Today's Wills & Probate Podcast Today's Wills and Probate

Dylan O'Brien, the founder of BePrepared, joins the latest Today's Wills and Probate podcast to discuss his take on the increasingly challenging issue of managing digital assets in estate planning, and what role technology has to play in supporting practitioners.

BePrepared was launched in Australia and has expanded into the USA and UK in the time since. Dylan explores the differences they have encountered in the various jurisdictions and the issues with platforms like Google and Apple when it comes to managing, and sharing, digital assets accrued through those platforms.

Dylan also discusses the challenges he sees in law firms adopting technology; from the impact of a global pandemic, to the constraints placed on practitioners around the need to billing time, not exploring innovation. But, he says, firms will be forced to adapt to new consumer expectations by their clients and those who don't, will be left behind. 

In terms of the future, Dylan is unequivocal that the future of wills and probate is digital; digital wills and digital estates. Can you collate and collect digital records in order to administer them effectively.   E-signing and e-witnessing will take time so for the time being, the role of technology is to digitise what we can now, anticipating a fuller digital journey in the near future.

The Today's Wills and Probate podcast is available on your preferred podcast provider, and at www.todayswillsandprobate.co.uk. Subscribe today to hear all the latest news and views across the wills and probate sector.

Joining the latest Today's Wills and Probate Podcast is Dan Temple, an expert in acknowledging and understanding the human impact of working, and managing employees and businesses. The discussion centres on creating effective and high performing teams, and what steps law firms can, and should, be taking to enable this in their business.  

Dan leads Cobalt Human Solutions, a training consultancy which focuses on creating effective teams, drawn from his own experiences in the Royal Air Force as part of the Chinook helicopter crew.

The podcast discusses how creating high performing teams requires a number of key elements. Dan describes how trust and accountability are paramount. 
There should be a clear objective and vision which can be communicated to the teamRoles and responsibilities are clearly defined and people understand their own contribution to successProcesses and procedures are in place that ensure the training is effectivePeople have to have the ability to get on with others; they don't necessarily need to like one another, but there must be mutual respectUltimately, says Dan, the environment and culture of the workplace is where the success and failure of organisations is derived. He suggests that one of the key failings he identifies in many businesses is a blame culture; the inability of staff to be open, honest and  appropriately challenge - what Dan describes as a "just culture." Staff are fearful of doing something wrong, rather than  challenging management.

As well as root cause analysis, Dan encourages organisations to conduct "pre-mortems" - the idea being that you spend time identifying potential pitfalls in a plan and anticipate how you might deal with them should they arise.

And if you ever wanted to understand how the difference between egg mayonnaise and aircraft is relevant to leadership and management, listen in to this insightful and entertaining discussion.

The Today's Wills and Probate podcast is available on your preferred podcast provider, and at www.todayswillsandprobate.co.uk. Subscribe today to hear all the latest news and views across the wills and probate sector.

The Today's Wills and Probate Podcast welcomes Andrew Buchan, Managing Director of James McKenzie Wills, to discuss the ups and downs of running an estate planning business.

Andrew has been with the business for 14 years and has seen the development of the sector first hand. He explains his role and responsibility both to his staff but also to his clients; it's been said many times but customer service really is king and ensuring that staff have the tools to do their jobs effectively is hugely important to Andrew.

Andrew talks about the difference between a service driven proposition, and a sales driven proposition when it comes to dealing with clients; that one will almost certainly not lead to a positive client outcome. Andrew shares insight into his own quality controls and level of training he and the staff undertake to ensure they meet the high standards expected of those in the business.

The conversation avoids the topic of regulation as long as possible but inevitably talk turns to improving standards in the industry and how that can be achieved. Andrew points to the increasing costs that come with regulation and qualification; risking a reduction in access to legal services.
 
In the absence of regulation, what does credibility and quality control look like? Andrew suggests that greater collaboration and agreement from the various membership bodies around a set of agreed standards, qualifications and evidence of CPD would go some way to creating a better framework for the will writing community and protect clients.

The conversation moves on the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, the lingering impact on the business; and how Andrew has navigated the past few years. 

The Today's Wills and Probate podcast is available on your preferred podcast provider, and at www.todayswillsandprobate.co.uk. Subscribe today to hear all the latest news and views across the wills and probate sector.

The Today's Wills and Probate podcast welcome Dan Warburton on to discuss the topic of leadership. Dan works with law firms leaders and partners to elevate their leadership skills to enable them empower staff to be more efficient and effective. 

Dan describes his work as "the skill of profitable delegation;" to create leaders who can deliver high levels of performance across their team. 

