Richard Clark, CEO, CFG Law

In this episode Engage’s CEO, Phil Wedgwood chats to Richard Clark, CEO, CFG Law, who shares his thoughts and insights on all aspects of engagement.

Formerly a member of the senior leadership team at Irwin Mitchell and Berg along with a number of senior roles within the Banking industry, Richard joined CFG as COO in 2017 before his appointment as CEO in 2019. Richard and his colleagues are now focused on developing a business that has a genuine purpose of helping all those affected by injury. CFG is rapidly transitioning into a truly national digital law firm for those who need its support the most, opening a new office and three consulting offices during lockdown in support of these ambitions.

Transcript

00;00;00;01 - 00;00;11;22
Narrator
Welcome to the Engage in Conversation podcast. In today's episode, Engage CFO Wedgewood talks to Richard Clarke, CEO of CFD Law Richard, please introduce yourself.

00;00;14;05 - 00;00;42;29
Richard Clark
Good to see you again. I'm, as you know, chief executive of the Client First Group. We're very much a purpose led law firm, but we're not a law firm in the traditional sense. We're very much focused on ensuring that we can help all those who've been affected by serious injury. And we work in places that that's achieved by everybody working together, whether it's our colleagues, whether it's with the client and their families, or whether it's working with the various suppliers, supporters that we actually have as well.

00;00;44;05 - 00;00;51;08
Richard Clark
And we've been on the journey and working with you has been part of the journey of the list. Such 18 months of thing here.

00;00;51;13 - 00;00;52;14
Phil Wedgwood
I think everybody has.

00;00;52;26 - 00;01;18;29
Richard Clark
Thank you as actually and in that time we've obviously got through COVID, which has been an interesting experience. It's been interesting. It's been going from what was a business that works. We're in the office I gave it to the business was despite the desire for people to work remotely, we were capable of working remotely, but we came to work physically a desk and then we get to March 20, 20 and suddenly everybody's working from home and the world changes and the way we're working with our colleagues change that.

00;01;18;29 - 00;01;20;00
Richard Clark
So it's how you look at the same thing.

00;01;20;17 - 00;01;30;03
Phil Wedgwood
Totally. And I think actually what's interesting is that broadly speaking, the whole time we've worked together and you've been using our technology has been during the COVID era, hasn't it?

00;01;30;17 - 00;01;43;05
Richard Clark
I think we actually went along. I think, I think we agreed the deal back in February and we actually went live, I think first of April. So we've been in the Cove we look down for a matter of three or four days.

00;01;43;13 - 00;01;44;00
Phil Wedgwood
It was.

00;01;44;05 - 00;01;50;09
Richard Clark
Usually. Yeah. So yeah. So we had we go live and then we've been using it for that whole period, which is now what, seven, 17 months.

00;01;50;10 - 00;01;50;18
Phil Wedgwood
Yeah.

00;01;50;28 - 00;01;51;27
Richard Clark
I automatically.

00;01;52;17 - 00;02;08;10
Phil Wedgwood
So when we look back at when we first met and starts talking about this and how we could enhance engagement in the round CFD, what were the drivers when you look back with a kind of operational with the technology drivers, were they cultural drivers that you're looking to to change?

00;02;09;10 - 00;02;32;12
Richard Clark
It's a good question. I mean, it wasn't so much a technology driver. It's much more our business is much more about people. So if you go back in our journeys, you go back over sort of four and a half, five years that I've been in the business. One of the pieces that we wanted to really focus on from the day I joined was how we actually work with all of our colleagues across the business.

00;02;32;13 - 00;03;05;27
Richard Clark
And at that stage we were doing one office. So at that stage we were just based in Cheadle, Stockport. Yeah. And the focus was about our people making sure that the course of this journey was going on. So we commenced that journey four years ago, and that journey was about creating a very much a purpose led business approach lit business that was very much focused primarily on the people who worked in the business and then the clients that we obviously support who've been seriously injured and then onto their families and on that journey, one of the things you realize is so much of what you're trying to do comes from the people within your business.

