Legal Transformation

Hydrogen has been working in In-House and Private Practice Legal markets for over 20 years and diversifying our services to support the emerging Transformation market was a natural extension, especially as few consultancies provide niche Legal Operations and Transformation talent globally. These are relatively new professions, created in response to the demand across the industry for increased productivity and process improvement. The candidate pools are limited, so being creative and providing new talent pipelines from other industries has enabled us to support clients in an under-supported supplier market. We also hold regular industry forums for our clients and candidates to share ideas and insights that will help promote these new professions.

Technology adoption; COVID-19; alternative providers; as well as more demanding clients have all enforced significant change on the Legal industry. As firms adapt, the competition for the best talent and niche skills has increased, leading to a shortage, and more importantly a climate where it's tougher to win work. Legal clients are asking specifics on what firms are doing to improve their delivery model, while In-House teams are being scrutinised for their ability to deliver value, and these skillsets all contribute to consistency and efficiency in Legal Services delivery.

It is an exciting time to be a contributor to one of the oldest professions as it moves through its journey of transformation. We are helping change the face of how Legal departments and Law firms operate, freeing up lawyers to focus on more strategic application of their skills. We create regional talent pools and develop our networks of the relevant skillsets to provide our clients with flexible resourcing models and top candidates.

Key features:

• A dedicated team to manage your whole event, from the planning phase through to getting the right talent to attend and organising an appropriate venue

• Events can be as formal or informal as you like, whilst putting a strong brand message into the market

• Post event report including lists of all candidates who registered, attended and engaged with your brand

Why you’ll love it:

• Meet new talent, strengthen relationships and market your services

• A formative and personal way to network with prospective hires

• Gives you an edge on your competitors

​Key features:

• We source and secure high calibre talent using innovative, customised search methods

• On-off flexibility to suit your needs

• We can deliver a “full package” from resourcing high-quality candidate to contactor care and compliance

• Ongoing brand awareness campaigns via our headhunting schemes

• Weekly or bi-weekly meetings to discuss progress, candidates, and feedback

Why you’ll love it:

• We can accommodate the differing needs of your business over time

• Long term support and advice on your talent management strategy

• Easier to compare the quality of candidates across the market, so you can make more informed decisions

• Option to request a search for a specific role or to be kept regularly informed of relevant people becoming available in your market

• No commitment to hire unless you really like a candidate

​Key features:

• One specialist point of contact at Hydrogen

• Using innovative, customised search methods, we source and secure the market’s best talent

• Searches conducted by a consultant and dedicated research team, to ensure a thorough search and all relevant candidates in the market are spoken to

• Weekly updates on the search

• Flexible rates depending on the role requirements

Why you’ll love it:

• Save time having to manage different agencies and numerous points of contact

• More control over your brand message in the market as candidates don’t get approached multiple times for the same role

• Receive better quality candidates for the role, as we’re not simply in a race to find the best people, which is often detrimental to the thoroughness and quality of a search

• More cost effective than a non-exclusive solution

Key features:

• Fully bespoke from a location, skill set and seniority perspective

• Our dedicated research function will provide lists of active and passive candidate communities within a specific market

• We can also provide current market trends, competitor analysis and brand perception surveys

• Proactive and organic for quick access and use

Why you’ll love it:

• Better awareness of the candidate pools available in your market

• Increased awareness of your employer brand to help you stand out from the crowd

• Benchmark your talent strategy against the most effective in the market

• Successfully headhunt direct competition to your business

• Arms you with the information you need to make a business case on your talent requirements

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Key features:

• More cost-effective end-to-end solutions, compared to bigger consultancies, because we have direct access to the talent

• Our pool of trusted advisors, Delivery Assurance Directors (DADs), ensure every part of your project is optimised to ensure success

• Dedicated project delivery team

• On-going administration and compliance management

• Regular progress review meetings

• Project off-boarding and IP transfer

Why you’ll love it:

• Direct access to the best talent in the market, built up over 20 years

• Average savings of 36% against leading consultancies

• A completely personalised solution for your unique needs

• A scalable solution that's swift to implement, so you can ramp up and down quickly

