The Law in Lockdown and Beyond, with Hannah Beko
A series of conversations with those in the legal profession navigating the ups and downs of the law during and after lockdown. How has this changed the profession as we've emerged from the global pandemic?
The Law in Lockdown and Beyond, with Hannah Beko
Friday Conversations with Darren Francis - Do clients care about our working hours?
Client Listening Expert Darren and Lawyer, Coach/Trainer & Author Hannah Beko, discuss the expectations lawyers put on themselves to work long hours and how clients really view it - is it really what they expect?
How have things changed post-pandemic?
Do lawyers put the pressure on themselves to be all things to all people unnecessarily, damaging their own mental health and well-being at the same time as potentially reducing client service excellence?
You can connect with Darren here Darren Francis | LinkedIn
Working long hours under pressure increases the risk of lawyer burnout and if you'd like to receive our guide to Boundaries & Burnout (the legal epidemic) you can find this at https://authenticallyspeaking.co.uk/g...
About your host, Hannah Beko
Podcast host Hannah Beko is a lawyer coach and corporate trainer for the legal profession focusing on leadership skills and mental health and wellbeing in law firms.
Hannah has also created the Build Your Legal Business Podcast which you can find here https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast...
If you are a legal professional, please feel free to join our free Facebook Group for networking, tips and support - Legally Speaking, a group for the legal profession https://bit.ly/fblawyers
Do connect with Hannah on Linkedin here https://linkedin.com/in/hannahbeko/ or visit www.authenticallyspeaking.co.uk.
You can also find Hannah's bestselling book, "The Authentic Lawyer, How to Create More Success in Your Practice and More Balance in Your Life" on Amazon and Kindle.
Hello and welcome to a slightly different episode of the Friday Conversations podcast. In this episode, you're really a sort of Fly on the wall while Darren Francis and I have a really good conversation about clients' expectations in terms of our availability as lawyers, the hours we work and what might have changed since the pandemic. Darren is a client listening expert and he's got some fascinating insights to share with us. You'll be joining us at the point in the conversation where we just talk about how things were different in the old days before we go on to talking about the future. When I was a baby lawyer, it was all about, well, I work till two in the morning. Well, I work till three in the morning. Well, I work till four. In fact, even yesterday at a training, a lawyer said, I don't want people to know that I'm picking up emails at 12. It's just that I've got a lot going on at home. So sometimes I have to. I don't want anyone to know. So there is this changing culture, I think, about expectations. But I know you were saying that from a client perspective, you're seeing it now.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, there was this culture and it was almost competitive. amongst individuals to see who could stay in the office the latest. And it was almost that there was a machismo around it, particularly in corporate teams, where if they could show a meeting room at 9am some mornings with a load of pizza boxes in it, That was their sign of success because it meant that they had to set, they were up so late, they had to send out for pizza at midnight or whatever it was. And that was their sign of success. And now that's, of course, diminished. But as usual, I think, one of the things I think, I noticed one of your LinkedIn posts about this, about the idea that more and more people are wanting to or having to work sensible hours, but you can still provide benefits. clients with the service during that time. And then there's the communication, or then there's the issue of how you communicate that. Because I think some people are saying, well, just tell the clients that we're no longer prepared to do this. Now, that's one way of doing it, but I think what I'm seeing is that that's a way, that's a high-risk strategy because that's the way in which clients will, they might not say anything at the time because it's not all that trendy to disagree with that point of view, but over time, those clients will drift off, particularly the corporate ones. But at the same time, what I'm seeing through client listening, client listening discussions are interesting because you have an agenda and a question set that you discuss with clients because we try to make ours as discursive as possible and allow the clients a lot of freedom in terms of what they want to focus on within the question set or within the agenda. But what you tend to find is that if you look at it over a period of, I don't know, five years or 10 years, there are one or two year chunks where certain bits of that agenda, the agenda's changed, but often the basic structure and the basic objective sets stay the same. There are bits of that question set or bits of that agenda that eat up longer period of the conversation. So, you know, in 2015, there'll be three questions that will take up 75% of the time. But in 2015, 2023, there'll be a different two or three questions that will take up the biggest chunk of time. And at the minute, it seems that this idea of expectations on lawyers are taking up one of the biggest bits of time. As a side comment, the other interesting thing is that one of the things that lawyers and law firms are expecting their clients to talk about more is ESG. But the interesting thing is, although this is something we're raising in a client listening discussion. Clients are avoiding it. It's like the plague because, of course, like the rest of us and like virtually, I suspect, every organisation in the world, everybody knows they should be doing a lot of ESG and a lot more about it and have a strategy in place. But actually, they don't. And so they're bluffing a bit. And so when you raise ESG with clients currently... They
SPEAKER_02:mumble.
