Mark Van Blargan discusses McNees 2026, the firm’s long range strategic plan to fulfill their mantra titled ClientsFirst!, part of a strong commitment to their mission, vision and primary excellence goals.
I recently ran across a series of presentations I made to our Management Committee (our version of a board of directors) in 2001 and 2002. The theme of those presentations was that, as a law firm, we needed to start “embracing technology.”
At the time, technology was not at the forefront of our firm’s culture. The Management Committee acknowledged that if we wanted to continue to provide value to our clients, we needed to prioritize technology. Thus, in 2002, “Embracing Technology” was agreed upon and added to our strategic plan as a Primary Excellence Goal (one of our strategic pillars).
I am proud to say that, since then, embracing technology has become part of our culture.
Fast-Forward
In 2015, we formed the Futures Committee, which I have the privilege of chairing. The charge was ambitious: Develop a new 10-year strategic plan for the firm. To ensure broad input, we staffed the Futures Committee with a cross section of owners, associates, and administrative and support staff. We also had regular touchpoints with the owners at large and created client focus groups. The result of that process was McNees 2026.
ClientsFirst!
The firm’s long-standing mantra titled ClientsFirst!, and it permeates our culture. As part of McNees 2026, our Mission, Vision and Primary Excellence Goals each explicitly reflect that mantra. Innovation is a key way to continue providing exceptional value and service, which is the core of ClientsFirst!.
Primary Excellence Goals
As part of McNees 2026, Innovation replaced Embracing Technology as one of the Primary Excellence Goals. While embracing technology is still important, we are now taking a broader view. The other Primary Excellence Goals are Clients First, Outstanding People, Powerhouse Practice Groups, Honor the Profession and Financial Growth.
Three-Part Innovation Strategy
McNees 2026 identifies three strategies to support innovation. Every word is purposeful and every strategy significant:
- Devote significant additional resources to people, processes and systems that improve efficiency, quality or financial stability, while being responsive to client needs around value, speed, innovation and security.
- Adopt additional best practices and strategies.
- Continue a long-term future focus.
Innovation Implementation
One of the reasons we are successful as a firm is that we did not simply adopt McNees 2026 and put it on a shelf to collect dust. It is a directional guide that we rely on in our day-to-day and long-term decision-making. For example, we organize our Management Committee meetings and our annual Practice Group Business Plans around the strategic plan.
The actual road map is navigated by an annual Implementation Plan that answers the following question: “What do we need to accomplish this year to get us closer to our vision for 2026?”
Below are highlights from our Innovation initiatives (there are others) that may be a bit unusual for law firms of our size and may be beneficial to corporate law departments.
Legal Project Management
We have hired our first legal project manager. The legal project manager assists lawyers with scoping projects, developing fee structures (including alternative-fee arrangements), and developing and implementing project plans. This benefits our clients by better predicting costs, creating greater efficiency, and moving toward a more transparent relationship.
Chief Information Officer
As part of the evolution from Embracing Technology to Innovation, we have created a chief information officer (CIO) position. The CIO is responsible for our technology and information services functions (formerly known as librarians). Properly using and recycling our information is one of the keys to providing legal services of superior value.
Cybersecurity
Like every other organization, we are concerned about cybersecurity. To ensure that our network is protected from threats, we have dedicated one of our senior technology administrators to managing internal cybersecurity. We are currently in the process of obtaining SOC 2 certification and adopting the ISO 27001 standard, both well-known cybersecurity frameworks.
Staff Technology Assessments
We have started assessing our support staff’s basic technology skills in Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook. Based on initial assessments taken by each member of the support staff, we have developed individual learning paths for every support staff member. The assessments are not graded; the focus is on establishing individualized learning paths and then completing those paths, with the goal of strengthening the staff’s existing skill sets.
Revamped Training Programs
As we innovate and change, we understand the importance of providing appropriate training. That’s why we established McNees University, our online learning system. We quickly realized, however, that while online learning is valuable, it cannot replace face-to-face learning. Thus, as part of our renovation plans, we’re expanding our training room to include state-of-the-art technology.
Business Intelligence
We have implemented a business intelligence software platform to better understand and control revenue and expenses. At a glance, we can access real-time, detailed financial information about any matter, attorney or practice group.
Business Process Reengineering
We continue to reengineer our business processes to improve efficiency and quality and drive down expenses. For example, we have streamlined our accounting processes, as well as our audit responses, requests for proposals, and wire-transfer processes. Much of this work is spearheaded by our legal project manager, an unexpected benefit of having someone with strong project management skills on staff.
Clients First Interviews
For many years, our chair has held in-person client feedback interviews as part of our Clients First program. The purpose of these interviews is not cross-selling; it is to get honest feedback centered around three questions: What do we do well? What could we do better? Would you recommend our services to others?
These feedback interviews have been well-received by our clients, so we have expanded the program to all primary relationship managers. The expectation is that our attorneys will have annual face-to-face meetings with each client, ask those three questions, and report on the answers. We will then use this information to adapt to better fit our clients’ needs.
What are we working on now?
Recent nascent efforts at innovation include talent management, knowledge management, enterprise-level risk management and artificial intelligence.
Talent Management
Developing a state-of-the-art talent management program is part of McNees 2026, and we have started to talk about it seriously. The question is straightforward: How can we be better at identifying and retaining top talent?
Knowledge Management
Knowledge management can boost efficiency and improve quality, allowing us to deliver better value to clients.
For us, knowledge management focuses on how best to capture and reuse substantive legal knowledge – our collective wisdom or intellectual capital. This is our most valuable asset.
We have formed an ad hoc Knowledge Management Committee. While implementing a few small improvements as a result of that committee, we realized that, particularly as applied to our document management system (a robust database of knowledge), meaningful knowledge management will require additional dedicated human resources. In part, this is a result of the firm moving from open access (where all timekeepers generally had access to client documents) to restricted access (where only those timekeepers working on a matter have access). This revised approach works better from a security perspective, but it presents challenges around the ability to share our collective work product.
Enterprise-Level Risk Management System
As lawyers, we deal with risk every day. At our firm, we also routinely evaluate internal and external risks. We have started talking about a more systematic approach to risk management and developing an enterprise (organization-wide) risk management program, by identifying and focusing on our biggest risk areas and developing processes and systems to mitigate those risks.
Artificial Intelligence
We continuously monitor the development of legal artificial intelligence (AI) systems. While we demo one or two systems every year, thus far we have not identified any dedicated legal AI systems where the benefits outweigh the costs. Nonetheless, we will keep looking; we know this technology is continually improving, and we are willing to wait for the right product.
Back to the Future(s) Committee
The Futures Committee continues to meet, making sure we continue to pursue a long-term future focus. For the past several years, the Futures Committee has focused on suggesting changes to the long-term strategic plan (happily, there have been precious few), as well as on suggesting implementation actions. At the end of this year, we will reengage the Futures Committee more substantively, as we look to develop McNees 2030.
Lessons Learned
No magic here:
- Innovation is only as good as the people, processes and systems that support it.
- Get buy-in from the top (and then from all levels).
- Plan carefully.
- Define success.
- Communicate. Communicate. Communicate. Overcommunicate.
- Train, with multiple methods.
- Identify a champion for each project.
- Start with a small group, build success, market that success, roll it out more broadly.
- Do not do too much too fast.
- Do not be afraid to change course if something is not working.
Published November 21, 2019.
