Business of law: best practice in legal work

These six sets of case studies showcase how law firms are innovating as businesses. Here they feature examples of law firms changing how they manage their own people and how they are reinventing their services and delivery models, globally as well as in the Asia-Pacific region.

All case studies were researched, compiled and ranked by RSGI. “Winner” indicates that the organisation won an FT Innovative Lawyers Asia-Pacific award for 2023.

Smart delivery

Winner: Corrs Chambers Westgarth
Originality: 8; Leadership: 9; Impact: 8; Total: 25
The firm developed a digital solution to help mining company BHP manage all its legal processes covering industrial action. The tool it created centralises and automates reporting, review and compliance processes that the legal team must undertake. This increases efficiency, reduces costs and allows the legal team to manage complexities such as making sure everyone is aligned with the company’s environmental, social and governance commitments and overall labour relations strategies.

Standout

Clifford Chance
O: 8; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 24
The firm’s Asia-Pacific team dedicated to “innovation and best delivery” analysed data on lawyers’ working patterns to identify possible efficiencies. The project led to a 30 per cent increase in use of the firm’s support centre in Delhi, staffed by paralegals and other professionals, and achieved cost savings of up to 50 per cent for clients.

Lander & Rogers
O: 7; L: 9; I: 8; Total: 24
Building on the initial experiments of an Australian construction company with contract automation software, the firm helped its client’s in-house team roll out its adoption across its six business units. The initiative allows for the speedy creation of a variety of complex contract types subject to approval workflows.

Commended

Inkling Legal Design
O: 9; L: 7; I: 6; Total: 22
The legal design firm deploys “psychographic” techniques to analyse and improve the design of legal documents and ensure that transaction risks and compliance obligations are better understood by their readers. The approach has helped inform the company’s advice to its financial services clients’ in-house legal teams on shaping the presentation of their data privacy policies, their consumer terms and conditions, and other legal guidelines in their documentation.

Allen & Overy
O: 7; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 21
The firm launched SubscribeMatrix, a tool that automates and improves the accurate collation of digitised data for Allen & Overy’s investment fund clients. This increases the speed and accuracy of the subscription process.

Clayton Utz
O: 7; L: 7; I: 6; Total: 20
The Australian firm’s forensics and tech services team launched its “board paper library” — a tool built with ediscovery software, to help clients better manage boardroom documentation. Commended: Loren Harper-Moeskops

Herbert Smith Freehills
O: 6; L: 7; I: 6; Total: 19
Lawyers and legal operations experts across the firm’s Australian offices participated in an initiative to streamline the law firm’s due diligence processes and introduce new technology to automate them.

Responsible business

Winner: Ashurst
Originality: 8; Leadership: 9; Impact: 8; Total: 25
The firm expanded a pro bono practice to help lawyers from Papua New Guinea and Australia advise across a wide range of Pacific island groups in the broader region. A particular focus is on supporting agencies and charities protect victims of violence against women. The firm is also collaborating with others in the region to deliver unpaid advice to islands on energy transition and adapting to climate change.

Standout

King & Wood Mallesons
O: 8; L: 9; I: 7; Total: 24
The firm worked with Queensland’s indigenous Doomadgee community and charity Action for Kids to help guide discussion and direct policy and investment by the Australian government. This involved setting up a company governance structure based on the traditional leadership structures in the village.

Yulchon
O: 9; L: 8; I: 7; Total: 24
The firm’s Kyu-Hae Jeon worked with charities to ease the plight of female North Korean defectors arriving in South Korea. Working alongside Google.org — Google’s charitable foundation — and non-profit organisation The Bridge, the firm helped establish a three-year programme to provide training and mentoring to help women enter the workplace.

Corrs Chambers Westgarth
O: 7; L: 7; I: 9; Total: 23
The firm’s pro bono team has helped to challenge the Australian government’s strict interpretation of sanctions law, which prevents humanitarian aid organisation Care Australia from operating in countries such as Afghanistan.

Nishimura & Asahi
O: 7; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 23
Japan has increased its intake of refugees as a result of the war in Ukraine and other crises. In response, Nishimura & Asahi has been supporting three organisations dealing with the influx: Pathways Japan; the Japan Association for Refugees; and Human Rights Now.

The firm has provided legal advice to help people obtain refugee status and offers additional support to assist with the charities’ efforts to integrate refugees.

Commended

MinterEllison
O: 8; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 22
Lawyers helped charity White Box Enterprises develop of a new impact investment model in collaboration with Australia’s Department of Social Services. Under the scheme, the government pays out funds to the social enterprise depending on outcomes, with the investors receiving a small return.