SPEAKER_00:You try to get away from it. That's an aside. That's right. That's an absolute aside. But... This idea of, well, it all sits below the fundamental premise that if a law firm is going to be client-centric, it shouldn't make any changes, meaningful changes. without actually engaging and collaborating with their clients, particularly a corporate law firm. For private client law firms, that's slightly more difficult a thing and probably less likely to happen. But with corporate law firms, you shouldn't be doing anything meaningful without engaging with your clients. And a big chunk of this, of course, is that if you've got your lawyers saying, look, we no longer want to work till after six o'clock. And actually... There's a percentage of us that don't want to try and leave about three or four o'clock and be flexible about when we're in. And I think clients, even five years ago, had a disconnect between the intellectual and the emotional end of that thing. They completely got it intellectually. If you said to a client, right, well, it's unfair to expect your lawyers to be there at 11 o'clock at night or when they're on their holidays or whatever that looks like. They say, of course. it's unfair to expect them. And they might even go as far as to say, well, we would never do that. But again, with the benefit of sort of client listening conversations, one of the areas of, not complaint necessarily, but one of the areas that was raised was that there were certain times when they couldn't get hold of people. And when you looked at it, and they were miffed about that, frankly, and they complained that it didn't fall in line with their objectives. But when you looked at it, it was usually the fact that they couldn't get hold of people between about 8.30 and about 9.45 or 10 a.m. And they couldn't get hold of people between about 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. So, again, it wasn't daft hours. But you know your kind of typical FlexAR bits there, sort of, mornings to mid-morning and mid-afternoon to tea time and that's when they were miffed and then if you ask them as the questioning goes on if you then ask them about how they viewed around relating that to diversity in the workplace, they would say, oh, yeah, we're all on board with that. We've got a diversity program. We allow people to request time to fit in with their own lifestyles. And so they were prepared to countenance all this within the confines of their own organization, but not amongst their suppliers. And this didn't just apply to their lawyers. This applied to other people who they worked with. But that's changing.
SPEAKER_02:And
SPEAKER_00:that's changing. And I think what we're seeing now is that clients are willing to collaborate on this. And the most interesting thing is that it bleeds into a lot of other areas of key account management, key client management, which is kind of picked up during things like client listening. And one of those is around pricing and value. Because very often we had clients who would say, well, we only want this work to be done by, or we only want to speak to one or two usually very senior people. And then, so they didn't really want to delegate it but then they were also saying, well When you got into the pricing end of the conversation, they were talking about the fact that rates were too high or even when it wasn't hourly rates, they thought a big chunk of their budget was being allocated to external legal expenditure. And that was something that they found challenging. And particularly those clients who were, for example, had an in-house legal department who had to report to an FD or something like that, there were issues around this. But then, of course, you can connect those two things. You can And this is what we're doing and this is what's happening and it's very interesting. You can say, well, if you're concerned about cost and if you're reluctant or you think you might be reluctant or you're just getting used to the idea of not every lawyer being on tap 24-7, then those two things can be connected because actually if you allow lawyers to delegate more internally, then actually that suits everybody because it means that those lawyers can effectively adopt shift patterns that make them all available, potentially all available all the time, certainly in those 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. and sort of 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. starts. Again, without assuming that anyone's going to be available at midnight, but you can, You can end up getting your work cheaper if you allow lawyers to delegate. And by allowing lawyers to delegate, you can allow them to work in a way that suits lifestyle and therefore allows everybody to benefit.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. And you think they're sounding more receptive to that because potentially it's cheaper for them?
