Now introducing the O-Shaped Lawyer
An old academic’s joke goes: if you have a complete blank on a historical era, just say it saw “a period of social upheaval and the emergence of a new middle class” — which is always true. A parallel truism could be used of professional services: you can always claim that the focus should shift away from technical aptitude, towards softer skills.
Something similar has been said of all professions, from medicine to accountancy, and with good reason. In intellectually demanding professions where the barrier to entry is technical skills, room for improvement is usually on the human side. But only burning challenges impel real action.
In some professions, this is automation; once computers can replace humans, it becomes imperative to make people skills paramount. The law has a different call-to-arms: the Solicitors Qualifying Exam (SQE), due in 2021.
The new qualification, replacing the Legal Practice Course, has provided an opportunity for the legal profession to focus on where gaps are in training and development: namely, softer skills and people-focused delivery.
Of course, many law firms are already customer-centric and delivery-focused, using innovative technology and operational advances to influence client experience. But the gap still exists, and its significance became clear last year when Network Rail general counsel Dan Kayne asked 18 top general counsels what was lacking in the services they received, and got a resounding answer: we want legal services from “people first, then lawyers”. The gaps were in communication and emotional intelligence.
This was the impetus behind the O-Shaped Lawyer project, founded by Kayne as a first shot at reimagining the lawyer of the future.
What is an O-Shaped Lawyer? The concept of the T-Shaped lawyer, with “both breadth and depth” has been around for years. But it doesn’t recognise the vital significance of the “human” part of the puzzle, which makes for a rounded individual as well as a good legal mind. Skills like empathy, influencing, communication, and collaboration do not have prominence in that crossbar — and they must.
We created the O-Shaped Lawyer core group and empirically researched other attributes clients needed. Some were less surprising, such as “simplifying complexity”, “providing feedback”, or “continuous learning”. But others were new — like “courage”. What does courage look like? It can mean taking difficult decisions under stress, but it can also mean challenging unrealistic client expectations. For years this has been a total no-no, but reluctance to be frank can have long-term implications for the relationship.
There is now a pilot scheme underway. Law firms will partner with clients spending six months identifying these key attributes exploring new ways of developing new best practices, all in a safe space environment Using continuous feedback, a picture can develop of how powerful focusing on personal skills can be.
Crucially, because this project involves all key stakeholders — law firms, in-house, law schools, and universities — the findings will be fed through into training and development. And not just for lawyers in practice but for those about to embark on their legal journey through the SQE.
Moreover, the concept is gaining traction. Centrica and EasyJet have already said that they will only consider law firms that are signed up to O-Shaped Lawyer principles.
When the Legal Practice Course was introduced in 1993, it was hailed as revolutionary for including practical skills like advocacy and negotiation in a previously dry academic course. Thirty years on, we’re adding emotional intelligence to that list.
As Maya Angelou wrote, people may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.
Main image credit: Getty