Managing Partners’ Forum Strategy Summit

July 13, 2023|Accountants, Kim's Blog, Lawyers, Management Skills, Strategy|

Thanks to the Managing Partners’ Forum Strategy Summit at haysmacintyre earlier this week. My takeaways from the insightful facilitators and panellists were:

Recruitment of lawyers is down on previous years whereas business support is up
- Increase in tax hires in law firms
- Increase in marketing roles (exceeding 2019 numbers)
- Whilst training/learning roles shrunk compared to 2019 there was an increase in employee relations roles
- Legal sector recruitment is higher in the regions than in London

The quarterly trends tracker for professional services shows very high levels of confidence and 78% plan headcount increases
- Remote working has not increased productivity (most work about half their time from home)
- People and finance carry most weight in partner discussions with priorities in increasing operational efficiency and people skills

Strategic choices of “doing the right things” led to better performance than those “doing things right” (the old efficiency vs effectiveness debate)
- Performance depends on execution as much as strategic choices
- Generative AI regarded more as a threat than opportunity by the legal sector
- AI will impact service lines differently so boutique firms will have an advantage as they can focus on a limited number of services
- Technology is a leveller – all firms have the same access

Talent acquisition and development is a key concern
- Entrepreneurial attitudes and skills are in demand
- Careers are no longer linear

Three year rolling business plans should be reviewed every six months

External equity could cause significant disruption

My conclusions were:

The focus (hysteria) on the impact of generative AI appears to be from a short-term process efficiency perspective rather than fundamental innovation in business model or value creation