On this episode of The Geek in Review, Anusia Gillespie, the US Head of Innovation at Eversheds Sutherland, sits down with us this week to discuss what she refers to as the “New Big Law” market’s inverted approach to innovation. In a market filled with problem solvers, sometimes the innovation we create solves a problem first, and then sets out to find the problem for this solution. Gillespie finds that innovation is disciplined and structured in its approach, but broad and creative in its thinking. Innovation definitely doesn’t live in any one discipline. Innovative solutions might require technology expertise, but it could just as well only require professional development expertise or strict legal expertise. She’s convinced that we need to move away from this type of anchoring bias to ensure that, in this time of rebuilding law into New Big Law, legal innovators finally design and implement correct and smart solutions. With the various professionals needed to identify problems, and create solutions, you need leadership, structure, a bit of fun mixed in, and a champion-forward approach. We dive into issues ranging from an overview of how Eversheds defines innovation to case studies of Gillespie’s publication on smart solutions for lateral recruitment and lateral onboarding.Listen on mobile platforms: 
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Transcript
[00:00:00] Marlene Gebauer: Of course.
[00:00:02] Greg Lambert: Is that you?
[00:00:05] Marlene Gebauer: No, that’s you.
[00:00:06] Greg Lambert: Hang on. I think my car is still there. Good. Welcome to the Geek in Review, the podcast designed to cover the legal information profession with a slant toward technology and management.
[00:00:24] Marlene Gebauer: I’m Marlene Gebauer.
[00:00:25] Greg Lambert: And I’m Greg Lambert.
[00:00:30] Marlene Gebauer: This week’s interview on the Geek in Review is with Anusia Gillespie, the U.S. head of innovation at Evershed Sutherland. We tackle a number of issues ranging from defining what innovation means, at least at her firm, to finding ways of designing processes to solve actual problems rather than creating a solution-first approach, all the way to innovative methods of improving lateral hiring and integration. And Marlene, I’m definitely smarter after having talked with her.
[00:00:56] Greg Lambert: Yeah, I think we both are. It was an excellent, excellent interview and there are tons of takeaways. So I can’t wait for everybody to hear it.
[00:01:05] Marlene Gebauer: Yes, there are. But before we get started, I did want to send out our best wishes and thoughts to Dr. Yvonne Chandler from the University of North Texas Library School. She is recovering from a stroke and we hope that she has a safe and speedy recovery. As you may recall, Dr. Chandler and I teamed up a couple of weeks ago when we were in D.C. for AALL’s Day on the Hill and we had a really great time talking with all the Texas officials that we met. So I wish her and her family the best.
[00:01:33] Greg Lambert: Yeah, I also wish her and her family all the best and I hope things, I hope she recovers soon.
[00:01:39] Marlene Gebauer: And now on to this week’s information. inspirations. So Marlene, we mentioned last week that the folks from Legal Talk Network were at the American Association of Law Libraries’ annual conference in Washington, D.C. And I did an interview with Femi Cadmus, the past president of AALL, but we weren’t the only interviews that they conducted at the conference.
[00:02:07] Greg Lambert: Yeah, they did a whole series, right?
[00:02:11] Marlene Gebauer: They did. I think there was probably five, I believe. So I highly recommend that our listeners go to their favorite platform and look up Legal Talk Networks on the Road series and subscribe. And of course, that’s right after you go and subscribe to the Geek and Review on your favorite podcast platform. So again, I think there were five different episodes from AALL members, and that includes Diana Copang, Gene O’Grady, Steve Lastris, Catherine Monty. And there were other innovators like Dean Sonnenregger, Gabe Tennenbaum, and others. So it’s a really great series. And for those of you who are engaged in other associations or conferences, this type of interviewing of key players in your association is a great way to get your message out there and exposure for those thought leaders.
[00:02:56] Greg Lambert: Yeah, my only criticism is I think they copied the feel of our music, Greg.
[00:03:03] Marlene Gebauer: They do, but I think they’ve had that music longer than we had our music.
[00:03:08] Greg Lambert: Oh, maybe we copied off of them.
[00:03:12] Marlene Gebauer: It’s just a coincidence, yes.
[00:03:15] Greg Lambert: Yes, it is. It just kind of has a Texas feel to it. So Greg, my kids don’t want to be lawyers.
[00:03:20] Marlene Gebauer: Mine don’t either.
[00:03:23] Greg Lambert: Yeah, well, we’re not alone either. Uh, James Goodnow, the managing partner at a Phoenix-based law firm, Fenmore Craig, writes that while being a lawyer was something that was in his blood at a young age, that trait apparently wasn’t passed down to his children, who are the ripe old age of five and seven.
[00:03:43] Marlene Gebauer: Well, I knew what I wanted to be at five and seven.
[00:03:46] Greg Lambert: Yeah, what was that?
[00:03:47] Marlene Gebauer: Probably an astronaut.
