The Law Firm Foundational Rebuild

The legal services sector is in for rough times for the foreseeable future after which we will see a rebirth of legal services entities that bear little resemblance to those operating in the market currently. This is why your firm’s foundational rebuild must happen now.

Law firms are in the midst of grappling with a tsunami of changes within the legal services market that are impacting both practice and business. This is especially true after coming to terms – if we can honestly claim that – with the ravages of the pandemic. I understand that many people would like to put the pandemic in the past. While that would be ideal, it would also ignore the fact that its impact remains with us now and will continue to affect us for some time to come.

The pandemic was a black swan event the likes of which none of us has experienced in our lifetimes when both individuals and businesses were focused on staying healthy and alive.

If we learned nothing else from the pandemic, it’s that the old adage of a five-year business strategy died along with the 7,113,407 reported pandemic-related deaths according to the World Health Organization as of March 15, 2026.

Enormous waves of change have come crashing in since the pandemic began in December 2019, including the ongoing seesaw of work-from-home versus return-to-office, never mind artificial intelligence. The result is that law firm strategy has, in many respects, been cast aside in favour of skipping straight to tactics that for all intents and purposes boils down to “add more talent” and “do more stuff.”

Strategy Backassward

Adding talent through lateral acquisition has been happening at a more frenzied rate over the last few years with lawyers changing firms like they change shirts. These days you almost need a program to tell the players. Goosing law firm growth by adding laterals is similar to my recipe for a law firm merger: Add more nuts and stir.

Unlike individuals involved in mergers, laterals require strong support at all levels and for a much longer time than one might assume. The difference between merged talent and individual lateral acquisition is that ongoing support for a lateral is an investment from the firm and its people. This requirement can be at odds with a perception that if a lateral is as desirable and draftable as they purport to be, then they can self-start, self-propel, self-develop, etc., as well as bring over their clients and billable work. In reality, that isn’t necessarily so and it usually isn’t that simple or easy.

And then there’s “do more stuff” that, at least for a time, makes people feel as though they’re – guess what? – doing more stuff. But is this stuff based on a strategy that supports an objective? No, it most often is not, and has the scattergun approach and busywork hallmarks of spinning one’s wheels: You expend energy and go nowhere.

Setting the Objective

The trick is to create a core business objective that sets you distinctively apart as one of one from the competition: The one thing you do better than anyone else. From there, the task is to set strategies, build supports, and execute on explicit, time-bound, measurable, and accountable tactics that enable the core objective.

The core objective acts as true north from which you never deviate. However, strategy, plans, and execution may occasionally require flexibility to accommodate business and legal market changes. That said, flexibility does not mean elasticity in order to be reactive, never mind accommodating to every single thing, condition, person, or whim.

Strategy is often considered exciting and sexy while objective is deemed the exact opposite. This is why, within law firms, there are always discussions about strategy. However, it is very rare that the firm’s objective is discussed, never mind nailed down.

This is because determining the objective is the hardest part of a discussion. Setting and sticking to an objective requires difficult, yet honest evaluations and conversations that are usually intensely political and often divisive. Reinforcing the objective also requires accountability of individuals as well as the grit of leadership to stay the course, come hell or high water and people who have political sway or think they do.

My Transformation Template

My focus is on business, which is at the core of every law firm regardless of practice.

In my life before law, I successfully restructured businesses in trouble. This is where I learned and applied the following transformation template that worked every time. While this template looks deceptively simple, it is not.

It is based on making hard choices that not everyone will like but will advance the entity to a better position demonstrated by increased profitability, deeper market penetration, key talent attraction, etc. Most vitally, it demands a hard deadline for completion and an iron will to get it done.

Transformation Template

Objective: A transformative outcome. Hard deadline. Measurable proof of success.

Strategy: A set of decisions to achieve the objective. Strategy supports Objective.

Plan: Short-, mid- and long-term measurable tactics. Plan supports Strategy.

Execution: Assignment of tactics and accountability. Execution supports Plan.

The challenge begins with Objective and, as mentioned earlier, is usually a hellacious struggle in the best of circumstances, and worse when dealing with lawyers. This is because, for many law firms, deciding on a single overall transformative objective is rife with contention and politics with symptoms such as, input from anyone who has an opinion and deems themselves right, pipping up and piling on by those who must hear themselves talk, machinations from protectionists of their own practice, and so on.

The other challenge is that the word “strategy is often paired with the word “plan”, ergo, “strategic plan.” Strategic plans or planning sounds important, but really it is a dead giveaway of lazy business.

