GA 326 | Lean and Law in the UK with Adam Marsland

Just to give you an example, in an industry that has historically been so reliant on paper, I would say most large firms now operate electronically. And I know this sounds like baby steps, but this is hugely transformative compared to the status quo a decade or two ago.

Today, I'm excited to welcome Adam Marsland to the show. Now, Adam lives in the UK and he's actually been applying continuous improvement, namely lean and successful sigma and agile in the legal industry. And so today on the episode, what we talk about is just kind of how that's been going, you know, whether or not it's gotten off to a slow or fast start, and then kind of just where they're at today and how continuous improvement is being used to just improve all aspects of the legal profession. So, really fun episode. And as always, Adam is from the uk, so he's got a really awesome accent compared to my broken Ohio, Texas, whatever you want to call it, accent that I have. I don't know. So really fun episode. I think you're going to enjoy it. Show notes for everything that we talk about can be found over@gembapodcast.com just look for episode 326. Again, gembapodcast.com and look for episode 326. Okay, enough from me. Let's get to the show. Adam, welcome to the show. How are you?

Yeah, good, thanks, Ron. How are you doing?

I'm doing well, thank you. Hey, so where are you calling in from? Adam?

Adam. So I live in rural England, so it's about an hour or so south of Manchester, so roundabout. Just in the northwest, I think, just northwest of the country.

Nice, nice. You know, I used to spend some time in England. I will say I've been over. Well, I've been across much of the country. I've obviously, you know, like everyone been to London and all that kind of stuff, but I even went to Weymouth.

Right. Wow. Which is.

I think it's on the south, isn't it? Weymouth?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. South coast.

Yeah. I went there. There's a. When I used to work at. At Nokia that we built cell phones, you know, and. And I was on the assembly line. I was working in an assembly line. And. And one of the machines that we used was this solder printing machine. And so it was this machine that would put the. The solder paste down onto the circuit board. Right. And then you put your components on top of that. And there was a. There's an. A British company called dec D E K. Okay. Yeah. And they're based in Weymouth. And so I remember going there and spending some time there and boy, the beer and food was very, very good.

Blimey. Well, no, the food, the beer. I can believe the food. Yeah. Not.

Well, you know, like, you know, I mean, this, like, I know it's like you're probably sick of all the Americans. Oh, fish and chips or whatever, you know, but it really is so good, you know, like, I got it one time and wrapped up like newspaper and all. It's like, it's kind of disgusting, but so good.

Yeah, I agree.

Yeah. And so. And before we get started, Adam, we were talking before we hit record that obviously you're in the. You work in the legal profession and different, Different. Different rules than. Than all of us play. So do you. I think you have maybe a little statement that you want to share.

Yes. So just before we get into this, I just want to make everyone aware that I'm using publicly available information and therefore I've got no guarantee as to the accuracy of said information. And coupled with that, the views are my own and not reflective of any current or former employee.

Got it. Thank you. Well, hey, Adam, as you know, I know you listen to the show. We like to kick things off with our guest sharing a quote. So do you have one?

I do, yes. I have two, actually. So the first one, which is probably familiar to some of your listeners, is from Henry Ford. So if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got. And I really like that because it underpins continuous improvement. And I think it's especially pertinent because it's from Henry Ford who really role model that change. And the second one is from Phil Knight, so obviously the founder of Nike. And it's when you only see problems, you're not thinking clearly. And. Yeah, I absolutely love that one too.

Yeah, I read that Phil Knight's. I don't know if it was. I can't remember who it was just about him. It was about the Nike story or whatever.

Yeah.

Did you read that? I can't remember the name of it, but I read it several years ago.

I think it's Shoe Dog, isn't it? But yeah, it's very good.

Yeah, that was really interesting. You know, how they built their team and that was really interesting. So anyhow. Well, good. Hey, so, Adam, I'm really excited about the topic today. I was mentioning before we hit record a few episodes ago, we had some topic of lean in the legal profession here in the States. An Organization was just kind of dipping their toe in. So it's fun to talk to you about continuous improvement in the legal industry. And in particular I also want to get an idea of how things are going for you just in the uk, you know, as it relates to Lean and maybe you can talk about that a little bit. But before then, Adam, why don't we talk a little bit about your background. Tell us about how you first got introduced to continuous improvement and then tell us what you're up to these days. And I know you're in the legal profession, so it's probably best not to name any law firms or anything like that. I don't need any cease and desist letters or anything.