[00:03:49] Greg Lambert: Yeah, that sounds about right. So we talk a little bit about people who are in the practice of law and how they are dealing with their kids in terms of what they do. And I have to admit, I’m one of those people who have been pretty honest with my kids about the cons of practicing law. I feel a little guilty after our conversation, but I do.
[00:04:14] Marlene Gebauer: Yeah, well, I will tell you this. I never wanted to be what my parents were, so I’m not totally surprised by this. But there is a segment in our interview with Anusha where she talks about what level of lawyering people want to be that are in law school. I think those traits of being the managing partner haven’t passed down either.
[00:04:35] Greg Lambert: Yeah, agreed.
[00:04:37] Marlene Gebauer: Well, we need to get James Goodnow on the show. So he does a lot of good articles in Above the Law.
[00:04:44] Greg Lambert: James, you’re on notice.
[00:04:48] Marlene Gebauer: Yes, you are. My second information inspiration. is an interview with one of our fellow three geeks writers Ryan McLean and And Ryan doesn’t really seem to pull any punches in this one.
[00:05:02] Greg Lambert: Does Ryan ever pull any punches?
[00:05:04] Marlene Gebauer: No, he doesn’t know what that means. He discusses law firms who are creating these subsidiaries to produce innovative ideas. to produce innovative ideas. Let me read a couple of sentences for you, Marlene.
[00:05:16] Greg Lambert: Okay.
[00:05:17] Marlene Gebauer: From the interview.
[00:05:18] Greg Lambert: Okay.
[00:05:19] Marlene Gebauer: He starts off with this. There has been a proliferation of law firms announcing subsidiary innovation programs, and I’m not convinced that any one of them is doing it well. So that’s coming out of the gate. So that’s coming out of the gate. So then he goes on to say that I have yet to see any of these programs that are outside of the firm move any of their innovations back inside the firm.
[00:05:47] Greg Lambert: Okay.
[00:05:48] Marlene Gebauer: So it doesn’t get any better. I think what he is saying is, and actually it dovetails nicely with our interview with Anusha. Anusha is part of an internal innovations team. And Ryan seems to think that these types of structures, despite all the politics and roadblocks that law firms seem to always throw up when it comes to innovation, that these types are more successful. They may not be splashy or newsworthy, but they’re more productive when it comes to actually putting innovation into practice.
[00:06:22] Greg Lambert: Well, I haven’t heard sort of the responses to the article, but I’m really looking forward to hearing that discussion.
[00:06:29] Marlene Gebauer: You and me both.
[00:06:31] Greg Lambert: So in the last week or so, there’s been quite a lot of buzz about #failure camp, which happened last weekend and is run by Professor Caitlin Cat Moon at Vanderbilt. And Cat’s been on our program before. And Failure Camp is the latest installation of SOLI, or the Summit on Law and Innovation. The premise of the summit was to explore how we as humans approach failure and its role in the legal information process. If you follow #failurecamp on Twitter, you can get a sense of what people were sharing. I know based on what I saw, it reminded me strongly of some of the themes that we touched upon in my voiceover classes. Lots of people talked about how the inner critic would derail them. So it was a good reminder for me to let that negativity go in my work process. And registrants got t-shirts.
[00:07:28] Marlene Gebauer: T-shirts. I like t-shirts.
[00:07:30] Greg Lambert: I know. I totally want this cool t-shirt. And I want to mention to our listeners, as Greg has just hinted at, Greg and I are both cool t-shirt junkies. We both love them and we both have way too many. So hint, hint, Kat. All right, and I got one more and it’s nerd alert, so be aware, Greg. Do you know what the study of games is called?
[00:07:55] Marlene Gebauer: I do not.
[00:07:57] Greg Lambert: Ludology.
[00:07:59] Marlene Gebauer: Ludology.
[00:08:00] Greg Lambert: Ludology. So there’s some trivia for you.
[00:08:03] Marlene Gebauer: All right.
[00:08:04] Greg Lambert: And mathematicians, computer scientists, and sociologists are really quite interested in this area of study, particularly ancient games. The goal is to better understand ancient games, their role in society, and how they fit into the evolutionary tree of games we play today. The study is called, let’s see if I get this right, archaeoludology.
[00:08:26] Marlene Gebauer: That’s easy for you to say.
[00:08:29] Greg Lambert: No, it isn’t. And researchers are really excited because the new techniques of machine learning and artificial intelligence and data mining provide a new way to study the evolution of ancient games and what that means for us. So I figure, you know, if this law thing doesn’t work out, you know, maybe this is a backup plan. And that wraps up this week’s.
[00:08:51] Marlene Gebauer: Wait a minute, wait, I want to add something in. Well, Marlene, since you threw in a little extra nerd effect there.
[00:09:01] Greg Lambert: You can’t let me have three and you have two, right?
[00:09:04] Marlene Gebauer: Well, that reminded me, I was listening to a podcast called The Nod, which is on Gimlet. And this week’s was about the video game console. Do you remember the cartridges?