SPEAKER_00:They're sounding more receptive to it because... Well, I think for a number of reasons, Hannah. It can be cheaper for them. So on the price scale, it can work out advantageous for them. On the cultural, I suppose what you would call cultural side of things, they are realising, you know, because everybody realises the truth at some point. It's just how quickly you get to it, isn't it? But they are realising that they cannot say on the one hand that they are open and hugely diverse organisations themselves, while at the same time not treating their suppliers in such a way that allows them to be diverse and allows them to be flexible and allows individual lawyers and other suppliers to have some kind of life outside some kind of life outside work, really. So I think that's the two key drivers that we're seeing. But there's obviously a supply chain, you know, up and down the thing. So they'll have other relationships with other suppliers and equally they will be suppliers of other organisations because they'll have their own customers. And I think the other thing is they're seeing these demands being made of them by their customers and they're having to accede to them I'm not saying they don't want to accede to them, but it catalyzes, doesn't it? If whoever pays your bills is making demands of you, then you have to decide whether you accede to them or not. There's implications if you do and there's implications if you don't. So they're seeing this up and down their own supply chain and they're having to work it out. And obviously that makes requests from their suppliers for a bit of flexibility seem fairer.
SPEAKER_03:It's interesting you say that, because I think we were starting to see even pre-pandemic. So I'm thinking back to sort of maybe 17, 18, 19, something like that. We were starting to see particularly, again, those bigger corporate clients who were saying things like. diversity and inclusion is important to them and things like that. And if they were important to them as an organisation, they wanted to see it in law firms. And we were, not everywhere, of course, but we were starting to see, you know, in pitches, they would
SPEAKER_02:say,
SPEAKER_03:where's your representation and things like that. We want to be representative business. We want our lawyers to be representative. So they were starting to say things like that, whether because they felt they ought to or for whatever reason. And it sounds like, I guess it's an extension of, of that now to diversity, flexibility. I would say it brings in wellbeing and mental health because working proper hours and not overworking and taking breaks and doing all those things is good for you. But if they're doing it in their organisations, they're looking for lawyers who do it as well.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and I think for the first time, maybe ever, in the last two years, maybe in the last 18 months, it's been made as real as it can ever be. And that's a big driver as well. If something's real, once something becomes real, then you can't avoid it. Even the most cynical person can't avoid it. And one of the ways this has become real, so I should have looked up some figures. I can't quote you anything, but I think that there's a lot of stuff out there around the fact that actually this is producing greater productivity in organisations The idea that people can focus on their well-being as well as delivering a service. In fact, maybe they're delivering a better service as a result of focusing on their well-being. The difficulty is that this still doesn't get rid of the fact that, again, looking at a lawyer-client relationship, and more so on the corporate side probably, this doesn't get rid of the fact that there are just some days where... a client can truthfully and justifiably say, right, if this thing isn't done in four weeks, it'll fall over. And therefore, we're asking our funders to pull out all the stops to make it happen. You can... rest assured that we will pull out all the stops to make it happen, and we're going to ask you as lawyers, and the accountants maybe will be involved in this as well, to make this corporate deal happen, because it can't not happen in four weeks. And that's a real pain, but sometimes that's just the case. But