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Law Firm Resilience in a Crisis: Part Two – Operational Resilience

Law Firm Resilience in a Crisis: Part Two – Operational Resilience

In our paper of April 6, 2020, we introduced this series which is aimed at identifying and addressing topics that are at the top of the agenda for legal leaders during the current crisis. That paper was focused on Financial Resilience. In this paper we turn our focus to Operational Resilience.

Operational Resilience

Operational Resilience Priorities

While the financial impact of a crisis is what immediately grabs the attention, operational adjustments are essential for business continuity and to compete in the new market reality. By “operations,” we mean the organization and support of the workforce to serve internal and external client needs effectively.

The top priority is to ensure that workflows and business processes are not interrupted. Where disruption cannot be avoided, leadership needs to adapt previous processes rapidly and definitively to meet the challenge; we have recently seen this in practice in firms which moved quickly to an entirely virtual and digital operating model.

The second priority is to provide the means and resources to operate efficiently during the crisis. The ranking of executive-agenda issues and items of expenditure will almost certainly need to shift for the duration of the crisis and possibly beyond.

Considering how operations should be restructured to serve the market post-crisis, and planning the investments necessary, is the third goal. These are key to sustained operational resilience.

The goals are achieved through:

We elaborate below on five actions that can enable achievement of these goals.

Crisis management team

Supporting mechanisms

Communications

Staffing needs

Infrastructure and supply chain

The Bottom Line

During a crisis period, do utilize the power of the “team” and coherent engagement with all stakeholders (workforce, clients, suppliers). Do not expect the processes, priorities, performance metrics or governance solutions that worked just weeks before, pre-crisis, to see you through this new normal; be agile and prepared to adapt very rapidly across your business.

Whilst responding smartly to the immediate demands of the crisis, never lose sight of your – now altered – roadmap; ensure you consider how to restructure and invest for tomorrow.