[00:09:18] Greg Lambert: Oh, yes. No, I don’t remember that.
[00:09:23] Marlene Gebauer: That’s before your time, right? They have a story where they talk about a guy named Jerry Lawson who actually created the cartridges back in the 70s. Who actually created? The cartridges back in the 70s. And it’s really, really interesting. It’s very nerdy, but it’s interesting. So I’ll make sure that I put a link out there for that show as well.
[00:09:44] Greg Lambert: Yes, please do. And Greg, that wraps up this week’s information, inspirations.
[00:09:54] Marlene Gebauer: One of the things with working in the legal industry is that we are surrounded by very intelligent people who really know how to solve problems. So much so, Marlene, that they can create problem solutions without even knowing the problems. And that in and of itself can be a problem.
[00:10:14] Greg Lambert: Yeah, it can.
[00:10:16] Marlene Gebauer: So Evershed Sutherland’s Anusha Gillespie is going to help us understand why it is really important to understand the problem first and then coordinate with all of your resources to correct that problem.
[00:10:27] Greg Lambert: All right, let’s dive in. Anusha Gillespie is the US Head of Innovation at Evershed Sutherland and is based out of Atlanta. Over the years, Anusha has worked to move innovation out of the subculture of legal industry and into the mainstream. But she has her own unique vision of how innovation, technology, and operations need to be positioned for long-term success. Anusha, welcome to The Geek in Review.
[00:10:55] Anusia Gillespie: Thank you for having me.
[00:10:57] Marlene Gebauer: You have quite a background, which has led you to where you are today. See, you have a joint JD MBA from Boston College, as well as working at a regional firm. You are a founding consultant and you’ve got 18 plus months at Harvard’s Law Executive Education Program. And you’ve been at Eversheds for a little over a year, and you’ve been working on improvements there. Before we start, I threw this question in at the last minute, and it’s a simple question, which means it’s not. Can you define what innovation means for a law firm?
[00:11:34] Anusia Gillespie: I can define what innovation means for my law firm, Evershed Sutherland. It’s actually the first thing I did when I got here. I went around on a listening tour and when I said the word innovation, people immediately anchored to different software and technologies. And I said, all right, we need to back up and reframe this. And so our globally confirmed definition is focused and creative change in service to our clients. Which is deliberately broad in scope and client-oriented, broad in scope to give us space for creativity. in coming up with new solutions and client-oriented because we really want to focus on the innovation gap between what clients are asking for and then what they’re experiencing from their law firm.
[00:12:20] Marlene Gebauer: Yeah, the reason I asked is I actually used the word innovation in a meeting yesterday, which included the managing partner from my firm. And everyone had a different approach to it. So I wanted to get that right out the gate so that we can all be on the same page here.
[00:12:36] Anusia Gillespie: I’m really glad I had an answer to it right off the top of my head.
[00:12:38] Greg Lambert: Yeah. We like to keep you on your toes. It’s like I don’t know what it is about terms like innovation or knowledge management. It’s like everybody seems to have a different definition for what it is. Anusha, what would you say your personal mission is when it comes to approaching innovation in the legal market?
[00:12:55] Anusia Gillespie: So that’s a big question and has been building for a long time, but it’s ultimately the theme of kind of what’s driven me to law and to this stage now. It’s really my mission to make law an attractive industry again for talent. I think it’s a really exciting profession. And just how it’s built up, unfortunately, it’s not an attractive market for talent right now. I think it’s sad that we have a subculture of recovering lawyers of leaving law, and I don’t think that it needs to be that way. I also think it’s sad that there was a study out that I should have brought up before this to get the exact number, but if you ask attorneys if they want their child to go to law school, they say no. I think that’s really unfortunate, and law is so important to our culture and government, of course, and communities. And so I just think that it’s time to make law attractive again. So the future that I see and kind of what drives me and my mission is figuring out how to put people to their highest and best use in law so that we can start re- energizing law and getting more talent attracted to the industry. And to make that happen, we really need to have walls come down, stigmas removed, and minds opened.
[00:14:06] Greg Lambert: We really need to have walls come down, stigmas removed.
[00:14:10] Anusia Gillespie: Not all lawyers want to be big law partners. I was speaking to a general counsel recently who adjuncts at Cornell Law, and he asked the class, how many of you want to be big law partners? And no one raised their hand, and that’s pretty stark.
[00:14:30] Greg Lambert: So that’s pretty surprising.
[00:14:32] Anusia Gillespie: Yes, and but that scares me because we’re going to lose that talent. They’re going to go maybe come in for a few years and pay off their debts and then go somewhere else. I think that there’s a real opportunity to change what we’re doing, change the way we’re working, break down traditional tracks and walls and capture that talent and put them to their highest and best use in the legal profession.
[00:14:56] Greg Lambert: And so that’s why for me, innovation provides that opportunity for people to find their best fit in law. I’m curious, did they say what they wanted to do, the students?