again, I think that will be... It's hard to look into the future, but I suppose, like everything, like many things, that will become less and less the norm, because... You can speculate and say, right, well, let's look behind each one of these. Why is it? Why are you saying that if this deal doesn't happen in four weeks, it'll fall over? It's probably because somebody who has got leverage within that deal has decided that it has to take place within four weeks. Otherwise, they're going to go and look at something else. you can speculate that in this environment, there will have to come a time when there will be less aggression from people who have that leverage within a deal that they will say, well, look, I now realise that this is less acceptable than it was X years ago. And so, I mean, that situation might naturally diminish. But I think as we sit here and talk about it, that situation is still real, but it's less the norm. And in fact, you might even say it's not really the norm.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I think you're right. I think certainly what I see in transactional property is that that is a bit less, but there will always be, and I have these conversations frequently because people say, oh, you know, you're all about work-life balance. And I am, but not, I always say to people, lawyers seem to think in black and white all the time, whereas grey exists. And, you know, even in my property transactions, there will be times when if we don't get that refinance or whatever done by the end of the week, HMRC is going to come in and end the client's business. So yes, everyone pulls out all the stops. And, you know, there are evenings I've had to do Zoom calls with clients because we've got to get the paperwork signed and back and it's got to move. And that happens. And I think to try and say that it doesn't happen is wrong. But I think you're right. It's not that that should be the norm. It's that we're always willing to pull out the stops when something needs to happen and there's a genuine deadline, etc. But it's not that that's every day and every week and people shouldn't be working the really long hours all the time.
SPEAKER_00:And perhaps, I mean, it's interesting that you mentioned HMRC there. I think we've all got our HMRC stories. But, you know, it always strikes me maybe as ironic that a lot of this stuff is being private sector led. A lot of this change is being private sector led. And sometimes the most intransigent actor in the process is a public sector body, which it absolutely shouldn't be. But again, in your example, HMRC is the person I'm talking about who has the leverage to force it
SPEAKER_02:to
SPEAKER_00:happen in four weeks, whatever the timescales. But actually, there's no law of the universe. There's no physical laws that make it so. If HMRC decided that they weren't going to, whatever it is, issue a winder, or an insolvency or a bankruptcy in that period, that they were going to double the period, which they could do, it's in their power, then that would be that actor, that would be that person with leverage being sensible.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, no, no, I completely agree. I do sort of understand. I do sort of understand why they don't, because I guess they're thinking, if we gave you eight weeks, we'd give you eight weeks. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, there's also a compromise, isn't there? Because you're not asking them for eight years and you're not asking them for one year. You're asking them for the time it takes to sensibly complete a transaction, which isn't always four weeks. It's sometimes eight weeks and sometimes 12 weeks. but it's not six months and it's not a year. So it's finite for them, isn't it? And that sort of, I think that applies to anyone in the transaction, that they're not, the thing is not, we're not asking for a finite amount of space to make lifestyle changes and wellbeing changes. We're asking for a very narrow, very often a very narrow piece of space to do that in. And then that's about education, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02:It is.
SPEAKER_00:That's about people writing books and calling them the authentic lawyer and all that sort of stuff. That's where that comes in.
