Back to Bread Street Kitchen, our favourite place to hang out with like-minded comms folk – this time, with the legal crowd. As the door swung open and shut, (letting in both attendees and a distinctly chilly flow of air) everyone gathered around, took their seats and got stuck into networking.

We kicked off by diving straight into introductions and the challenges each organisation was facing.

Firms ranged from smaller yet fast-expanding outfits to global, household names, yet despite scope, team size or practice focus, they all shared strikingly similar issues – creating a feeling of ‘we’re all in this together’.

After going around the circle of trust, four key themes emerged:

• Cross-selling and collaboration
• Digital channels, including AI and intranets
• People proposition and culture
• Strategy and growth

We then got stuck into how each theme played out across their organisations.

Cross-selling and collaboration

Growing firms face a particular challenge with collaboration: loss of the personal touch between levels of seniority. Junior lawyers may know a partner’s name but not what they’re like. Others noted that it can be hard for junior lawyers to get access to partners or information about what they do – which is crucial for development.

How do you bridge those gaps to ensure a strong pipeline of talent?

Another, pressing topic was: how do you get cross-selling to take off and scale across your organisations?

For some firms it was about having that shared ownership of clients; ‘our’ client rather than ‘my’ client, encouraging collaboration across the board.

Others had techniques which worked with varying success. One firm tried a kudos-based system where you could nominate colleagues who helped close a piece of work. There was poor uptake (perhaps not enough in it for the employees?). A method which worked better was building cross-selling and collaboration directly into rewards systems and promotions criteria ensuring a clear material gain.

Then there were the classics, networking, bringing a colleague to client meetings or events, or holding big partner meetings for cross-global organisations to create that barrierless space where connections happen and dots can be joined.

Another important factor was sharing success stories, with the BD individuals and partners who took part in deals being explicitly named. Which brings us to digital channels.

Digital channels

This system of showing exemplary behaviour through sharing success stories was a hot topic of conversation, with some contention.

One Comms Leader was drowning in client success stories and so had to focus down on which to share. The key was filtering for what you want to showcase right now.

For example, pushing transnational cross-selling? Pick stories that demonstrate it. But do remember, if it’s a confidential internal-only story, include a clear ‘confidential’ marker. No one likes leakiness.

Conversely, another Leader struggled to collect stories at all. The question here was: what’s the best way to collect stories? Does it begin actively chasing people and creating content inorganically until stories flow naturally?

As someone suggested, often if you put people’s names on success stories, submissions increase – people like to be featured. So maybe it’s a matter of just whetting the appetite.

Case in point: one firm’s use of Viva Engage, which they used as an informal channel for cross-organisational collaboration. It’s now widely used, with employees tagging others in posts like such as ‘Aren’t you working on something similar in the @Law Firm Antarctica branch @Jane Bloggs?’. With low barriers, it creates a space with easy flow of information and casual interaction – similar to standing by the coffee machine. But initially it needed inorganic formulaic posts, and guidelines to encourage proper usage and build momentum.

Other ideas included weekly newsletters with images showing people and events, letting readers make connections themselves.

And, of course, there was the dreaded intranet!

Several attendees were either building or completely overhauling intranets. Where do you start with these projects? What goes on it? And what format do you build it in? There was a strong consensus that law firms need something static over mobile first.

Business-focused people stories make sense, as discussed. But equally, it’s important to have other stories to share, be that ESG, or otherwise. Be strategic and selective with what you share to promote the company’s current focus point. For example – going through a values refresh? Embed that throughout your intranet and comms.

Speaking of which…

People proposition and culture

Many firms are in flux with new senior teams, new values, new offices and so on.

One interesting debate came up, which we recently covered on our 106 Communications podcast ‘The Brand and Culture Podcast’: which should come first – people proposition or branding?

One firm had launched both simultaneously and were still needing to work really hard to embed them. In our experience, although it takes longer initially, bringing them out separately works better.

Relaunching values? Research, research, research. Values must reflect current culture and who you want to attract. If your culture’s already great, the answer’s in front of you, all you have to do is talk to your people and tease it out.

Great culture also came up heavily in our final pillar.

Strategy and growth

We didn’t get into the real meat of this, we’d been far too busy tucking into the other topics (and pastries, yoghurts and every iteration of egg possible). But there was a shared word across each firm: growth.

Growth, that’s great news… but what does this mean for culture? Each Comms Leader championed their own firm’s fantastic culture. But as these firms grow, expand or even merge how do you maintain it? How do you stop it getting weakened or diluted? Or morphing beyond recognition?

Answers TBC – it’ll have to be for another breakfast!

Thanks to all who came, and to those who couldn’t, we hope to see you soon.