00;03;06;20 - 00;03;33;05
Richard Clark
And it's not just words that said for the person, the top line me is actually genuinely the best ideas we've had in how we've now shaped the business has been down to the people within it. And as you get bigger when you go from, from a small business to we know I would say a small kind of medium, actually a medium sized business, you go to look at how you engage with people and how you work with them and you can't do that just physically, face to face, every minute of every day.

00;03;33;13 - 00;03;54;25
Richard Clark
Do you have to find other ways of doing it? And it has to be not only me engaging with people and others within the business engaging with each other, it's about how do you actually make everybody feel part of what you're doing and how do you make it so that those within the business feel that they can add and contribute and in some cases have a direct conversation with the chief exec?

00;03;54;25 - 00;04;15;25
Richard Clark
I mean, it doesn't happen every day, but the best ideas come from way down in the business, and most of us listen to them. So you have to find ways that people engage with it. Now, I'm of a generation where I can have a chat with you and this is what we do facilitate that much more technology enabled social media, all of those types of things.

00;04;15;25 - 00;04;40;24
Richard Clark
So through engagement, through social media, through chats, through video. So you've got to have another way of communicating with people because a message you think you've relayed maybe through an email, through a bulletin is one thing, but you have to realize that audiences read things and hear things differently. So you've got to do it through multiple channels. So yeah, that was one of the reasons that on our journey this was, you know, working with you as an obvious next stage.

00;04;42;00 - 00;04;52;13
Phil Wedgwood
And what would you say were your top few engagement challenges maybe towards the start of the journey? Because obviously with COVID everything's changed in some respects. Yeah. So.

00;04;52;25 - 00;05;19;21
Richard Clark
Um, I'm not sure. I think everything's changed if you look at it from a point of view, it's the outside world, so everybody thinks that the world has changed. But we set out to be a national digital label business that was a, we had about four years ago to get there lots of steps. So when you then think of our engagement, engagement is about, well, how do you make sure you engage with people in different ways?

00;05;20;22 - 00;05;38;01
Richard Clark
So you're going to convert that. If you've got the platform in place, which we fortunately have got the technology platform in place, the one thing that's left is Will, how do you communicate? So the first thing you can do is you can use Google teams and everybody have those. But you have to think beyond that and think, well, how am I actually going to keep everybody aware of what's happening in the business?

00;05;38;29 - 00;06;00;05
Richard Clark
And that's going to be communicating at the time that suits them rather than the time that suits me, because people have got their own family dynamics, they've got their own pressures, they've got their own choices they want to have in terms of when they work, which was affecting everybody in the country. And also how do you get them to feel that they everybody feels that they can talk and communicate back as well.

00;06;00;23 - 00;06;17;03
Richard Clark
So in terms of three priorities, first one was to make sure you could touch everybody at the right time with content that matters to them, and they have a mechanism to come back. And then from our point of view, it's about business as a whole with purpose like business. Therefore, people needs to be part of that journey and support their clients.

00;06;17;13 - 00;06;35;03
Richard Clark
So hitting those three priorities enables us to feel much more comfortable doing more than just having a teams meeting. Because I've got two goals in March last year, they were okay, and now I'm just I'm sick of them, but I know I've got a method whereby we can keep people updated from training course videos through there. People can dip in.

00;06;35;05 - 00;06;53;06
Richard Clark
We counseling even as you see it. You know, you said you to people, you know, you can work when you want to work where you want to work. And having got over there, are they really? Is that really true? We've now got a stage where you can see people engaging 11:00 at night before anybody kind of goes so wrong.

00;06;53;06 - 00;07;08;23
Richard Clark
Well, they've chosen to work at a time. There's a lady in a business who chooses to work the office, starts work at office five in the morning. Well, if it suits her, we have to have a method of communicating because believe me, I know their office where we live and none of the management team with that office five in the morning.