SPEAKER_03:You know, got to keep doing that. I literally take a book with me everywhere I go. But what I'm interested in is because you said when we first started talking, you said you don't necessarily, even if law firms or individual solicitors like me, if they're self-employed, make the decision, I'm going to have better boundaries. I don't want to work till 10 o'clock every night as a regular. I will do it on the odd occasion it needs to be done. I think it was one time last year I had to work till 11 on a Friday to get a deal. Do you know what? The fee was good, so I didn't mind. But, you know, You said you don't necessarily recommend that they go to the client and say, right, client, this is what we're going to do from now on. I would agree with you, and I know how I've done it myself, but what would you suggest they do instead?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I think communication of this is the key. So communication. Every client, it doesn't matter whether your client's the largest corporate in the world or a small family owner managed business, they're still made of a collection of people and they have their own lives too and they understand things and they get things. So I think that imposing something or seeking to impose something along the lines of, right, from now on, you're never gonna get hold of me after six o'clock is the wrong way to do it. If the objective is, if your objective is to school your clients into knowing and accepting that as a norm, they're not going to get hold of you after six o'clock. Then there's a way to communicate that. And the way to communicate that is to talk to them and tell them that this is what you want to do and in a gentle way, but that you still value the relationship and you don't want it to jeopardize the relationship. And therefore, from their point of view, what are their barriers and what are their challenges in that? Because again, you may find, particularly in medium-sized and larger corporates, that the person you're talking to is completely on board with you, but she or he knows that that may not be acceptable thing for them to say internally yet. So they may say, well, I need help with how I communicate this to my boss or to the board or to shareholders in the larger cases. So it's about establishing what they need from you to make it happen rather than saying, assuming that they will make it happen. So it's the classic key client, key account management process where you're thinking about, you want to make a change that's going to impact your client and you want the client on board with it. So the first thing to do is to speak to the client and find out what their own barriers and challenges internally are to the thing that you're trying to achieve. And sometimes they'll not be much. And sometimes there'll be a load of stuff. And sometimes it'll be a complete bloody nightmare and it'll take ages. But you've made the start. You've taken the first step to say, right, I need to understand this is the change I want to make. But in making that change, I don't want to lose you as a client. So how can I make the change and keep you as a client? And it's the most obvious point in the world. You and I have talked about this before. If you want to know something about your client, Don't try and guess it. Just ask them. And they will absolutely tell you. They'll have that conversation with you. And so I think that's the way around to do it. And I'm not suggesting anybody does this. Maybe some people do. But rather than just say, right, from now on, you're not going to get a hold of me after. You know how you get a letter from British Gas or from Virgin Media or something where you say... Well, they just say, right, your costs are going up from next week and you've got no choice. Well, that doesn't work well. I mean, it shouldn't work well with anybody, but it certainly doesn't work well with law firm clients. So it's kind of do it like that, but try to understand what they need. And it may well be they need something in place and it may well be that they don't. But actually, if you know all the facts from them, then... And you'll get brownie points aplenty because, of course, the very fact you've asked them brownie points, the very fact that you've asked them in the right way. So you're needing to understand what the impact is on them so you can you can hopefully put something in place is more is more brownie points. And ultimately, you're kind of helping them with their own sort of I know I know. standing up and showing off how good you are at CSR and ESG and diversity and mental health isn't the be all and end all. But actually it's giving them another thing to say they've done at a time when a lot of organisations are frankly scratching around for to pull together a list of stuff that's true and isn't just greenwashing or diversity washing or whatever you want to say so there's benefits for everybody but it's about having I think it's about having the conversation but having it in the right way and asking the right questions and making the right points yes
SPEAKER_03:I think I 100% agree because I think if you you're having the conversation so I think you're deepening your relationship with them which is always good but also as you say that you're giving them the chance to say um yes we agree with you but we're just worried about what would happen in xyz situation and then we can together make a plan of how that would be dealt with in xyz situation you know if things were on fire how might i get in touch with somebody if i needed to the reality is that i mean certainly in my property transactions i know things are different in family and things like that criminal may be very different um and they have their own processes of how you get in touch with someone very very urgently but in you know in most transactions if it's not going be completing that night, then there's not going to be a great deal happening between 6, 7pm and 7, 8 o'clock the next morning, generally speaking.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And again, clients will agree with that. But again, it's bringing the intellectual understanding and the emotional acceptance together. But actually, the intellectual understanding of that and the emotional acceptance of it, I think are genuinely closer now than they've ever been. They haven't quite yet gone like that in most cases, but they're kind of there instead of sort of way out here somewhere.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Do you know what I find so interesting? And I wonder what you think about this is when I talk to people about this sort of topic and they say, oh, you know, yes, I want to finish at three or four to pick up the children. And then I might not log on again until six, you know, five or six. You know, what do I tell my client, et cetera? And I say, well, if instead of you going to pick up your children, you were actually just going into an all parties meeting for an hour and a half, would you worry about it then? Or think about it then? No. So we make this judgment, and I hate to say it, women do it more so than men, that because we think we're off picking up the children or whatever it is we're doing, that we need to do something about that. Versus if we were actually just in a meeting, we don't feel the need to do anything about that.