• Guaranteed knowledge transfers to you can maintain BAU

• On-site dedicated service and programme management led by industry-leading specialists (DADs)

​Key features:

• You have one specialist point of contact at Hydrogen

• Using innovative, customised search methods, we source and secure the market’s best talent

• Searches conducted by a consultant and dedicated research team, to ensure a thorough search and all relevant candidates in the market are spoken to

• Weekly updates on your search

• Option to conduct market mapping and report on your brand perception in the market

• Staggered pricing solutions, in line with different hiring phases

Why you’ll love it:

• You gain preferred access to the best pools of active and passive candidates in your market

• Working exclusively with us, we will control your message in the market and promote your brand successfully

• We’ll work to tighter deadlines due to the increased resources that can be committed to the search

• Ability to spread the cost across a number of weeks or months

The challenge:

This Senior Aviation Partner was challenged with turning a loss-making, for low volume client work, into a profit centre for high volume work (from 10 claims per month to c1000 per week). Flight Delays (Claim 261) – this was low skilled work, with a fixed fee per claim. There was a small volume of claims being managed end-to-end by lawyers that was seeing no profit and was impacting the morale of lawyers, due to the nature of work being very transactional.

Our solution:

Utilising matter analysis, process mapping, planning and commercial analysis:

• We detailed the step-by-step process

• We challenged the assignment of work: work allocation, Legal Administration Team, Lawyers – top and tail

• We helped to reassign and restructure the team

The outcome:

• Increased turnover

• Created transactional workflow

• Huge profit by claim

• Profit – c£1.8m/year

• Improved team morale

• Transactional Service successfully offered to other airlines

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The challenge:

The Senior Energy Partner at this firm was challenged to reduce costs whilst increasing profit. A key part of this included restructuring the team – downward delegation, allocation of work to highest profit team members, transparency of matter activities and closer client engagement fulfilled client and partner aspirations. The client requested transparency, engagement, and a fixed price solution.

Our solution:

We delivered a Statement of Work, at a fixed price of £10m, across a 12-month period. We estimated that it would see a profit of circa £1m. Utilising matter analysis, planning and commercial analysis:

• We detailed the multi-stage process

• We challenged the assignment of work: capability, profit vs. revenue, appropriate delegation

• We reassigned & restructured the team

The outcome:

• Increased client satisfaction

• Reduced fixed price – from £10m down to £9m

• Estimated profit – c£3m

• Improved team morale

• The Partner saved more time they could spend on BD

• Additional cases offered by their client

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The challenge:

This national full-service law firm is highly successful and profitable. Yet they are fully aware that being good lawyers, even with strong client relationships, is not sufficient to stay relevant and competitive. They needed to drive new ways of working and change through the more traditional legal practices, a tricky but essential challenge. To achieve this, the Managing Partner asked us to undertake a Legal Innovation and Service Delivery review to identify opportunities for the firm to remain competitive and relevant in the changing legal industry.

Our solution:

Our goal was to identify the limited number of investments and improvements that would make the greatest tangible difference, to improve the business, enhance competitiveness in the market, and engage clients and staff alike. We did this by:

• Conducting a series of interviews with partners, associates, and service directors from across the firm to ascertain views on the current delivery of innovation and legal services

• Carrying out more in-depth investigations and fact-finding across the legal teams

• Comprehensively reviewing legal technology and legal service delivery capabilities

• Diving deeper into wider innovation and change across the firm, through interviews with IT, legal teams and service functions

• Combining our findings with our market knowledge and comparing this firm to its competitors

The outcome:

• Greater awareness of the market, and ability to assess the opportunities

• A team of legal innovation and service delivery professionals to encourage and support change within the legal teams

• Defined client-driven change initiatives within specific legal teams

• A paralegal delivery centre to champion technology adoption and effective delivery of repeatable work

• Stronger investment and innovation governance and prioritisation to reduce the number of fragmented initiatives and maximise value creation