00;07;09;02 - 00;07;25;27
Richard Clark
So having a tool like the solution enables us to do that. And then they can interact back with you and then you can interact back as well. And then let's be honest, you also, because I know you don't just write about this as the traditional method of picking up and even doing face time or anything else. We still do that type of thing.

00;07;25;27 - 00;07;27;12
Richard Clark
So people do feel genuinely engaged.

00;07;28;08 - 00;07;42;16
Phil Wedgwood
That's great. And with the platform, you have that duality to it. So you have the desk based approach with the all the, you know, intranet type of functionality. Then you have the mobile app. Hmm. Talk me through how that's impacted the experience.

00;07;42;24 - 00;08;09;06
Richard Clark
So I suppose to look at it from my own point of view. So I spend so much time in front of my laptop. When you switch out in the morning, it automatically opens up on the engaged Internet's desktop. So you got everything you want there, but then you're doing lots of other things during the day. So you've got the app and the app coupled with the desktop is perfect because you can then choose where you integrate it, where you're basically using it, interacting with it.

00;08;09;22 - 00;08;25;15
Richard Clark
And the tour, the marriage, just so you know, that's a feed that you need to be seeing because we push to you all. That could be an article that you need to read or training course or even just do some social media posting. You go through the app social media posting for me is easier. I think it's the most people on the app.

00;08;25;15 - 00;08;42;06
Richard Clark
It's that easy, just social media posting anywhere else. And then there's a training course, which I'm actually better at watching that on the screen. I can do that again through the Internet. So everything goes through that. But if I wanted to, I can I can say this from having just been a holiday. I can also see there's a video I need to watch.

00;08;42;19 - 00;08;50;04
Richard Clark
And actually it was quite easy just to watch that. Too many video on the on the phone. Yeah. You know, the way we will interact, you, you interact.

00;08;50;13 - 00;09;08;13
Phil Wedgwood
We go on the phone yeah. We yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, we're a mobile first nation absolute. And that's the thing I think really excites us is that we like to say we're mobile first. Yeah. Because that's the way but society's gone. All of our engagement is via the phone now, isn't it? If you look at all the top social platforms.

00;09;08;13 - 00;09;19;01
Phil Wedgwood
Yeah. And yet if you think about the mix of systems that businesses use and particularly law firms where we're talking today, they're predominantly or desk based, aren't they?

00;09;19;01 - 00;09;45;04
Richard Clark
Really, they are. I mean, if you to me, if we had to have this step where in the business sense phones became the Go-To Place. Yeah. So Mobile first is where we wanted to get to. But for some reason, certainly in this industry, we found that everybody stays on the desktop and almost covers providing the catalyst to say actually mobile first is the way forward and now we don't get back from that.

00;09;45;25 - 00;10;06;06
Richard Clark
And I seen a massive shift. You know, certainly our business with the shift has gone from the desktop anyway. To the phones. We can actually work on cases through through through the phones if we need to with the same security we have on the desktop. But more critically, the phone is what everybody goes to for anything. You know, we've taken this step during lockdown because we want to be, you know, very much mobile first.

00;10;06;18 - 00;10;24;28
Richard Clark
We've put everybody in the business with all iPhones. It doesn't matter whatever the role is, everybody has a point where because we can mean that we're not relying on their own personal devices and imposing A that because actually if you want to split between the two sometimes. Yeah, they've got that equipment, so it's there for them. And then you continue encouraging more and more use of that.

00;10;24;28 - 00;10;39;15
Richard Clark
And that's led into more and more people using social media just outside of our Internet, pushing you more out of social media. So whether it's Twitter, whether it's linked to one that's really important, it's going forward because we can touch more of our clients that way.

00;10;39;26 - 00;10;55;20
Phil Wedgwood
Totally. And do you do you see that being a shift? Do you see that being a trend that if an organization like yours has a safe internal mechanism to be social like the Engage platform, then that makes it easier for people to then transcend that externally to the business as well?