No, sure. So it feels like a lifetime ago now, but I studied international relations and political theory at university and when I finished my master's degree and decided to take myself off with two friends and travel around the world for six months or so, I decided better find a vocation and metaphorically fell into investment banking. So this was late 2007 and over the next few years saw the entirety of the financial crash, the subsequent post mortem and recalibration of the industry, which was quite an experience to be honest. But when I was in investment banking I basically just held ops management positions. But two of my main influences at that stage of my career had really strong CI mindset and skills and I adopted some of their teachings and philosophy and then formally went through my Lean Six Sigma qualifications as well. Probably about five years or so ago I fancied a change and wanted to concentrate on CI and change full time and with that moved into the legal industry. So that's where I've been ever since really. So I generally work on Lean Six Sigma, big programs of work and building up training and culture. But I also dip a little bit into the, into the more agile and waterfall project delivery as well.

So how's it going as far as adoption within the legal industry? Is it easy? Hard medium?

It's quite difficult to be honest, to really relate that to how other industries are. I mean, obviously if you compare it to the motor industry for example, it's obviously several stages, several stages back. It's quite interesting really because I suppose taking a step back, the discipline of law has historically relied on intelligent and highly educated professionals applying their judgment and expertise to situations. And if you add complexity in there by considering the wider systemic influences, that law to an extent will always be swayed by reputation and partner relationships. So yeah, the end product's always going to be highly bespoke or I suppose an Ilexicon, a variable output. And I suppose the way that you can thread all this together is if you want to frame it differently, just think of craft production referenced in the Machine that Changed the World. And therefore I think the threshold challenge across the industry is shaping that acquisition of knowledge and expertise and framing it as a process in a less commoditized service environment. So, you know, for example, it's really difficult to calculate the average yield on a merger acquisition case, as I'm sure we can all relate to. But that said, there's always been innovation and active problem solving throughout the industry, but it's just not perhaps followed the continuous improvement methodology or rigor or even had the headline status that other professional service providers can boast about. But just to give you an example, in an industry that has historically been so reliant on paper, I would say most large firms now operate electronically. And I know this sounds like baby steps, but this is hugely transformative compared to the status quo a decade or two ago.

So, okay, that's what I was curious to really dig into is like what are some of the. Well, I'm curious, what is your role really? I mean, are you like a continuous improvement consultant, if you will, like internal consultant, going around and trying to just make things more efficient and better or tell us about that?

Yeah, so it's an interesting question really, and I think it really depends on which CI program is comparative to which firm. So certainly in my experience it's probably twofold, to be honest. It's probably delivering the, the high level programs of work. So you know, if that's a traditional Lean Six Sigma project, for example, or traditional Lean project or slightly something, you know, broader. And that's really combined with actually the training mechanism as well. So trying to identify and implement a CI culture, you know. And so for example, in my past experience, you can juggle, you know, a really high level firm wide initiative with trying to set up Kanban boards and you know, introduce just do it to, to an operational team. So it's really broad and it's really mixed, you know, and that's, I think that's, that's fairly common to be honest, across the industry. I don't think that's just reflective of my experience.

So one of the things, you know, we speak about with within Lean, my friend Paul Akers, you know, is famous for saying, you know, fix what bugs you. Right? This is the best way to apply Lean. So like, I'm curious, like what are some of the things that, that Bug folks within the legal industry, like what are some of the opportunities for improvement? I don't want you to name any specific things, but maybe just generally speaking, what are some opportunities?

Yeah, of course. So it's quite interesting really. So I think that firms have had a realization that in an increasingly competitive market brimming with disruptive competitors, they've had to tackle their inefficiencies and justify their pricing to the customer. So we've seen that firms that have adopted Lean Six Sigma have had really solid success and a healthy return on investment. So I'll give you an example. In America, Cypherth can be seen as somewhat of pioneer in their efforts and actively use such tools and techniques like voice of the customer, value stream mapping and a systematic removal of waste as part of their client experience. They've even rebranded all of that.

Who was that again?