[00:15:05] Anusia Gillespie: I didn’t ask that follow-up question. I think I was a little surprised and in shock by the initial answer, but that would be good to go follow up. I do know that I’ve spoken a lot with, just because of my ties to Harvard Law School Executive Education, Scott Westfall teaches innovation and problem- solving workshops at Harvard. And so people go and talk to him a lot about their careers going forward, and there’s a lot of interest. They want to go work at the business school for their summer internships. They want to go work at McKinsey. They want to get involved with technology and so they’re proactively trying to seek other ways to get involved and kind of build businesses before going out into the world so that they can position themselves to work in that gray area.
[00:15:48] Marlene Gebauer: Yeah, it sounds like there’s some really good alternatives out there that students are seeing. I’m just curious to follow up on this one more time. Are any of you seeing that with fall associates when they come in, or over the past few years, that there’s not a big desire to go up to the ranks to become an equity partner at the firm?
[00:16:11] Anusia Gillespie: Unfortunately, everyone’s going to say that they want to be equity partner at the firm. We don’t– Yes, that is my life’s dream. Not just Sutherland, but in the legal profession, don’t have that openness and psychological safety to say, actually, this is what I want to do or that’s what I want to do. The culture is everywhere. It’s still, I have to say, I want to be a big law partner or they’re not going to hire me.
[00:16:35] Marlene Gebauer: Right. So the answer is situational.
[00:16:38] Anusia Gillespie: Correct.
[00:16:40] Marlene Gebauer: What are you seeing as some of the common mistakes that the legal industry does when it comes to technology or innovation or even on basic things like basic processes?
[00:16:51] Anusia Gillespie: Well, to tie back to your initial question, not coming to an initial understanding and definition of innovation and what we’re talking about in the first place, it’s kind of foundational. But more specifically, I think everyone knows about, you know, you buy a software product or something and then figure out the use case. Area where we fall down and and it. Guilt guilty. Guilty, yeah, and then it stays on the shelf, and then people get up in arms. That’s just, that’s not a great thing to do for me in my world. The biggest mistake, or not mistake, it’s really just a learning process, is around the natural lawyer tendency, which, you know, kind of bleeds throughout the firm, just the tendency to find a solution immediately without thinking about and defining the problem, and then thinking creatively about what we could do. And I saw this in action, and it was so much fun at Harvard Law School in the executive education programs. When we would do the design thinking sessions of the program because the attendees who are partners, senior partners, or very senior in-house counsel would have the solution to a business of law problem in five minutes, have it done, you know. And it’s, I think that the tendency, my theory is that, you know, lawyers are in a solution business, yes, but they’ve also been trained on all of the logic trees in their particular expertise. So when someone asks a legal question, they’ve already internalized the logic tree that they can jump to the answer. They don’t have to go through every step of that. But then that framework is picked up and applied to business of law questions where they don’t necessarily have the requisite expertise. And so it’s jumping the solution without going through all of that logic tree. And so that’s my personal theory with with no evidence other than what I’ve experienced. In the room and I think that solution first answers are really a place where people fall down down, but also a great opportunity for improvement. And along with that is poor solution design, simply because people haven’t spent the time to create good solutions. I spoke with IDEO a few weeks ago, and I think it’s probably one of their common sayings. It was the first time I heard it, where the GC said, you know, we have a saying in IDEO that everything is designed, if you think about it, just not everything is designed well. And I really liked that explanation. And I think that’s kind of what’s happened in law is on the business side, things have built and maybe been designed poorly. And now there’s an opportunity to come in and get better in our design and solution building and implementation.
[00:19:26] Marlene Gebauer: Yeah, it’s the old we’ve we’ve created a solution. Now we’re going to go search for the problem.
[00:19:31] Greg Lambert: Correct. So, Anusha, why do you think the industry insists on the focus of tech and operations and labeling that innovation? I mean, we see that in the news all the time, and we see that at conferences all the time. How do we inform people better that it’s really broader than that?
[00:19:52] Anusia Gillespie: So I have some theories on the first part of that question. I do not have an answer for you on how do we inform people better. I’m trying to figure that part out.
[00:20:03] Greg Lambert: I was really hoping.
[00:20:05] Anusia Gillespie: No, not yet. I am thinking about it though, and I think that it though and I think that opportunities like coming on this podcast and people like yourselves and exploring some of different people’s theories and broadcasting them to your interested followers is definitely a step in the right direction. So I thank you for that. You probably have the answer on the communications front better than I do. But in terms of my theory of why do I think the industry insists on the focus of technology and operations and kind of just slapping that as innovation is twofold. So number one, it is true that technology has driven innovation. It’s not synonymous with innovation. It’s not necessary for innovation, not sufficient for innovation, but technology advancements and mostly software advances have been driving innovation. And especially over the past few years, it’s been building for a long time. So it’s been anchoring people to technology for a long time. So just as we went from mainframes in the 50s to laptops to businesses that are now built on the platform of iPhones, like Uber would not have existed probably without an iPhone because you need to have it in your hand in order for that to work. We’ve gone from floppy disks in the 60s for document review to CDs to thumb drives and virtual data rooms to Kira and other AI enabled software so that businesses that are now built using those new software capabilities. So Riverview Law and other legal service subsidiaries, they’re all the infrastructure was enabled because of software advances mostly that have happened over the past 70 years.