00;10;55;20 - 00;11;15;15
Richard Clark
Totally. I'm not going to say we've completed the journey, but certainly you can see that people are starting to take those steps. Yeah, and you know, when you make the investment, that's the path you want people to take, but you can't force the past. So you find different people's and it's driven by age groups, certain demographics of people adopting it on a gradual basis, but slowly.

00;11;15;26 - 00;11;37;06
Richard Clark
Yeah, it's beginning to happen for us. And that's really important because and what you get is genuine posting on social media. So we would every business, you know, we have this purpose which you mentioned, but we genuinely want to explain to people what's genuinely going on with our cases. Not a not having a big corporate post. Many organizations are focused still on.

00;11;37;06 - 00;11;38;26
Richard Clark
It's got to come from marketing departments very.

00;11;38;26 - 00;11;39;29
Phil Wedgwood
Much top down, isn't it?

00;11;40;15 - 00;12;09;04
Richard Clark
Yeah, but actually when you get down so it's by my earlier point, it's about people genuinely being involved with their clients, wanting to talk about the amazing difference that they've made to their clients and to also feel that as an organization we trust them to do that. You know, we don't have a process where we vet all the post before they go else literally they go out because somebody genuinely believes that that's all about the engagement we've had all the way through this to get people within the business.

00;12;09;06 - 00;12;31;24
Richard Clark
All colleagues understand what rivals the clients they work on are really important to them as individuals as well as to us as a business. And if you would like to talk about it, the clients have them to talk about it. They can post us, and even if it's not naming client, they can talk generally about the the journey of being able to see your clients, the difference that made to an individual clients, the result they've had for clients that's their solution for that don't.

00;12;32;03 - 00;12;41;05
Richard Clark
So why should we control it? And this is all about partner. That's the whole engagement piece and is I think, working really well. But it's I don't think I'll ever be complete.

00;12;41;27 - 00;13;01;29
Phil Wedgwood
No, I think it's a journey, isn't it? So what's fascinating is you're very progressive and innovative around embracing that, that mindset of open engagement. Yeah, yeah. I would say a lot. But there are there are clients in our, in our portfolio that you worried about giving that freedom to the staff. You know, gosh, what if someone says this or what if someone does that?

00;13;02;13 - 00;13;15;00
Phil Wedgwood
And, you know, I have a take on that. But it's interesting to what yours when you originally decided to allow that level of openness, having not really had a mechanism prior, you just said, great, let's do it. Yeah.

00;13;15;00 - 00;13;37;07
Richard Clark
I don't know if it was actually a conscious step I think it was more about what we set out to be as an organization, which is before I at the time I joined was it was about being genuinely honest and trusting of those people who've chosen to base their careers with us and at the same time to talk openly about what we're doing as a business.

00;13;37;13 - 00;14;03;04
Richard Clark
You know, we're one of the rare firms. I think we talk about everything for financial performance. So it's the difference we've made to individuals career. Many organizations still not talk about financial performance with their teams. My view is how can you move an organization forward if people don't know what's going on on a bigger scale, they may not have a huge amount of interest, but generally we should know, but also financially why shouldn't they know about how what they are doing is contributing to the ability for the firm to move forward?

00;14;03;18 - 00;14;27;03
Richard Clark
You know, in the time that we've been on our journey, we've opened actually we've opened offices to physical new offices. We've opened one here in Manchester, one down in Thornton in East Anglia. We've opened three remote offices, which are basically consulting offices we can get to. You couldn't have done that. People have been engaged. So when you go back to the question, which is about organizationally, was it a conscious step?

00;14;27;03 - 00;14;48;26
Richard Clark
It wasn't, but it was part the jury wants to be on. And then you have to think about culturally, can you throughout the culture actually support that openness and genuinely and this is a standard business. If you trust somebody to be employed in your organization, first of all, you've got to think, well, if I trust them then that trust is there for whatever they choose to do.

00;14;49;22 - 00;15;05;23
Richard Clark
And in a law firm, you're very lucky to work with some incredibly capable people at every single level that exists. He trusts him to be employed. Why shouldn't you trust them to do the right thing for your organization? And if they don't, if they don't, you should have a relationship where you can just sit down and go film.