It's Seifeth. Okay, well, closer to, well, my home Clifford Chance of taking this probably a little bit further. So they've actively targeted training their legal staff so partners and associates to apply CI tools to regularly diagnose inefficiencies. Relatively speaking, Clifford Chance also have mature CI function. So it not only works with their clients, but parallel CI departments, but also tackles their own inefficiencies. So one of their more famous examples that's fairly prevalent on the Internet pertain to bound volumes or simply it's just a compilation of legal documents. So incredibly time consuming, manual, paper, heavy and evaluating the process through value stream mapping, they basically reduce their cost by 60% and total lead time by 80%. Now other law firms have perhaps taken a slightly different approach, either combining their CI functions alongside other change management teams or perhaps diluting it further, tilting a more thematic change of cie. Even though it might not really bear that much relevance to Lean or Six Sigma. But I think the problem is why I can't really give you a direct answer is that the nature of the industry means it's really difficult to truly understand how firms are applying their programs and especially as it's fairly new to the industry and therefore most are on their first generational iterations.

Well, and then law is obviously so diverse, right? I mean different types of law I suppose have different, obviously have different types of customers, if you will, who have different needs. And so yeah, so talk a little bit about it. Sounds like it's been a little slow to adopt maybe if that's a safe assumption. What's changed though? I mean it sounds like maybe you maybe going to gain a little bit more traction.

Yeah. So in recent years, I think there's been several emerging challenges in the sector that have prompted a change in approach. So touching on these briefly, thematically, law firms have increasing pressure to justify margins and there's an industry wide response to technology led innovation and a purposeful shift in overlapping directly between large law firms and professional service providers. And also in certain cases, especially in the United States, law firms have seen adoption through understanding their client's operational model in greater depth. So they see their CI functions and want to copy them because they realise the strong returns that can bring. But that said, close to home in the UK, the 2012 Legal Services act brought structural changes to law firms by opening up the partnership to commercial or rather non legal personnel. And this is coupled with smaller firms offering purposely disruptive and innovative products. So for example fixed fee arrangements and engagements. And it's brought a realization that something needed to change in response to evolving customer requirements in an increasingly dynamic industry. So I think now customers expect a simpler, more manageable and faster output which is seen as an integral component part of their commercial picture. And therefore the internal management throughput is a significant differentiator. Or put another way, the value stream is often composed of transactional services that provide a brilliant springboard for optimization. Obviously, as we both know, so underpinning even small law firms, they will have a document review system or IT support management and the ability to optimize these will actually just increase that margin that they can charge their customers.

You know the, when you watch the movies and obviously most of it's probably not true, but maybe some of it's more true than we want to realize. But you hear about, oh, how long it takes for, you know, some person to get a trial or to get, you know, a retrial. Is lean being applied in ways of trying to speed up like this, this aspect of law within the world?

You think it's a, it's a really good question. And again, just, just by the nature of the industry, no one entirely is that sure about what their competitors are doing. However, yes, I think in some ways that they absolutely are. So I think we've seen a breakthrough recently of agile and lean principles really being applied throughout the transactional service, as you said, from the courtroom right the way through to the second or third back office teams. It's really difficult to say though for sure, but we've definitely seen the need to optimize and make these things more efficient.

Well, now you've mentioned agile several times, so where are you seeing agile and maybe the way I want to Ask it is Lean is obviously in Six Sigma is obviously being leveraged. But you've mentioned Agile several times now, so are they on a similar path?

