the partners are looking for.

I think other challenges of a modern law firm are talent recruitment and retention.

So competition is much higher probably than it's ever been for clients and for good people to come and work here.

So I think that's a real challenge.

I think technology transformation, AI, is a huge challenge for law firms, not only adopting the new AI, but also working out how juniors and how lawyers will continue to operate in the sort of the landscape of this advancing technology.