00;15;06;01 - 00;15;30;19
Richard Clark
So you post. Great, you do it. But could you talk these bits? Yeah, they'll ask me. I've never done that if I know my associates. So I have some of the ones and two years of being on this journey, which says a huge amount given the level of post we have. And we've also created this we call it hashtag safety life and anybody is welcome to go and just put that in and all the posts will come up.

00;15;31;07 - 00;15;48;03
Richard Clark
But it's about safety being different is people's lives as a career as as much as my career, but it's also about the difference that made in other people's lives. And they're all genuine post. Oliver So it's, it's about the organization being able to embrace this thing as much as anything else.

00;15;48;15 - 00;16;06;21
Phil Wedgwood
That's fantastic. Yeah. Because we have people that are worried about having to monitor it. Oh, how many people do we employ to monitor all of the posts? That's all the questions are. You know, I don't think, as you said, really the best way of doing is like actually how social media does it in the main is it kind of polices itself.

00;16;06;22 - 00;16;17;10
Phil Wedgwood
Yeah. And you're within the safe boundaries of your own organization. And as you say, if you can trust people to be part of that, then that should be continued to facilitate this.

00;16;17;10 - 00;16;36;04
Richard Clark
Certainly, you know, I still amuse me when people say they've got things. The Internet polices, it seems so, yeah. It's, it's the early 20th century, you know, in the way that they we want to control factors and things. You know, the world we're in now is about trusting, embracing the workforce. You have and believing in them, doing the right thing.

00;16;36;12 - 00;16;50;19
Richard Clark
It's your job as a leader to set in the context of your organization the direction of travel. If you then having to employ a group of people as an Internet police group, you question whether they thought it would be better spent somewhere else. Although just personal view says this is their organization.

00;16;51;07 - 00;17;19;08
Phil Wedgwood
That's really good. And so that presumably has helped massively with the transition for COVID, where you're less office based people are all over the place really now. I mean, gosh, that's fascinating. See how that's going to play out as a as a more permanent thing. But how do you feel that your organization is now able to pivot and handle those physical and emotional challenges that doing business in a law firm now is like?

00;17;20;18 - 00;17;42;23
Richard Clark
It's an interesting question because you look at looking at two levels for us. First of all, you've got colleagues that you've employed and furrows. They're based all over the country. In fact, during lockdown we've now employed somebody who works in Chichester. We do have an office in Chichester. We actually never met physically met. Sir, what's your interview process?

00;17;42;24 - 00;18;04;27
Richard Clark
All done through three teams and she started with us and it was almost five months before anybody had actually physically matter and that was only because as a team meeting, people came together on. So a colleague level, you can now work with people all over the country, but you have to respect the fact that there are still some events where you in our eyes need to physically bring people together.

00;18;05;12 - 00;18;25;04
Richard Clark
So you must be ripping people physically together to work on a particular topic within a case or it could be a team meeting. They can still happen. And you've, we've got the offices to do that. Then you have to think about the claims. The clients during COVID didn't like all of us want anybody going into the houses and that environment.

00;18;25;26 - 00;18;49;18
Richard Clark
So you need to engage with them in the best way possible. Now, that wasn't through the engage. Yeah, that was just through the technology that we have. But now you get to the stage where we actually will now get back out to see clients and you've got colleagues meeting each other sometimes to their clients. I was the first time or was in one of their consulting offices and now you've got this stage where people are seeing the benefits, physical togetherness, and then they go back a work remote togetherness.

00;18;50;02 - 00;19;15;04
Richard Clark
The challenge we've still got is how to continue to lead and evolve in that sort of virtual environments you haven't gone through. We haven't got what we had to code to encode that. You had everybody at home. Now what you've got is you've got a situation where the world is going back to normal. So people are finding their own I call it their own normal and that means you've got to manage people who are remote and people who are physically with you, and you've got to bring those two together.