[00:21:41] Marlene Gebauer: I’ll insert real quickly that I was working on mainframes in the 90s.
[00:21:49] Greg Lambert: And I was using floppy disks well after the 60s.
[00:21:54] Anusia Gillespie: Well, yeah, but that’s true too. So they became available in the 60s, but we’re still using them 30 years later. them 30 years later. That’s the lag of innovation or software advancements of when they’re available. and then when we’re actually using it. So that lag too exists in, I mean surprise, surprise, exists in the legal profession as well. We’re lagging? Yeah, exactly. Oh, didn’t know that. That was David Westfall’s favorite saying. He would always end the class with, you know, we’re a lagging, not a leading profession and I’d like to change that. That’s, in my opinion, one reason why technology and the resulting competition has been getting all of the spotlight. And number two reason, the second part of that is anchoring bias. So the cognitive bias where people rely really heavily on the first piece of information. This is always taught in negotiation classes that you want to, you know, aim high and set your initial negotiation price high if that’s in your favor because people are then anchored to that as the basis for the negotiation and you’re not going to veer too far from that. In law firms, the first adoption of anything deemed innovative was new software. And in-house, it was more focused on operations because there weren’t necessarily the software budgets that they had, the people to cut costs. That’s kind of where innovation grew up on the two sides, on law firms and in-house. And so I think the industry is now anchored to these two terms. But the funny part to me is that this goes back to what I was talking about before of the common mistake in innovation and law is that that’s a very solution-forward That’s saying that software is the answer or operations is the answer instead of stepping back and thinking more holistically and creatively about it. Innovation doesn’t have to live in any one discipline, I work and capture innovations from across the firm. I mean, I just was speaking with pricing about an innovation that they’re doing in their department this year going forward. So it doesn’t need to be, it doesn’t need to live in technology or operations. I’m convinced that we need to move away from this anchoring bias to ensure that as we rebuild into new law, we’re finally designing and implementing the right solutions instead of just a solution.
[00:24:10] Marlene Gebauer: So in researching for this conversation that we’re having, I noticed that you talk about a three-pronged or I guess maybe three categorizations approach of what you call the new law market. Can you tell us what you mean by the new law market?
[00:24:27] Anusia Gillespie: Yeah, absolutely. And I guess I should really, I should be more specific in my language and say the new big law market because I’m not including people law in this framework. This is my framework for my world. So here’s how I see it. We know that general counsel spend increasingly more time on strategy and business and management challenges. And a general counsel I spoke to recently said he spent 10% of his time on complex thorny legal issues like the arena of traditional big law firm advice and the other 90% of his time on business and management issues. And breaking that out further, I see there’s kind of three segments of service to provide to these kinds of general counsel. I think 10% is a bit of extreme on the amount of legal advice, but so let’s say it’s more like 15% premier legal advice, which is available. Just, you know, I have a problem. I need my law firm. This is traditional legal service and advice. And then there’s about 75% blue ocean for proactive services. And then the third segmentation is high volume legal services in the realm of alternative legal service providers. And there are ways to innovate in all three of these segments, but the ways to do so are going to be different and require different types of talent. In the premier legal advice segment of that market, I think T-shaped lawyers are going to drive or are driving those kinds of innovation. And I don’t see that as changing because you need to be highly trained and expert in law to develop the Wachtell poison pill. That’s that arena of innovation. The second segment of the blend of this is my home is the blend of multidisciplinary professionals and proactively going to clients and saying, how else can we help you? How else can we service you? Then the third tier, that’s where the alternative legal service providers are predominant. And I see project managers, software development operations, staffing professionals as necessary to that function. So that’s in my world how it breaks out into this three market segmentation of new big law.
[00:26:44] Greg Lambert: Just to make sure, can you explain for our listeners what you mean by T-shaped lawyers?
[00:26:50] Anusia Gillespie: Yes. A T-shaped lawyer has deep, deep, deep legal expertise and sophistication, but also has enough awareness, knowledge, and really substantive appreciation for what people do and what other disciplines are. They know what a marketing person does and they understand their value. They know what pricing does and understands that value. And it’s not some ambiguous concept. The broader that T is, the more substantive they are in other areas. But I act as translator a lot among lawyers in various departments.
[00:27:30] Greg Lambert: Yeah, I’m wondering if that role of translator is something that is going to be very important, at least in the short term, as we try and move the needle in this space.
[00:27:43] Anusia Gillespie: Yes, and I wouldn’t be upset, though, if that was a piece that phased out of my position.
[00:27:49] Marlene Gebauer: The image that came into my head on T-shaped lawyers was the Rapinoe pose.