Strategy is one thing; planning is another. They are distinctly different and need and deserve to be treated as such. Otherwise, as I have said before, lumping the two together leaves many lazy law firms faffing about with aspirational imaginings that culminate in them being as beige and gray as porridge and as fungible as peanut better and, worse yet, leaves them no further ahead than before they began the process.

Get Real

I have heard managing or founding partners say (usually at budget time) that their firm’s objective is “to make $X-million more” in the upcoming fiscal year. When asked about their strategy to accomplish this objective, they have no clue. This is when the process rattles off the rails and the firm reverts to its usual ways of “doing stuff.” Nothing changes, nor does the firm advance.

So, to get real: If you get the Objective nailed down, great. Next, determine a set of – say, three or four – Strategies that will enable achievement of the Objective.

The Plan comes next and, frankly, is the part most people enjoy because it’s tactical. Consider three to four sets of plans that support each of the three or four Strategies.

Execution is what people tend not to enjoy and where the whole exercise usually falls apart. This is because execution relies on assignment of and accountability for individuals charged with leading action on time lined tactics as well as reporting results. Very often, this is when a plethora of excuses pop up, such as having to handle or manage client work, supervise juniors, etc. It is also at this juncture where the firm’s leadership is judged on both its rigour as well as its mettle to lead from the front by demanding accountability and taking swift and decisive action for failure.

Or Don’t

Unfortunately, what usually happens is that in deference to going along to get along, people and firms will decide that doing nothing is easier than doing something. They will defer to what they are used to doing and bumble along living on hope that nothing untoward will happen.

This is why the ostrich syndrome continues to be alive and well and living in law firms.

It is also why foundational rebuilding separates winners from losers like wheat from chaff. Rebuilding is not done off the side of a managing partner or anyone else’s desk, or in conjunction with client work. It is a big, tough, full-time-and-more job that will not result in the person leading it to win any popularity contests. Consider it fair warning from someone who has done heavy restructuring more than once that whoever leads this initiative will have to pull knives out of their back – and probably their front – before lying down to rest.

Transform or Innovate

My template results in transformation, not innovation. And, yes, there is a world of difference. Transformation is not for the faint of heart. On the negative side, it can often cause hurt. On the positive side, it enables space and foundation on which to rebuild.

Agents of transformation act with intensity and speed. The outcome is a complete transformation of the business. Transformation or restructuring – which is often considered a frightening or even a threatening word – is warrior’s work. It is why transformation is usually best led by an outside agent who, while they need to work well with people, must be laser-focused on getting what needs to be done, done.

Innovation is the preferred term used by law firms that, by their nature, shy away from transformation for fear of upsetting someone or a bunch of someone’s apple carts.

Get over it. Or as a restructuring colleague of mine says, “Get on the bus or under it.”

I suggest those who have “Innovator” or something like it in their job title focus on transforming the business of legal services rather than innovating practice. Why? Because those who pay a law firm’s freight – namely clients – don’t care about practice; they care how you do business and how your business benefits their business.

Risk or Reward

Evaluating risk versus reward is where law firms can trip up due a fear of being wrong. I am not talking about being wrong in terms of practice or advice, but daring to take a calculated risk that has the potential to propel change in ways never experienced before that can land an individual, team, or firm in a whole new experience, environment, or business.

This kind of risk resistance is often based on fear of the unknown, whether the results could be positive, negative or neutral.

As an advisor, I will often ask a client, “What’s the worst that could happen?” The answer is often, “Failure.” And therein lies the fear factor that can result in doing nothing.

Embrace Fearlessness

Fear results in a combination of paralysis and inertia that, in my opinion, is both ludicrous and pointless since change, whether it is positive, negative, or neutral, impacts each of us in numerous and different ways every single day.

As a sidebar, and in a fear-versus-fearless vein, you may be amused but not surprised to learn that in a recent meeting with a group of lawyer colleagues, I was asked not to scare people with my remarks pertaining to business impacts of artificial intelligence. Imagine my response.

Being a realist, I can’t unknow what I know, which is that many traditional law firms are decaying primarily due to traditional structures, processes, and hierarchy with the knock-on effect of AI’s impact on the antiquated billable hour model. I have been predicting, opining, and advising on this for years. Now it is finally happening and with speed.

The hitch is that the legal services sector seems stuck in an ongoing loop that needs to be broken apart completely in order to be entirely reinvented and rebuilt rather than being patched or fixed using the same original components, a new widget or two, and some spare parts.

As a participant as well as a student and observer of the global legal services sector for the last three decades, here is what I know for absolute sure: The legal services industry is in for rough times for the foreseeable future after which we will see a rebirth of legal service entities that bear little resemblance to those operating in the market now.

As a realist as well an optimist, I expect continuation of the former – for as long as it takes to evolve – and look forward to witnessing the latter.