Last week, Chris Roebuck, in his interesting blog post on making change happen, stated that ‘legal firms face probably their toughest challenges for years’.

In previous posts, Alastair Moyes and I also advocated that the legal industry needs to embrace radical change ('Time for solicitors to reinvent their customer services’ ) and (‘The end of lawyers? Pah!’ ).

You’re probably thinking we’re all stating the blindingly obvious. I agree. But I’d like to run with this a little while longer...

In the past few weeks, I have been liaising and collaborating with prospective clients and colleagues. It’s patently obvious to me that we’re all still suffering in the long tail of the recession, and there’s a sense of urgency required to bring about positive change.

The experience has also reinforced my belief that one of the biggest challenges facing partners in established law firms is the conflict between ‘traditional’ lawyers and ‘entrepreneurial’ lawyers in finding agreement and buy-in on the way forward – that is to say, what ‘change’, where?, when?, why? and how?

I liken the transition and turmoil occurring right now in the legal world to an analogy used by Pierce Brosnan in the movie Dante’s Peak. Brosnan plays a volcanologist who is desperate to convince his colleagues that a town is in danger from a volcano about to erupt. He and his colleagues have been stationed there and tracking activity.

What Brosnan says is: If you put a frog in boiling water it will jump right out (frog 1). But if you place a frog in a pan of cold water and heat the water gently over time, it will just sit there until it eventually boils to death (frog 2).

His message is simply this: ‘If we’d arrived here today we’d know we were in trouble’.

If you’ve been in the legal industry for some time, and are more of a ‘traditionalist’, you’re probably like frog 2. But from if you’re an outsider looking in, that is a non-lawyer, or if you’re an entrepreneurial lawyer, you’re like frog 1.

Either way, the legal industry is pretty much like a box of frogs at this very moment. It’s a mix of frog type 1 and frog type 2, hopping around and not quite sure which way to jump in what one might describe as a ‘Luddite v Evangelist’ face-off.

Interesting times...

If we keep doing the same things we’ve always done (traditional stuff) and it’s not getting results - and yet the rebel (entrepreneurial lawyer) is doing things differently (innovative stuff) and it’s working - then why aren’t we buying into doing more of the latter?

Wanting things to improve but resisting the opportunity to change reminds me of a Chinese proverb: ‘Insanity is doing the same thing in the same way and expecting a different outcome.’

So, how do we deal with change when different factions are at war? And what’s the solution?

Well, there are two ways to pass a hurdle: leaping over or ploughing through. There needs to be a ‘monster truck’ option. (Jeph Jacques - web comic).

Seriously, perhaps the answer lies within the writing, experience, wisdom and success stories of change masters and entrepreneurs past and present, the likes of Chris Roebuck; Rosabeth Moss Kanter in her book The Change Masters: Corporate Entrepreneurs At Work; Tom Peters’ Thriving On Chaos; Collins & Porras’ Built To Last and Good To Great; Peters & Waterman’s In Search Of Excellence; Seth Godin’s Meatball Sundae; Chip Conley’s The Rebel Rules: Daring To be Yourself In Business; and John Kotter as far back as 1995 in Harvard Business Review (March - April edition) Leading Change.

Kotter (in 1995 Konosuke Matsushita professor of leadership at the Harvard Business School in Boston) stated that the most successful change efforts begin when some individuals or groups start to look really hard at the firm’s financial performance, competitive situation, market position and technological trends.

For example, the individual or group will focus on the five-year trend in declining margins in a core business, or an emerging market that everyone seems to be ignoring (I’ll pick up on this in another blog post). Fundamentally, they then (I quote) ‘find ways to communicate this information broadly and dramatically’. Kind of nothing short of ‘wakey-wakey’ colleagues!

It’s worth noting that Chip Conley, ‘boy wonder’ of the American travel industry - founder and owner of Joie de Vivre Hospitality - reveals that the secret of his success lies in the primary traits of vision, passion, instinct and agility, combined with engaging employees and colleagues and encouraging them to break the rules. Break with tradition perhaps?

Kotter proffers eight change steps, all of which I cannot possibly cover in depth but perhaps I will return to in due course.

The first step is to establish a sense of urgency - to examine market and competitive realities, identify and discuss crises, potential crises or major opportunities.

The second step is to form a powerful guiding coalition - assembling a group with enough power to lead the change effort in encouraging the group to work together as a team.

And herein is the hard-hitting lesson from the successful change masters...

It’s a time to make peace in the board room (let bygones be bygones), find ways in which the traditional lawyers and entrepreneurial lawyers are similar, instead of the ways in which we are different, and then embrace those differences to achieve a positive outcome.

It’s understandable that to change may well be difficult, but not to change could well be fatal.

One thing’s for sure. We can’t just sit here, procrastinate or continue squabbling any longer. I don’t want to boil to death. Do you?

Chrissie Lightfoot is author of The Naked Lawyer eBook - a blueprint in how to get more sales.http://entrepreneurlawyer.co.uk/products-services/ebook