[00:27:57] Anusia Gillespie: I like that even better.
[00:28:01] Greg Lambert: That’s a good one.
[00:28:03] Marlene Gebauer: That’s what I want to see. I want to see lawyers that have a great idea walk out.
[00:28:07] Greg Lambert: Power pose.
[00:28:09] Marlene Gebauer: Yeah, yeah. Exactly. So there are a lot of really smart and talented people in these three segments that you’re talking about. And if anyone has listened to this podcast before, they’ve probably heard me say, you know, all problems are communication problems. How in the world do you have these folks work together, all these moving pieces, how do you get them to communicate and keep focused on the desired results?
[00:28:43] Anusia Gillespie: So, it’s a challenge. But there are four things that I found really help. Number one is leadership. I’m fortunate I work directly with Mark Wasserman, who’s the U.S. CEO. And he’s kept me on the right path forward. I propose a lot of ideas. Some are good. Some are not great. But the ones that would have really kind of derailed me and not kept all the pieces moving in the right direction, to steer me back on the right path. Having that kind of check and balance has been really helpful. Along with that is structure. I do report directly to Mark and that’s engendered engagement and trust at the outset. So I don’t have to do a lot of communicating and convincing at the outset to make sure people are on board and get it and moving in the right direction. So that’s been really helpful. And our structure as well in terms of where I’m aligned. So as I alluded to earlier, I’m really focused on segments one and two. So working with our lawyers to innovate their legal advice that they provide and make sure that we’re thinking differently. and being creative in actual the legal expertise that we’re providing. And then segment two. Where proactive client services and offering other kinds of legal partnership on strategy management, better data analysis, whatever the priority is for the GC going forward. And then I’m at number three, the alternative legal service provider, which we have Connexo is not in my purview, which makes a lot of sense given the different talent that is required in those different segments. And so to your question of how to keep everything moving in the right direction, that alignment is separation, but alignment at the same time, because markets and segments one and two, the talent is similar. It’s very client facing and client feedback and listening oriented. Whereas segment three, the alternative legal service providers, clients don’t want to think about that. They just want to give you the high volume work and have you take care of it. So it’s a different skill set that we talk about and offer. But that structure has been really helpful to keep everyone focused on what they need to be doing. Number three, the stuff I’m working on is really fun. People really like to do new things, kind of get out of their day to day, especially as we see progress and success. People continue to communicate proactively and stay engaged. And number four, I kind of make sure that I always find a champion, whether it’s a client or a partner. And I’ve learned the hard way. And now I’ve put this approach in because I did have a project with a partner champion and it was an eight month project. And four months in, I realized I had the wrong partner champion, that it was actually a project we were working on.
[00:31:46] Greg Lambert: Yeah, that was someone else’s baby and that I was expected to get that person on board.
[00:31:51] Anusia Gillespie: And it’s just in the middle of something I really didn’t want to be in the middle of. So I’m really specific now about the partner or client champions or who the point of contact would be within the client so we don’t go down the wrong path and then find out that that person didn’t necessarily have authority to do that. That’s been really helpful. And I find that stuff magically gets done and communicated when you have the right champion in place.
[00:32:13] Marlene Gebauer: I would not have put one of the categories as fun.
[00:32:18] Greg Lambert: Well, I don’t know. I mean, I think there is an appetite for this when it’s related to things that people know. Like if it’s not so foreign, you know, I think that people are kind of inquisitive in terms of like, huh, I wonder how that would work. Or, you know, particularly if they have some sort of ownership involved. You know, I think that that also helps.
[00:32:38] Anusia Gillespie: Yeah, Scott Westball had a great phrase, you know, stretch, don’t break. And so if you can find places that stretch people and empower them to develop new skills without being too overwhelming, that’s where I think it can be fun. And staying within the comfort zone a little bit, but moving into the growth zone, too.
[00:32:57] Greg Lambert: Well, this is all great advice. I’m definitely going to put this in my strategy folder.
[00:33:06] Marlene Gebauer: Your binder of strategy?
[00:33:08] Greg Lambert: My binder of strategy, yes. Anusha, you’re a fan of smart collaboration. And this was a term I think coined from Dr. Heidi Gardner’s of Harvard University’s book, Smart Collaboration, How Professionals Deal With Breaking Down Silos. Now, I did some research too. And you actually co-authored a book with Dr. Gardner called Smart Collaboration for Lateral Hiring, Successful Strategies to Recruit and Integrate Laterals into Law Firms. So first, how did you get that gig?
