When I meet new people, it’s hard to explain what I do for a living so I just say “I’m a business strategist for law firms”.  At that point, they either really want to know what that means, or they really don’t. For the curious, I’ve recently started to explain the story of Steve Ballmer and bathrooms.  Steve was the 30th original employee of Microsoft.  Fast forward to 2014 when he bought the LA Clippers for $2B.   It’s now worth $5.5B, the fifth most valuable NBA team.  So, this guy can pick them: he can predict what will be great, and how to get it there.

Ballmer built a new stadium for his team.  It opened in August of 2024.  But years earlier, as he was planning for this state-of-the-art venue, he thought long and hard about its design elements, such as the number of bathrooms.  The industry standard for sports venues is one toilet for every 80 guests.  He changed that to one for every 15 guests.  He also had a concession stand placed every 20 feet in the concourse, and got rid of the TVS because he wanted fans to be in and out of the concourse in two minutes so they could focus on watching the live game.

Why?  Imagine having spent $500 on two tickets to an event, then spending 20% of your time there in a bathroom or concession lineup.   It’s enough to make you want to do a Cory Booker and stop all food and drink 48 hours in advance.  Ballmer wanted every moment spent in the stadium to be a positive experience – even bathroom time.

That’s strategy: thinking ahead to develop systems and processes that don’t yet exist in your organization, but that will better-serve your declared business goals (once you’ve declared them).  In this case, Ballmer wanted to enforce a “two minutes in the concourse” rule to maximize positive customer experience and focus them on the game.  Also, knowing that it will take you no more than two minutes to grab food or drink increases the chances of those sales.

Strategy is about really thinking through issues (and also, realizing when something could be done better).  A lot of people think they are strategic.  I found it interesting, recently, to watch the film “The Last Class” by Robert Reich, a teacher and labour advisor to Presidents. During the class, he took several student polls. In one, he asked students to pick how they think they’ll spend most of their time in their careers.  The options were:

  • Interacting (meetings, phone).
  • Thinking (analysing hard problems)
  • Advocating (selling, making a case).

34% chose interacting, 17% chose advocating, and a whopping 47% chose thinking.  OK, it was the graduating class at Berkley. Of course, most of them thought their incredible intellect would be their superpower.

Reich goes on to tell them that actually, they would need to spend equal time in all three areas to really make an impact.  In some ways, doing all three of these describes strategy: engaging in order to determine what needs to change, thinking through the issue to come up with the change, and then convincing others to make the change.

Cambridge dictionary defines strategy as “A detailed plan for achieving success in situations such as war, politics, business, industry, or sport, or the skill of planning for such situations”. But I would go further.  Business strategy is also figuring out what to do in the first place. That insight might come from talking and (even more importantly) listening to people, thinking about complex issues, or asking yourself questions that no one else is asking (i.e. what does the time a guest spends in a sports venue look like and how could we improve on that experience?), and then once you’ve come up with a solution, successfully advocating for that change.

Imagine a junior on the design team saying “I think we should have about 6 times more bathrooms in this facility”.  We’d like to think that our organization would say “Wow, OK, tell me more about why you think that”. But the reality is that most law firms wouldn’t have someone ask that question because we don’t train innovative thinkers, and we wouldn’t listen to respondents seriously because we believe in precedent and the way things have been successfully done in the past.  You can just imagine a lawyer saying the equivalent of “Sports facilities have had a 1 to 80 ratio for bathrooms for years.  There must be a reason why that’s the standard.  Let’s not try to change what’s been working, and delve into areas that aren’t within our expertise”.

Well, running the law firm of the future is no longer anyone’s expertise.  The old model is dead. 50% of Associates don’t want to become Partners.  Many Associates think that working in a bunch of different environments will be the best training ground so gone are the days of Associates growing up in a single law firm.  Most firms need to reduce their physical footprint given how many of their workers are now remote.  AI is going to fundamentally change how many junior lawyers and paralegals a firm will need, and the kind of work the firm will do (based in part on on what work remains after clients have used their own AI for legal issues).

Strategy in law firms is no longer just a nice advantage: it’s a necessity.   We need to prepare for change. We need to grow truly creative thinkers.  We need to be more flexible in our management decisions.  We need to test tried and true theories, and figure out new ways of thinking.

Strategy is about questioning everything.

Heather Gray-Grant is a business strategist, marketing expert and executive coach for law firms, lawyers and administrators.  She can be reached at heather@heathergraygrant.com