Fast-growing law firm Hamilton Locke has transformed itself into a modern law firm with collaborative, agile, and client-focused systems and processes, and without the big burdens of big-firm bureaucracy and politics.
Established in 2018, the top-50 Australian law firm adopted these innovations:
- corporate structure, enabling the firm to take third-party capital to invest for the long term;
- employee equity ownership, placing focus on long-term institutional value;
- agile decision-making structure with a CEO and board, rather than partnership votes; and
- systems to automate, offshore, process-map, and outsource to remove bureaucracy and deliver the most efficient and effective service to clients.
The firm also:
- implemented innovative employee programs like Da Vinci programme, which encourages employees to adopt a new hobby or interest and rewards them with extra weeks leave if they complete over the year;
- launched the Luminary Academy, to teach its partners and staff about leadership, performance, and wellbeing;
- re-designed internal systems and structures, such as using client pursuit teams and open-plan offices, offshoring the back office, using process maps, and automating processes.
