Super Idea

How can the law firm enable the lawyers more capable? 

What does the lawyer become more capable mean? Is it to improve the personal quality? Or the practicing ability? Or the socialization ability? Yes, but not all. The ability that a lawyer can improve by himself is not included in our current discussion. What we want to discuss is how the law firm enables the lawyer more capable, that is, the lawyer's non-personal ability has been improved due to the efforts of the law firm. It mainly includes three abilities, of which the first is professional ability, for example, product research and development and innovation, the second is the market ability, for example, integration of resource platforms, and the third is the management ability, for example, internal and external cooperation. We will make an introduction and sharing from the following three aspects. 

First, from a professional perspective, we strive to give full play to three public functions: training, knowledge management and product research and development. 

Lawyers, especially young lawyers, or lawyers under flexible management, all are professional instead of non-professional lawyers. Before being a lawyer, you have to go through systematic study, rigorous examinations and internships, and pass the interview assessment. Therefore, any lawyer is definitely professional. However, due to the survival or business pressure or the difficulty of cooperation, it is difficult for a lawyer to select customers and choose a specialized field. Therefore, they can only do what they need to do, not what they want to do. How to make a lawyer become professional? Or more professional ? What can the law firm do for this? This is a very interesting question. 

To this point, we have to discuss the professionalization construction orientation and mechanism selection of a law firm. How does the law firm promote and guide the professionalization construction of lawyers? Whether to force the partner to choose a limited professionalization direction? How to use the system to ensure the realization of such professionalization? It may be a watershed between many law firms. Today, as the customer requirements are getting higher and higher, and basic service is gradually replaced by internal legal personnel and Internet artificial intelligence, it is unnecessary to discuss whether professionalization is good or bad. That how to become professional is the real subject. 

At Docvit, we don't require partners to divide teams by profession. However, each partner is required to select only one major and one minor in fifteen professionalization directions. In addition, if it exceeds the basic business and two professionalization directions, cooperation is required. Thus, specialization is that all management personnel must concern. Can a lawyer professionalize himself? Yes, but not enough. Those with strong learning and management ability are likely to complete professionalization by themselves, but most lawyers need the guidance and help from the law firm. 

We believe that the law firm must undertake three functions to promote the professionalization of lawyers. That is training, knowledge management and product research and development. These three functions supplement each other, and form a system. Training is the foundation, knowledge management is the linkage, and product research and development is the purpose. Continuous and high-quality product research and development is the most important for a law firm or a team. 

Professional training 

At Docvit, the unified professional training provided by each office for lawyers is divided into three levels, that is, basic team training, future partner training and partner training. In addition, we also encourages basic teams and future partners to participate in high-level training. The training at each level includes two parts: compulsory courses and elective courses. In addition to external lecturers, senior partners are obligated to provide compulsory and elective course trainings. Moreover, we also provide internal training of each team and nationwide professional committee training as the supplement. The training system will provide systematic support for the growth of lawyers, which is also impossible for lawyers to complete by themselves. 

Knowledge management 

Knowledge management is a big subject, a big problem and a big difficulty for a law firm. For the knowledge management, we have some practices and attempts to discuss with you. For example, each department will have a knowledge management contact; Our Green Cloud VIT system has a special knowledge management module; Set up a knowledge management internal salon, and regularly make discussion and communication on the concept and practice of knowledge management; Take knowledge management as a soft indicator for the assessment of departments and even partners; Regularly summarize and analyze knowledge management results, etc.. 

Product research and development 

In terms of product research and development, Docvit takes the leading position. With financial capital and large-scale integrated projects as the business core, focusing on six major industries and eight business segments, we have developed fourteen products lines including private equity fund, mergers and acquisitions, NEEQ and IPO, asset management bond, real estate, construction engineering, international investment, corporate compliance, commercial dispute resolution, and family office, established five business centers such as commercial conciliation and launched service manuals for eight major industries including insurance and sports, and formed a matrix and three-dimensional business pattern. Moreover, we have also created an organizational mechanism and incentive mechanism for new product research and development. 

In these tasks, the management personnel of the law firm play a role of organization, planning, integration, and coordination. 

Second, from the perspective of the market, we take the registration, filing, bidding, seminars, and professional writings for the general construction. 