00;19;16;03 - 00;19;35;28
Richard Clark
That's the that's the challenge that we now face. And I don't think the engage solution helps in that because you talked about messaging method of communication. The biggest challenge is how do you then get the balance of knowing when to bring people together, when to do things remotely? We haven't yet enabled that. We've still got a lot of work.

00;19;35;28 - 00;19;59;12
Richard Clark
But as a management team, we talked about this recently and it's like everybody believes in the concept of the national digital legal business. That's, I think, critical in this new world. But we've still got to work on what it might mean for each individual so there's not one size fits all. But as leaders, we've got to look at how do you do it so that people feel that it may be unique to them but it's not really.

00;19;59;18 - 00;20;18;08
Richard Clark
Yeah. So they feel comfortable so you can bring them back into what essentially is the organization of how you want to do it in future. But not having everybody in office. I do not believe and I didn't believe that that was ever going to be the way forward. I've always believed you you would employ people that you might physically never work with.

00;20;19;07 - 00;20;32;05
Richard Clark
We've got to that stage so we can. We believe that you can just keep growing with the right people, the right locations, who themselves and an empowered and also trained to work in a more hybrid way. Yeah. Than the way we have been doing.

00;20;32;29 - 00;20;53;20
Phil Wedgwood
That's really interesting. Do you think as a sector, the legal profession has particular engagement challenges? You know, things that springs of our mind are the classic. You know, you've got the part in the hierarchy, you've got the classic fee in a non fee and a split and you've got the practice silos as well exist within most multi practice law firms.

00;20;53;20 - 00;20;58;18
Phil Wedgwood
Do you think those factors or others mean that that sector has a particular challenge?

00;20;59;01 - 00;21;24;14
Richard Clark
I think it does. I think I think it's easy to look at the the legal sector. We're in the legal sector, so we look at that in isolation. I think it's professional services as a piece where it's a very traditional structure that you talk to the hierarchies, you talked about partners and you combine an awful lot of it to the trust and what you believe people provides to the organizations, to their clients, whether you believe that doing the right thing.

00;21;24;15 - 00;21;49;26
Richard Clark
Yeah. So I think the industry has to look at itself and say we've got through COVID, we've in many way in many firms, that's an exceptionally well, that's an exception. Will not having people physically in office being managed, managing the hierarchy. Yeah. So surely the perfect time now is to look at why they've been so successful and go, well, actually it's because we have had to embrace new technology and we've had to trust people.

00;21;50;29 - 00;22;04;00
Richard Clark
But I think for a lot of firms, the challenge is not going back to how they used to be and I think that's what I think that's what's going on at the moment. I think there's an awful lot firms are going, we need to rebalance the office four days a week, five days, week to week just because just because.

00;22;04;00 - 00;22;26;08
Richard Clark
Oh, by the way, because you're not a lawyer, then you must be back in the office. Now, what does that say about you as organization that you talked about this sort of thing and the non funeral, which I think is a terrible phrase but it exists. Yeah, I personally can be categorized as a non fear, you know. Yeah, I'm a non lawyer, but why should I therefore be treated differently to it, to a lawyer?

00;22;26;08 - 00;22;48;20
Richard Clark
So organizations have had everybody working from home should really be thinking about how do we get it to work and how do we show that everybody's important to us because everybody has been important to firms going forward. We see that in the data success we've had throughout the whole pandemic has been people have relied on each other so we've been able to do so much because of the situation, because of the messaging we put out there.

00;22;48;21 - 00;23;06;10
Richard Clark
But ultimately, we know that people have leaned on each other just as they would in an office that doesn't remotely like I embrace that carry on with it. So industry wise, there's a lot of, I think need to question how they've been successful and to embrace it and not to just close the door and go back to how they were before because they haven't miss the opportunity.

00;23;06;15 - 00;23;36;28
Phil Wedgwood
Yeah. So I get it because last page yeah. So for many years we've seen engagement very much being boxed in I suppose traditionally as a, an HRC, we always like to engage with the wider exec with all of our prospects and clients because it's a much more holistic view of of that now. And I do think COVID has facilitated that change.