He cites the structure of many law firms in which lawyers are targeted on clients and the number of hours they bill... the system is set up in such a way that the more hours you work, in theory the more profit and remuneration can achieve. But when it comes to promotion what happens is you are expected to continue to build a client bank, and bill your hours, and manage a team of people. It is, says Dan, unachievable without simply more time into the equation, which has an impact on wellbeing and staff retention.

Few partners achieve what Dan describes as a "transition out of being a technician in the business to being a business owner. The structure and success of the organisation relies on them. 

There is a way to resolve this,  but we can only create successful teams when they willingly take responsibility for the success of the business. Dan shares his insight into how law firms can empower management teams and leaders to build trust and confidence in staff through regular one-to-one calls and coaching sessions. 

There is a cycle that needs breaking in law firms, says Dan. If a partners we keep our head down and just keep trying to crank out work we build firms that rely on us. When our team want things from us and we tell them what they need, they just keep relying on us. We must delegate work away and create highly effective team members underneath us

Throughout the discussion Dan shares leadership insight and tools that leaders and manager can take away and implement today. One such example is the process of making requests, in which there are 3 key elements
You must be clear on exactly what you want done; which must be measurable, not an abstract principle such as "keeping the client happy."It must have a timeframeYou must have joint agreement and offer the respondent the opportunity accept, decline or counteroffer in order to reach a jointly agreed action plan. Ultimately, says Dan, when leadership is in, it's in.. when leadership is out, it's out. Listen in to this interesting discussion for law firm leaders and managers.

The Today's Wills and Probate podcast is available on your preferred podcast provider, and at www.todayswillsandprobate.co.uk. Subscribe today to hear all the latest news and views across the wills and probate sector.

Hamza Hafesji, Group Product Manager at Advanced Legal, joins the latest Today's Wills and Probate podcast to discuss the importance of implementing a culture of performance management in a business. 

For years the only time most employees receive any sort of constructive feedback has been in an annual appraisal. For Hamza, something has to fundamentally change and feedback must be much more of an ongoing process

He cites research from PWC, LexisNexis, Thomson Reuters and their own client surveys which point to the challenges that face law firms from an HR point of view. Indeed 3 in 5 law firms are concerned about talent and shortage and churn, and are consider it a barrier to their success.

He discusses organisations described as "Stay Firms" and "Go Firms" - firms who retain, and lose, talent. While acknowledging that remuneration plays a part in the success "Stay Firms," the focus on their broader value proposition sees them not only retain staff, but makes them more efficient with higher billable hours and better staff mental health and wellbeing. 

And lawyers themselves are more vocal about what they want from work. A staggering 44% of lawyers measure their stress levels at between 8-10 out of 10 in an Advanced Legal survey. That, and a lack of progression and professional development is often the cause of staff leaving. 

"When we drill into this, we're looking at a lack of mentorship and career guidance, a lack of promotion opportunities and the desire for greater on the job assistance. All of which can be described as performance management," says Hamza.
 This discussion covers a lot of ground around the value and importance of creating a culture of performance, normalising goal setting and providing a constant feedback loop between employees and managers. For Hamza, part of the success of implementing such a cultural change is in the adoption of technology to drive through the change and support managers to ask the right questions and enable those types of conversations.

The Today's Wills and Probate podcast is available on your preferred podcast provider, and at www.todayswillsandprobate.co.uk. Subscribe today to hear all the latest news and views across the wills and probate sector.

The first Today's Wills and Probate podcast on 2024, and the start of series 3, explores the perennial question on the minds and lips of most businesses... what do clients really want?

A report from Law Firm Marketing Club does just that. Now in it's 4th year, "What Clients Want" is an extensive piece of research which asks consumers of legal services what they want from their law firm; from first introduction through to matter completion.

With 4 years' worth of data behind them, the report is now able to start tracking consumer expectations and trends over time. Once of the really interesting elements of the report is the breakdown by demographic of respondents  and the changing expectations of consumers of legal services.

Client care and return business feature strongly in the report. 53% of respondents have used a law firm more than once but of those, a staggering 41% have not returned to the firm they'd used previously, but had moved to use a different firm. Read into that what you want but it's one of many statistics Clare shares in the course of the discussion.

The report delves in to  the experience of using a law firm and in particular first impressions and onboarding. It is interesting to note that the way in which consumers select firms is changing, with a focus on sustainability and ESG higher on younger people's agenda. 

There are plenty of lessons for firms as Clare shares details of responses to the extensive survey. The report is sponsored by Moneypenny and available via the Law Firm Marketing Club website 

The Today's Wills and Probate podcast is available on your preferred podcast provider, and at www.todayswillsandprobate.co.uk. Subscribe today to hear all the latest news and views across the wills and probate sector.