SPEAKER_00:No, I think that's right. Although I do think that's changing. There's less shame. Shame is probably the wrong word, but it's what I'm thinking at the minute. It's
SPEAKER_03:what I think they feel, not what we think they should. Yeah,
SPEAKER_00:but I am finding more and more in general day-to-day conversations with law firms and lawyers that they're not pretending it's anything other than it is. So I think... There are more people. I mean, you and I were talking a minute ago about the ability to say no. I think there are more lawyers now who are just willing to say, no, sorry, I just can't be there. I'm picking up my kids. I think there was a time, and maybe it's still the case with some lawyers, where they don't say the picking up the kids bit, for example. They just say... I've got another meeting where I'm doing something else. They're quite sort of guarded about what it is, the reason. But now I think increasingly I'm finding, which is very refreshing, I think, and open and honest, they're saying, no, can't do it because I'm picking up my kids. And that's fine, whatever it is. You know, or... Some people are sort of saying it's the time I take a walk or I've got to take a walk. And some people are even saying mental health walk or some people are saying different things. But I think what we're seeing is, and I don't know, again, I don't know what the stats are. This is just sort of, you know... anecdotally from me, that I think we're seeing more honesty in that, where people are prepared to actually tell their colleagues and others what it is that they're doing. And I guess that's because they know it will be accepted. You know, when you and I were young lawyers, if you said to anybody in an office that you were leaving at four o'clock because you wanted to go for a walk in the woods, they would think that it would be so unacceptable. It would be nuts. They would think you were... I'm
SPEAKER_03:sorry, Gary. Gary's for a fool. Going for a full hour to eat any lunch was unacceptable.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. You're absolutely right. So I don't know. I think that's all changed for the good. So there's a lot to be happy about. But I think in terms of the things that still need to be done, I think the best way to do them is to just figure out what the process is. And again, we're mainly talking here about a lawyer-client relationship. And this doesn't just apply to sort of mental health and well-being and all those things. This is true. I've been banging this drum for years. If you're going to do anything, And particularly if you're a corporate lawyer, if you're going to do anything that's a significant change, just ask your client. You know, they'll tell you what they think and they'll also tell you what their problems with it are. And that's the first step for you to figure it out and create a situation that suits the both of you.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. And you're absolutely right. I think, you know, we've talked quite a bit today. You know, that's something I talk about all the time, the mental health and well-being. But it's not just that. When you're a partner and you're moving up in your role, you're not going to be at your desk all the time. You're going to be at more meetings, whether they're internal, whether they're team, whether they're external with other clients. Maybe like me, you get more involved in training. So you're going and delivering more training. You're just doing other things that mean you are not available all the time. It's not just about I'm going to take a walk or I'm going to take my lunch, which of course we know are really, really important. But whether, you know, I know some people still don't and that's where they're at. But there's other things that are involved in this role, particularly as you get more senior, that mean you are going to be away from your desk. And to some extent you know I'm sort of between two stalls with it in terms of being I hope you've enjoyed listening in to that conversation between Darren and I about how clients expectations might be changing and how that might impact our behaviour and again that's another learning in terms of the hours we work and maybe sometimes the reasons or excuses we might give to clients when we aren't available I think things have changed since the pandemic and I'd love to hear from
SPEAKER_01:you what are your thoughts where do you agree with what we've talked about today or maybe seen it with your clients or where do you disagree and
SPEAKER_03:perhaps where might we need to see even more change in this area in the future I'd love to hear from you and as always do look out for the other podcast episodes and we'll speak to you again soon bye bye