Gilbert + Tobin
O: 7; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 21
The firm helped charity Cape York Partnership expand its services to help indigenous Australians through its Pama money management platform. This web-based app allows individuals who may lack digital literacy to set aside money in a trust to serve a specific purpose, such as educational costs.

Singularity Legal
O: 7; L: 7; I: 6; Total: 20
The firm set up a pro bono scheme to help poorer Indian athletes with legal advice on anti-doping rules or challenges to unfair suspensions.

Allen & Overy
O: 6; L: 7; I: 6; Total: 19
The firm is working to help underprivileged people in India join the legal profession. It has worked with campaign group Increasing Diversity By Increasing Access to provide internships, and it is sponsoring four students at the National Law School of India University.

Clifford Chance
O: 7; L: 6 I: 6; Total: 19
The firm’s “innovation and best delivery team”, based in Singapore, worked with the city-state’s Law Society to extend the use of its proprietary language translation tool to broaden access to migrant workers facing discrimination and legal issues.

Adjacent services

Joint winner: Atsumi & Sakai
Originality: 8; Leadership: 8; Impact: 8; Total: 24
The firm set up a policy institute that brings together lawyers, government officials, policymakers, companies and academics to share knowledge and contribute to public debate in Japan. One focus is on how best to keep pace with the digitisation of business. One example of its work was seen in the institute’s response to telecoms operator KDDI’s network interruption in 2022 — one Japan’s worst mobile phone blackouts to date. It recommended how companies should best disclose information on such accidents and help prevent future outages.

Joint winner: DLA Piper
O: 8; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 24
The firm launched its international business advisory service in 2021, building on work initiated in Australia, to provide non-legal help, such as advice on environmental, social and corporate governance issues, as well as support on mergers. The team of 30 consultants and other staff works alongside the firm’s lawyers to advise clients on regulatory risk, due diligence processes, and how to protect corporate reputation.

Standout

Clayton Utz
O: 8; L: 7; I: 8; Total: 23
The firm’s forensic and technology services team provides clients with end-to-end assistance in defending against the growing threat of cyber attacks. The group comprises 150 lawyers, experts in data analytics, e-discovery, forensic accounting and cyber-response.

Commended

Yulchon
O: 7; L: 8; I: 7; Total: 22
The firm has broadened its range of services through eYulchon, a team of five legal technology and data experts. The group works with clients to implement legal and regulatory compliance systems, including data privacy obligations. For example, it worked with US medical devices supplier Intuitive Surgical to ensure compliance with new South Korean healthcare regulations.

King & Wood Mallesons
O: 7; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 21
The firm is providing advice to help National Australia Bank’s legal team overhaul its operations. The firm’s innovation team ran workshops to create an overall vision and plan for implementing the client’s programme. Initiatives include an online portal to manage new legal service requests and the roll out of new apps to automate legal documents.

Allen & Overy
O: 6; L: 7; I: 6; Total: 19
The firm is broadening services beyond traditional legal advice. These now include consultancy, help on legal technology and Peerpoint, the firm’s contract lawyer business.

Innovation in people and strategy

Winner: Gilbert + Tobin
Originality: 8; Leadership: 9; Impact: 8; Total: 25
The firm has set up a panel of a dozen younger partners to work alongside the main board on its long-term strategy.

The “futures board” panel is chaired by Sam Nickless, who is stepping up from chief operating officer to chief executive in July. It has set out to adopt an “agile governance” approach to allow greater flexibility in decision-making. The changes coincide with managing partner and founder Danny Gilbert taking on a new role as chair.

Standout

Hamilton Locke
O: 8; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 24
The firm’s strategy to improve staff engagement includes a “PX” (people experience) committee, which guides initiatives such as annual awards to celebrate individual success across the firm. Health and wellness projects include the firm’s da Vinci development programme, which encourages employees to take up personal interests and activities to improve their work-life balance.

Commended

KPMG Law
O: 7; L: 7; I: 8; Total: 22
Since it acquired Zico Law, a network of south-east Asian law firms, KPMG has integrated most of the Zico lawyers across its own practices. KPMG aims to ensure each practice benefits from a combination of local and global expertise. It has called on Zico Law’s knowledge management team to help KPMG lawyers better understand the region.

Ashurst
O: 6; L: 8; I: 7; Total: 21
The firm has launched a joint venture with South Korean firm HwaHyun, making it the first global law firm to practise Korean law since the market opened to foreign lawyers in 2011.