[00:33:43] Anusia Gillespie: Well, I worked closely with Heidi during my time at Harvard Law School Executive Education because I was designing business of law and leadership programs. So I worked with the faculty to put those together and launch them. And Heidi was very generous with her time and for some reason, unbeknownst to me, took me on as a bit of a mentee. And as part of that mentorship, she was really adamant that mentorship isn’t just, oh, pick up the phone and let’s talk through some things. Mentorship is really providing opportunities. So she was great to me in providing various opportunities. We worked together to develop a leadership series for a New York AMLAW 100 firm. And to answer your question as to how I got that gig, I think it’s because she had exposure to my writing beforehand in the work that we did together for this firm in developing the leadership program. Because part of my responsibility was to find the pre-reading and create a one-page overview of that reading, tying it into the upcoming content so that the lawyers could go through the one-page, digest that, know what was going on. And then after the program, if they hadn’t done the reading, they could dig into that a little bit more. And we played golf together and talked about the changing profession and batted around some ideas. I think just the development of those different working and social relationships. One day she just called me and asked if I wanted to co-author a book with her. And I had no idea what I was jumping into. But of course, I said yes.
[00:35:07] Greg Lambert: Now second, what was it like co-authoring a book with Dr. Gardner?
[00:35:11] Anusia Gillespie: So first, what was it like co-authoring a book, period? I would say very, very painful. I had no idea what I was getting into, but also significantly rewarding at the end. What was it like co-authoring a book with Heidi Gardner? It was really a fantastic learning experience. Through that experience, I learned, you know, I understood Smart Collaboration, I understood the theory, you know, I get it. But working with the author of Smart Collaboration and getting to watch how she lives that in action was really helpful to me in learning how to team better going forward. I learned how to write a book, so pretty happy about that. And the first step to that, which I guess I didn’t fully appreciate, was to interview a lot of industry people to get various perspectives. It’s not that we had this magic answer, it’s that we were the ones who spent the time to research the market and then provide guided research-based advice. And so we recorded the interviews and then were able to review the transcripts. And I then had the overwhelming responsibility of reviewing the transcripts to find themes or interesting angles that we could explore further. And then consolidating those themes and putting them in a logical format, which was interesting, I felt like I was a 1L again, right. I felt like I was a 1L again writing a legal brief because you’re pulling all of these different things and then putting it into a logical argument. So it was neat to kind of feel that overlap and then work with Heidi, who’s a fantastic, and I will use the word, relentless writer in the best of ways.
[00:36:44] Greg Lambert: Well, it sounds like a very worthwhile experience for you.
[00:36:49] Marlene Gebauer: And just to clarify, we’re talking about Heidi Gardner from Harvard, not the Heidi Gardner from Saturday Night Live, right?
[00:36:56] Anusia Gillespie: Correct. That would have been fun, though, too. Yeah.
[00:37:02] Greg Lambert: All right. So my last question on this theme, can you share a few takeaways from the book? What’s the magic formula to apply?
[00:37:10] Anusia Gillespie: Sure. So I’d say the biggest message is that firms would benefit from shifting the amount of time they spend at each stage of the lateral integration process. So from our interviews and industry research, we learned that firms typically spend about 15 percent of time preparing to hire. And what I mean by that is really analyzing the internal business case and speaking with stakeholders about who is it exactly that we need. And then about 80 percent of time in recruitment and only 5 percent of time in integration of the lateral once they come on. We suggest that firms really think about shifting that to about 40 percent of time preparing to hire and really getting the business case in place. About 30 percent of time recruiting. Come on, let’s do it a little bit faster. It’s a really long process. And integration, which could be synonymous with smart collaboration as you integrate people into the firm, needs to move to about 30 percent of time. And firms, that’s a big jump from 5 percent to 30 percent. And integration does not mean setting up meetings at various offices. It needs to be more robust than that. And so the lowest hanging fruit I see is around developing a really strong integration program that is shaped around the new hire’s strengths. So not here’s our off-the-shelf integration program, but instead saying and appreciating that people are unique and bring unique skills, aspirations. And this is based on Francesca Gino’s research. You can look up her Harvard Business Review article, The Powerful Way of Onboarding Can Encourage Authenticity. And really figuring out how to integrate people in a way that works best for them, not necessarily just in thinking about the firm and ourselves. And number two, an integration program that evolves over time with the evolving needs of the hire. So this is based on research by Rob Cross. He is at Babson. He found that the needs of a hire evolve over time. So at the beginning in the first year, they need to feel a sense of belonging, of kind of indoctrination. But then once they feel that, the need evolves. And then they need to feel purpose in their work. And he lists out very specific need evolutions that if you’re building a good integration program, that should probably go over. You can analyze your firm’s own research. We did that here and found that our integration program needs to run between three and five years and evolve with the lateral over that time. I would say five years is the best practice. So you can kind of map out what those needs are and how you need to change the integration program along the way. But all of that said, I don’t know if it’s magic because I don’t have anything to do with our integration program at Eversted Sutherland. Please take it with a grain of salt.
[00:40:05] Marlene Gebauer: Well, I have involvement here, so anything that you can help me with is greatly appreciated.
[00:40:11] Greg Lambert: Yeah, I want to say thank you. Thank you for sharing that. I’m sure that many people will be very interested in following up on some of the references that you gave us.