00;23;37;12 - 00;23;44;29
Phil Wedgwood
But how do you see it with CFT Law ways you feel engagement sets and how do you foster on a senior level.

00;23;47;00 - 00;24;13;15
Richard Clark
In my mind doesn't sit with Agile. It says, first of all, with the senior leadership group, and they cover multiple disciplines and if you look at our journey to get to where we are with the engage solution, your first conversation was with me. It wasn't with Agile I think you're right, John. You know, joint as business development and marketing joined us and communications joint.

00;24;13;15 - 00;24;29;26
Richard Clark
So we did all of those pieces, but it was about seeing the value of this and the difference it would make across the whole business. It can't be. It can't be all that. But I do respect this. I mean, some organizations that changes these types of changes have to be driven by agile but ultimately it can't then come from HRT.

00;24;29;27 - 00;25;04;11
Richard Clark
It's got to be coming from the senior group. And it's not only when it's implemented, it's got to then be owned and worked all the way through the time. The product solution is actually with people because the solution matters that everybody understands it and people then engage with it in the way that supports their area of work. So yeah, the whole way of people thinking this is way too low for me, just, yeah, it's that's the traditional way and it reinforced hierarchy.

00;25;04;17 - 00;25;05;07
Phil Wedgwood
Yeah, it does.

00;25;05;10 - 00;25;07;15
Richard Clark
Does it can't just come with it.

00;25;07;17 - 00;25;16;15
Phil Wedgwood
No, no. And I see the same with all of our successful clients. It's not in that way either. It's very much a team approach. Yeah. Not a division or a department.

00;25;16;15 - 00;25;17;29
Richard Clark
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

00;25;18;02 - 00;25;45;05
Phil Wedgwood
Yeah. And in terms of law firms and legal technologies, a lot of investment around seeing the tools to do the job and that's very much a big focus historically with with law firm I.T. investment. Do you think that tools like engage those very much around the more softer legal aspects as well as integrating some of the key systems would form a bigger part in that in that mix moving forward, given what we've talked about?

00;25;45;17 - 00;26;07;13
Richard Clark
I think massively. I mean, if you turn the clock back maybe ten, 15, maybe 20 years, law firms were moving from a paperless world and they're looking at case management systems still supporting what paper. And their big focus in the big investment was about the tools to enable them to deliver for their clients. I think the external environment has moved.

00;26;08;01 - 00;26;40;17
Richard Clark
The technology that people use in cases is kind of it's commodity now. It's just everybody has them people now realize that was the most important aspect of their business are actually their colleagues. If they're not realizing that, then they may be focusing on the client first and then the colleagues, but regardless, colleagues of the key parts of all of this, unless we need a system and a tool and an approach that make sure they're fully engaged they're trusted and they feel that they want to deliver for their clients and for the organization that part of.

00;26;40;17 - 00;27;00;09
Richard Clark
But it's part of the bigger picture I talked about very long. So from a technology piece, I think is now reached its time where it's a core component, just as I think organizations realize that having somebody from the Hedgehog Department on their board was a key step that's take place now. I think he's 20 years old and got a VM.

00;27;00;16 - 00;27;18;29
Richard Clark
It's a long journey, at least professionally, it tends to take a long time does. I think we've got that stage now with the sterling. I think COVID accelerates. That's because people don't realize how important is the time and focus on people within the business of making sure that they are able to be supportive before. Yeah. So yeah, I think the time's come.

00;27;19;12 - 00;27;42;17
Phil Wedgwood
We talk about 360 degree engagement here. And very much the, the colleague base is the cornerstone for that. But you know, is as much as a facilitating external engagement as it is internal which would bring us to a better, more modern, more inclusive way of fostering an engaged environment with your clients. Absolutely. Yeah. So do you do you agree with that?

00;27;42;17 - 00;27;45;03
Phil Wedgwood
Do you see that's the natural next step for something like this?