Hogan Lovells
O: 7; L: 7; I: 6; Total: 20
Following a pilot “town-twinning” between Singapore and Los Angeles — in which lawyers presented overviews of their offices and organised ice-breaking events between staff — the firm is rolling out the programme globally, with the aim of improving collaboration and helping lawyers to cross-sell to clients. Commended: Khushaal Ved

Morrison Foerster
O: 6; L: 7; I: 6; Total: 19
The firm has established a secondment programme, piloted in the Asia-Pacific region, that allows its lawyers to secure placements in the firm’s client businesses. The project centralises this process and supports partners in negotiating terms, setting objectives for the secondee and the client, and holding regular check-ins to assess progress.

Innovation in training and development

Winner: WongPartnership
Originality: 7; Leadership: 9; Impact: 9; Total: 25
Fewer top students in Singapore are opting for careers in the law, preferring instead to work in computer science and fintech. In response, the firm has created a programme called Learning Journeys to help attract and retain talent.

Its lawyers help curate programme content covering career paths through to retirement age. The firm has also increased training hours, with sessions focused on developing business skills, tackling new topics such as AI, and mental wellbeing.

Standout

Gilbert + Tobin
O: 8; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 24
To encourage learning new skills, the firm’s Ways of Working training scheme explores improved project planning, leadership and collaboration, use of tech and personal development. The training covers all staff, including those in business services roles. When surveyed, more than half the respondents said they have already introduced changes, including the adoption of digital tools and improved project management, as a result of the initiative.

King & Wood Mallesons
O: 8; L: 8; I: 7; Total: 23
The firm’s “partner learning labs” draw on neuroscience to support professional development. Sessions look at the effects of habit forming, the neurological response to feedback, and the importance of social learning.

The training sessions are spaced four weeks apart to allow participating partners time to put into practice with what they have learned.

Commended

Lander & Rogers
O: 7; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 21
The Law Tech Clinic is a course accredited by Australian universities and run by the firm alongside student-led legal tech education group Botl. The course exposes law students to legal tech and allows them to design an app that addresses real legal challenges for clients.

MinterEllison
O: 7; L: 6; I: 7; Total: 20
Bot Week is a partnership with legal automation company Josef, allowing the firm’s staff to build simple automated search tools for clients and teams.

Rajah & Tann Singapore
O: 6; L: 7; I: 6; Total: 19
The firm created a professional development course for arbitration work. It is delivered using several methods, including live virtual training and group analysis of case studies. The training model will be extended to other practice areas.

Digital legal practice

Winner: Herbert Smith Freehills
Originality: 8; Leadership: 9; Impact: 8; Total: 25
The firm launched a comprehensive programme to make better use of technology and improve how it delivers legal services. A team identified particular areas of focus for changes, based on evolving client needs.

Projects included: enhancing use of technology and data to expand services provided to real estate clients; a revamped legal operations advisory service; a hub with enhanced technology to improve efficiency in due diligence matters; and a “digital academy” for training.

Standout

Mori Hamada & Matsumoto
O: 8; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 24
A surge in Japanese company takeovers prompted the firm to create a resource to collect and share detailed information on previous deals.

The firm worked with legal tech company Xebral to build a platform called Noel, where this data is collected and can be analysed to show trends. It has been commercialised and is now also used by financial services and other law firm subscribers.

MinterEllison
O: 7; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 23
The firm launched its “hyperautomation” strategy with the goal that “everything that can be automated, should be automated”. This led to teams of lawyers, clients, technology and project management specialists forming to implement specific projects.

Using a range of tools including artificial intelligence applications, robotic process automation and workflow management, the firm estimates that it saved nearly 60,000 hours in the past financial year.

Commended

Cyril Armarchand Mangaldas
O: 7; L: 7; I: 8; Total: 22
Born out of an annual innovation week, the firm has launched CamPlead, a database holding documents used by courts across India. This cuts the time it takes for lawyers to access information and make court submissions.

Reed Smith
O: 7; L: 8; I: 7; Total: 22
The Arbitration Pricing Calculator, a mobile app developed by the firm, estimates arbitration costs for clients. It compares different cost structures used by arbitration centres across the globe to help them select the best institution for their case. Commended: Timothy Cooke

Khaitan & Co
O: 7; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 21
The firm’s “continuous collaborative innovation initiative” encourages lawyers to use more tech and emphasises how achieving efficiencies can benefit wellbeing. It gives lawyers access to dashboards to manage workflow and track other people’s availability, and a tool that analyses contracts to help clients spot market trends.

Anand and Anand
O: 6; L: 6; I: 7; Total: 19
Lawyers at the firm now have access to a tool, Patent Asset Management, developed in-house to automate drafting letters and documents and track progress of legal matters. It also uses bots to crawl for relevant data online.