[00:40:21] Marlene Gebauer: Yeah, and it’s interesting because in listening to you, I think you brought us back to where we started, and that was, you’re saying shift preparing the time to hire from 15% to 40%. So the bulk of the effort is in identifying the problem. Yes. It’s funny how we got back to that.
[00:40:46] Anusia Gillespie: That is funny. Thank you for pulling that out. That’s very true. And identifying the problem and the idea that this lateral integration thought is new or novel or could be your innovation piece for the year. And so it goes back to the thought too of this has nothing to do with software. It does have some to do with operations, but it’s really more a talent and professional development innovation than it is anything else. And so again, that innovation doesn’t live in one pocket of the firm, doesn’t live in technology or operations. And so if we can remove ourselves from that, then we can push forward a lot of this newness in different ways.
[00:41:30] Marlene Gebauer: Well, Anusha, thank you very much for taking the time to talk with us. This has been pretty enlightening for me. And I’m going to go talk to my recruiting manager now.
[00:41:42] Greg Lambert: Yes, thank you very much, Anusha. This has been great. This has been a great learning experience. I hope our listeners also have some great takeaways.
[00:41:51] Anusia Gillespie: Thank you for having me again. And I hope that the listeners kind of chime in with their two cents about it as well, because this is all very much a work in progress. And I think we can all work together to move forward in the right direction. So thank you for the opportunity.
[00:42:11] Marlene Gebauer: Well, I have a confession to make, Marlene. Right after this interview, I went out and I bought Anusha’s book on lateral hiring processes. And so did my chief recruiting officer. That’s great. So two more books sold for you, Anusha. I also looked at the HBR report that she mentioned titled The Powerful Way Onboarding Can Encourage Authenticity, which is co-authored by Francesca Gino. And that HBR article is very relevant. It’s almost a four-year-old article, but I think it will be timeless.
[00:42:46] Greg Lambert: Yeah.
[00:42:48] Marlene Gebauer: Of course, the biggest takeaway I got from this talk is that you have to identify the problem and work to create a method, whether that method is through process improvement or software or talent, in order to actually solve the problem. Again, in an industry where people are taught to be solution providers, it is easy to get ahead of ourselves and create solutions first and then try to seek out a problem to solve. So Anusha’s description of the lateral hiring process that she walked us through, I think was an excellent example of spending more time up front, identifying exactly what it is that we need to do before we rush in to solve the problem.
[00:43:27] Greg Lambert: Yeah, and that’s the hard part, because that’s like the not sexy part. You know, solving the problem is what everybody gets all excited about. It’s like, oh, we got a solution. But really, you have to take the time to figure out, okay, what’s the main issue here? And then move forward to the solution. There were just so many takeaways from this interview. And seriously, I think my head’s going to explode. First is the multidisciplinary solutions that we can bring to clients. We talk about how important this is, but are firms really bringing multidisciplinary teams to clients to discuss needs? Inquiring minds want to know.
[00:44:11] Marlene Gebauer: I’m sure there’s some out there.
[00:44:18] Greg Lambert: I hope so. Second, the importance of translators. And I think these are the storytellers that we’ve talked about, the folks that draw people in and make them believers.
[00:44:24] Marlene Gebauer: Yeah, this really solidifies our big push on being able to be a storyteller on this podcast.
[00:44:30] Greg Lambert: Exactly. Third, the four points to keep people on track. That was just a great succinct primer to follow, and I know I am going to be referring to it. And fifth, the importance of a great mentor. Anusha mentioned two, Mark Wasserman and Dr. Heidi Gardner, who were so generous in sharing what they knew and kept her on track. And last, the stretch don’t break. That goes right to the idea of incremental innovation that we have talked about so many times. Okay, I’m done. I know that was a lot.
[00:45:06] Marlene Gebauer: And your head didn’t explode. So that’s a good thing.
[00:45:09] Greg Lambert: I’m holding it together until the end.
[00:45:12] Marlene Gebauer: Well, that brings us to the end of the episode. So thanks again to Anusha Gillespie for joining us.
[00:45:17] Greg Lambert: Thank you, Anusha.
[00:45:18] Marlene Gebauer: It was a really great conversation. And I know I learned a lot.
[00:45:21] Greg Lambert: Yeah, we both did. So listeners, if you loved this episode, do yourself a favor and subscribe to the Geek & Review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Rate and review us as well. If you have comments or suggestions, you can reach us on Twitter at GaybowerM or at Glambert. Or you can call the Geek & Review hotline at 713-487-7270.
[00:45:49] Marlene Gebauer: And as always, the music you hear is from Jerry David Disicka.
[00:45:53] Greg Lambert: Thank you, Jerry.
[00:45:53] Marlene Gebauer: Thank you, Jerry. All right, Marlene. I will talk to you later.
[00:45:57] Greg Lambert: Okay, bye-bye.
[00:46:09] Anusia Gillespie: Take me away. I can walk home by the North Star. But I fail to notice that it’s still daylight. And the devil’s back on the bar. And the devil’s back on the bar. And the devil’s back on the bar.