Professional liability partner Onier Llopiz offers an overview of operations at Miami-based, midsize law firm Lydecker Diaz.

How big is your firm, where is it located, and what are its primary areas of practice and focus?

Eighty attorneys; 12 offices throughout Florida, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Our primary areas of practice are: professional liability, government liability, business litigation, employment and construction litigation.

 

Please explain your firm's governance structure and compensation model.

Our firm has numerous associates who report to partners. The partners, in turn, report to a firmwide managing partner and senior partners. The firm shares in its profits with its high-level partners. We also have numerous committees and general counsel that are part of the structure.

 

What do you view as the two biggest opportunities for your firm, and what are the two biggest threats?

Our firm's biggest opportunities lie in growth in new markets where we can partner with existing clients. Another big opportunity for the firm is in growing in core areas due to an increase in litigation — professional liability, government liability and business litigation.

The two largest threats to those opportunities are time and time. It takes time to create the right team in an emerging market, and our firm never expands for the sake of expanding.  Our expansion decisions are thoughtful and tempered. We prefer to grow organically; growth is slower but sustained.

 

After the recession hit, the prevailing theory was that midsize firms would start to see more work come their way from large clients who could no longer justify paying Big Law rates. What has been your experience?

We did gain numerous clients during the recession, which could not justify the Big Law rates and appreciated the firm partnering with them during the low times and assisting them with new opportunities post-recession. Our firm shines when it comes to long-term client engagements by showing our clients loyalty during the bad times; our clients and our firm have grown together along with the economy and have cemented our partnerships. As an example, we had a long-term client which had significant losses during the recession. In order to help our client save costs, we trained their in-house attorneys to handle some of the functions we were handling. While we lost a portfolio on a temporary basis, we in no uncertain terms cemented our partnership with the client and our commitment to a long-term relationship aimed at mutual success. Once the client's position in the market improved, the client was more than happy to not only re-engage all our services but expand our representation.

 

Are your clients pushing for more alternative fee arrangements and, if so, what types? Is your firm amenable to those requests?

No.  About five years ago, alternative fee arrangements were the talk of the town, but in our experience our clients actually preferred budgeting and traditional fee structures.

 

There is much debate around how law firms can foster the next generation of legal talent. What advantages and disadvantages do midsize firms have in attracting and retaining young lawyers, particularly millennials?

Our firm has studied what motivates this new generation. We have found that millennials abhor “jobs” versus engaging in work activity which is meaningful or has intrinsic high value. For 15 years, our approach has been to motivate our attorneys about their cases and come up with creative strategies to deliver exceptional results for our clients. A huge part of our culture as a firm is a highly collaborative environment that involves attorneys interacting with one another, brainstorming and coming up with solutions that individual attorneys may often miss. Our approach happens to be one that millennials not only understand but appreciate. They are part of something bigger than themselves, they are part of a team, and their specific input can have a real impact.

 

Does your firm employ any nonlawyer professionals in high-level positions (e.g., COO, business development officer, chief strategy officer, etc.)? If so, why is it advantageous to have a nonlawyer in that role? If not, have you considered hiring any?

Our firm employs a nonlawyer operations manager who helps to manage all of our offices, oversees human resource functions, manages our vendor contracts and oversees employee benefits as well as risk management. We also have a controller who is not a lawyer. The advantage to having nonlawyers in these positions is that we maintain a grounded approach to management. We understand how each decision is going to impact our employees across-the-board instead of just promoting attorney interests.

 

What if any technology advancements have you made in your firm in recent years? What are the challenges in implementing tech changes?

Our firm is usually on the cutting edge of technology because many of our senior partners are very technologically savvy. Years ago we began a paperless initiative, which has resulted in a 70 percent reduction in the use of paper, ink and printing resources. In place of paper, most of our partners use tablets to supplement their desktops and laptops. We use cloud-based computing for many of our e-discovery tasks, secure remote connections to offer flexibility to some employees, integrated communications systems to allow our computers to interact seamlessly with our phones, conference line systems and imaging systems. We have an information technology department that is not only available to fix problems but engages in daily productivity training and security updates. The biggest challenge in implementing tech changes is that the deployment are not always as fast as you may want as you have to make sure to adequately train employees to become aware of potential vulnerabilities to avoid potential network intrusions.

 

What would you say is the most innovative thing your firm has done recently, whether it be internal operations, how you work with clients, etc.?

Over the course of the last year, our firm began creating comprehensive remote computer experiences for some of its partners who may spend time in multiple states, second homes, or may have to work from home occasionally to the point where the partner has complete use of their computer, office phone and our network from their secondary location. It allows clients to reach our lawyers just as easily as if the lawyer is behind his or her own office desk, and gives the lawyer access to all necessary information just as easily.

 

Does your firm have a succession plan in place? If so, what challenges do you face in trying to execute that plan? If you don't currently have a plan, is it an issue your firm is thinking about?

The vast majority of the firm's partners today were associates at the firm many years ago. The firm's leadership consists of partners who have worked together for decades. The firm's next generation of leaders is already here, already engaged and already helping in making decisions that will affect us in the years to come.