Yeah, really interesting question and obviously I'm going to listen back to a few of your podcasts. We've obviously seen an explosion regarding the adoption of agile across different industries. So just in the US it's so diverse. So the National Public Radio have used Agile methodology to create new programming, John Deere to refine agricultural machinery and Saab in the production of fighter jets. Relatively speaking, we've also seen that in the legal industry. So firms are increasingly adopting Agile principles, especially relating to their IT software development. As I'm sure you can imagine. However, that's probably over simplifying Agile's impact. So smaller firms such as Axiom and Rocket Lawyers have used Agile principles since their inception to provide a flexible service. And taking a step back, I think the main focus should instead reference key practitioners striving towards self managed and customer focused multidisciplinary teams. Agile promoters will point at accelerating profitable growth as this spread raises really intriguing possibilities and especially when it's adopted similar to Lean, as we mentioned earlier as a real strategic point of difference. But I suppose my opinion is that if Agile is considered as an approach that delivers customer requirements iteratively and incrementally and Lean as a, as we know, as a systematic methodology to quickly increase value enabling tasks based on again customer requirements, I see it as opposing sides of the same coin. And actually I think they probably trace both their origins back to in some ways back to the Toyota production system for sure. Yeah, yeah. So it's obviously intent on making systems more efficient and that's obviously achieved by maximizing, maximizing value. But I think that really interconnects Agile and Lean and again in the legal industry, both because they're fairly new and it focuses on customer requirements and producing obviously what is requested in the shortest time frame. So my opinion, I think the terminology may differ but both approaches they use little as law to control the whip. And I mean I'm not sure actually the directional flow in different industries, but I think in response to the legal industry's evolution and changing circumstances it wouldn't come as a surprise to me that both approaches, well firstly that they've been utilized but then secondly that actually we may see a cross pollination of both approaches going forward. So maybe running PDCA cycles within a Sprint timebox or vice versa or using Moscow prioritization to work through, you know, what to tackle on a value stream map for example. So it really wouldn't surprise me whatsoever to see almost emerging between the two.

Really good, really good. So what's your take on the, if you do like a State of the Union, if you will, on continuous improvement within the uk, just in general, what are you seeing in other industries and, and just abroad? What are you seeing?

Yeah, I think it's really positive. I mean, obviously the 2020 coronavirus hasn't really helped, but I think that's really across the board for any methodology or training program. But again, I think it's hugely positive. I know the general reputation around law is that it's one of the last bastions really, to adopt Lean or Lean Six Sigma or Change principles. But actually, I, I, I really see, I really see a movement forward, especially over here in the UK and probably in Europe as well. You know, I don't, I don't think it's, I don't think it's burning out and I don't think it's slowing down whatsoever. You know, more and more companies are looking for their skill set and looking for training, you know, the accreditation belts, which obviously, I mean, I, I, I, I'm not a consultant, I haven't, I haven't formally trained other people on it, but, you know, that's still, that's still very much in demand. Employees are still looking for the skill set. So I just think it's in a really healthy place.

Well, yeah, I mean, like you said, I mean, the fact that it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, you know, being ingrained within the legal profession, I mean, that's not your most traditional industry to adopt it. Right. So that's really a good sign. And I know from just 20 years of experience, like I said, I've been in England many times and it's all over Europe as well. And it's, yeah, it's for sure there. So that's, it's all over the world, I think it's safe to say.

I think so, yeah.

Good. Hey, Adam, So if someone's listening to this right now, and maybe they're in the legal industry and they're interested in perhaps dipping their toe, if they haven't already, into the whole lean and Six Sigma and agile movements, what advice do you have for them?

Go for it. Absolutely, go for it. It's as simple as that. So for me, it completely changed the way that I thought about problems, the way that I thought about how teams work and how industries work. I think just the broad adoption from its sort of automobile roots right the way through. Now to, as we've just discussed, quite complex law just shows its versatility. And if you can apply it to so many different situations and so many different scenarios, that's got to be something worthwhile. It's got to be something worthwhile to put in your toolkit and an attribute that you absolutely want. That's not obviously to say that people need to go through to, you know, master black belt level, but I think, you know, a really, a really simple, broad understanding and obviously, you know, so much material out there or certainly some of the lower level qualifications like yellow or green belt. Absolutely worthwhile. I don't think you'd ever regret it.

Awesome. Awesome. Adam, what's the best way for folks to, to connect with you? Social media? Anything like that?

Yes, so I'm on LinkedIn. You'll have to, you'll have to forgive the horrible cheesy grin that will greet you. But yes, if you just search for AP Marsland, so P as in Papa, so AP Marsland on LinkedIn and you should, you should find me on that.

Okay? And we'll link to that in the show notes so folks can just come straight to the show notes and we'll put it out there. So this is episode 326, so just go to gemba podcast.com, look for episode 326 and we'll link to Adam's LinkedIn. Adam, thank you for coming on. I know it's the evening time there for you and it's Friday even as of the day we're recording this. So happy weekend and thank you.

Yeah, you too.

Yeah, well, yeah, again, thanks for coming on and maybe we can connect again down the road sometime and hear about all the good things you guys are up to.

Oh, my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Okay, thanks Adam. Cheers.

Thanks, Ron. Cheers.

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