00;27;45;11 - 00;28;18;10
Richard Clark
So if I can answer this on the basis of I absolutely agree with you. I think that four years times have always be secondary to what the law has been trying to deliver, and there's been increasing demand for clients to actually have this. You talk about agency screen engagement. There's been increasing demand for that. And you've seen it very much in the conveyancing market and you seen it within the kind of the the will rising market, people wanting to wear their cases up to effectively not particularly property buying a house go to the days when you ring is listed for the Withings website and that's when you get the sentences to be engagement.

00;28;18;10 - 00;28;37;25
Richard Clark
You can really have a huge amount of success client feels positive what's happening. They can progress the transaction with you and the lawyer solicitor can feel that they know they can just keep the client updated at times if the client match. My earlier point about colleagues finding a time when they want to review what's happening in the business, it's no longer nine to five.

00;28;38;16 - 00;28;59;22
Richard Clark
And that means that those tools are absolutely essential now. And I think many organizations fail to embrace that type of technology. But the problem is you've got to look at it on a transaction to transaction level. So if you for example, buy a house, you want to know what's happening as you go along. Well, you could use technology for that and the client interacts with you, what's the house is bought and maybe some other transactions.

00;28;59;22 - 00;29;16;00
Richard Clark
And these take place, you you go from a will to, to, to other things. But then you look at a corporate transaction or you look at what we did, serious injury, the need to involve involve a client is different. So it's not a one size fits all. It's all but you need a platform that enables you to do that.

00;29;16;00 - 00;29;33;26
Richard Clark
Yeah. And then decide who you're engaging with. Are you engaging with an individual private clients you would in a conveyancing transaction or are you engaging with maybe the family members in our case, because unfortunately the person's been seriously injured. Is unable to actually interact with you. So you're engaging them something that's part of what we do is transaction.

00;29;33;26 - 00;30;03;17
Richard Clark
So how can you help? That's how we understand and how can help the family start to think about how their lives are going to change in the support they need to give their loved one who's been seriously injured. So it's not necessarily a transactional update in terms of the steps you go in through the transaction. It might be content content that they find to be relevant at a particular point in the cloud being what our clients can let go over two or three years and there's an appropriate time to provide the contents of you've got to get to the 360 degree relationship in a way.

00;30;03;17 - 00;30;06;05
Richard Clark
Yeah. And the technology platform should enable you to do that.

00;30;06;25 - 00;30;25;01
Phil Wedgwood
I think as for me, one of the things I look at when I see the legal sector is very matter driven and it doesn't facilitate isn't how you can have often that thinking or the system capability to foster a client lifecycle view it's very transactional, very material. Yes. And that's one of the challenges I think that's for your sector.

00;30;26;00 - 00;30;45;04
Richard Clark
I think is huge. I mean, a colleague I work was always talks about the Amazon experience and if you think of what happens within Amazon, all of us certainly I am definitely amazed at how it works, you know, and how I know exactly what's going on during that purchase of something is it can be simplicity complex, but I know what's going on.

00;30;46;01 - 00;31;05;15
Richard Clark
And then for some reason this industry doesn't seem to think that method of keeping people updated applies to them. Yet many of our legal transactions are just transactions. So why shouldn't you keep your client updated emotionally? They know what's going on because the more they are informed of what's happening, the less likely they are going to be making contact with you because they know what's going on.

00;31;05;15 - 00;31;28;00
Richard Clark
So there's a Win-Win both ways and if you look at areas where the Law Society is constantly set for more than a decade, the biggest complaint is lack of communication. Comes at times. And again, you can make a big change in your organization just by thinking from the client's point of view on what they need rather than from your own lawyer driven perspective.

00;31;28;16 - 00;31;30;18
Richard Clark
We've got to get to that place. Definitely.

00;31;30;21 - 00;31;38;14
Phil Wedgwood
And that's fantastic to hear. And Richard, it's been a pleasure talking with you, and thank you for sharing your engagement insights with us today.

00;31;38;25 - 00;31;39;06
Richard Clark
Thanks so.