A partner-owned law firm with 400+ employees had set new priorities to regain its position as the leader in the national legal market. The aim was to do this by providing more integrated services to its clients.

The new priorities were therefore focused on improved internal cross-collaboration. The key barrier, however, was that the culture for internal cross-collaboration was lacking.

The law firm asked Innovisor to reveal the internal collaboration networks and to advise where and how they could exploit synergies between the different expertise groups.

Three key findings in the internal collaboration networks

Innovisor identified three key findings that the law firm needed to work on:

1. Expertise was a barrier
It turned out that collaboration only took place within own expertise groups. The below visual of the collaboration network clearly showed that the five expertise groups were working as silos – with limited collaboration.

2. RISK! Only four partners collaborated across
These four partners who were the only role models in working across were also the ones with a high tenure. This meant that if they would retire, the law firm would be left siloed

3. POTENTIAL! Non-partners could mitigate the risk
The law firm had unrealized potential. The network data showed that internal collaboration could be improved by only eight non-partners. They were the people who were not yet connected but could give access to large parts of the expertise groups. The potential could, therefore, be realized by connecting them through integrated service offerings.

What actions were taken?

The law firm revitalized the collaboration culture by focusing on business development on integrated services. For this, the law firm made sure that this was driven by the eight non-partners. This not only strengthened the ability to win in the market with integrative services. It also eliminated the collaboration risk.

Four years later, the law firm had regained its position as the most profitable and fastest growing law firm. They managed to realize the untapped potential in integrating services through cross-collaboration across its expertise areas.