Not long ago, the chief legal officer of a central enterprise told me a story that their company had a competitive negotiation last year, Lawyer A from a certain law firm came to their company in the morning, then Lawyer B came to their company again in the afternoon, when being asked who can represent the law firm, Lawyer A and Lawyer B said the both can represent the law firm, and the enterprise can decide whether to cooperate with the law firm and choose a lawyer at its discretion. The final result is that neither won the cooperation. I believe that this is definitely a special case. As a large-scale law firm, this is inevitable. However, this also shows a serious problem for the management personnel of our law firm, that is, for these market based activities, to what extent should the law firm intervene or manage? 

What kind of market support does the lawyer need? What kind of business management is necessary? It may be difficult to get a standard answer. However, there are some general constructions that the law firm can do, for example, registration, filing, bidding and other market-based work, seminars, professional writings and other professional work, as well as other similar work and activity arrangements. In this way, the lawyer can be completely liberated, the business resources of the law firm can be integrated, and the market work can be standardized. 

That is exactly what Docvit does. Each office of our law firm has set up the bidding department, business management department, brand department, etc., all of which cover the work in this area to some extent. Docvit headquarters has set up the business management and support center and the strategic brand marketing center to coordinate, organize and arrange relevant work, and strengthen the general construction at the national and even global level. Take the Beijing office as an example, we will complete nearly 100 times of registration and filing every year, participate in hundreds of bidding, organize 70-80 professional seminars, and write and publish about five professional books. 

In terms of activities, we divide the activities into three levels: firm-level activities, department-level activities, and partner-level activities. Partners can actively participate in firm-level activities, or organize activities in the name of the department, or even put forward the activity planning proposal separately. We will provide different levels of the organizational guarantee, fund support, venue support, guest invitation, and other services for these activities under different conditions according to the Measures for Support Management of Partner Brand Market and Specialized Construction Activities. 

Take the construction of professional writings as another example, we will collect topics every year. After being collected, we will give certain fund support. Recently, our Law Exploration on Private Equity LP has been published, a new member to our private equity series. In this field, we have published 5 professional books, and many topics are original, with great influence in the industry. With these efforts, it seems possible to create a full industry chain private equity fund legal service and cultivate an industrial market. 

Third, from the management perspective, we put the business cooperation system construction and system guidance in the first place. 

For lawyers, another important thing is business cooperation. Especially for businesses with strong business resources and without performance, qualification, or service team, it may need to find partners within the law firm. This is also the biggest bonus and benefit that the large-scale law firm can bring to lawyers. On this matter, DOCVIT did three things from the management perspective: Formulate rules, build the platform, and provide guidance. 

Formulate rules 

In terms of rules, we set up only two rules. First, each partner can only choose one major and one minor professional directions, and all partners must conduct mandatory cooperation except for basic business and business beyond one major and one minor professional directions. Second, in the process of cooperation, the original customer affiliation shall not be changed or destroyed, and the original partner of the case is responsible for maintaining the customer. We believe it is a good operating state that the boundaries of external markets become increasingly blurred and the internal professional boundaries become increasingly clear for a law firm, which is also the best state of cooperation between partners. 

Build the platform 

In terms of platform, first of all, we change the inherent concept that the department shall be set by profession, allow and even encourage partners to set up the department with the human resource cooperation as the basis, and don't pursue the professional consistency within the department, thereby to create conditions for cooperation; Secondly, we build online and offline cooperation platforms, and fully establish the internal cooperation market, so that everyone's performance can achieve geometric growth through cooperation under the circumstances of no increase of customers and no improvement of professional ability; Finally, we build a GLGA platform, constantly attract members with professional differentiation, achieve cooperation among lawyers in a larger area, and further release the resources and energy of lawyers. 

Provide guidance 

The guidance refers to our system guidance on law business cooperation, including customer management, team configuration, quality control, benefit distribution, performance promotion, etc. The law firm will try its best to make some advocacy rules for such cooperation, rather than compulsory requirements. In this way, we can cooperate independently and freely within certain limits. Of course, in case of cooperation dispute, the cooperation dispute coordination committee of the law firm can provide assistance for settlement of dispute. 

Empowering a lawyer is the most important and most difficult thing for the management of a law firm.