CIO Magazine recently announced its 20th Annual CIO100 Awards, recognizing 100 CIOs deemed most effective at transforming their firms through IT innovation . The winners included CIOs from Bryan Cave, Foley & Lardner, Goodwin Procter, King & Spalding, and K&L Gates.
Notably, K&L Gates also captured one of the five "Plus One" awards, for Business Innovation. (The four other firms taking home Plus One Awards were: Hilton Hotels for customer satisfaction, Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research and Development for competitive advantage, Marriott International for security excellence and Merrill Lynch for improved productivity.) Notably, K&L Gates had an earlier 3-years-in-a-row run of CIO 100 Awards, from 2002 through 2004. All in all, I thought something noteworthy might be going on in the IT arena at K&L Gates..
Accordingly, a few days ago I had a chance to catch up with Steve Agnoli, CIO of K&L/Gates, to learn about the background to the awards and explore how K&L Gates approaches IT in general.
Here’s what I learned.
Steve arrived a little over nine years ago, at the then Kirkpatrick & Lockhart, and was the first CIO the firm had. Why hire a CIO then?
"The firm had decided to move forward with a more aggressive growth strategy, and they realized that entailed building out their IT systems and the marketing infrastructure."
Steve had never worked at a law firm before, but when friends asked him why he’d want to go to a law firm, his response was: "Why wouldn’t I? It’s a business like any other. It has to get IT done right; it realizes IT is a key component of the business, with internal and external impacts." And today does he still feel that way? "Absolutely: The whole firm feels that way, not just the IT department."
Not surprisingly, once Steve arrived his first order of business was getting the infrastructure right and making it scalable and reliable. "That’s always the key thing." But once that’s under control, you have the freedom to take a more outward-facing approach. If Steve could describe the overall trajectory of his time at K&L Gates, it’s been from "plumbing" and nuts and bolts initially, towards a more client-oriented focus in recent years.
And the "Business Innovation" CIO Plus One award? "It was for our Legal Information System and our extranets. LIS is a reusable infrastructure component, or application, which we can roll out across different industries and practice areas. The goal of LIS is to provide a forum for K&L Gates lawyers’ commentary and insights into cases, statutes, regulatory developments, and so forth, which we present alongside the primary sources. The idea is to provide a ‘one stop shop’ for clients with legal issues in that area. It’s not just the raw material, it’s our opinion, interpretation, and commentary."
I note that K&L Gates has been, shall we say, active in mergers, and ask Steve about their strategy for integrating systems across formerly separate firms post-merger.
The key, he says, is that they started preparing a long time ago for integrating combinations of firms. Essential to the processs is to standardize: Standard technology, standard procedures, standard processes, and a standard platform. The pieces of that platform are:
- A Microsoft-based infrastructure
- Windows XP clients
- Lenovo brand PC’s everywhere
- A consistent image on all PC’s
- Servers that are all the same: Same brand, same OS’s, same patch levels
- Microsoft Exchange email
- A single provider of WAN hardware
- Similar equipment across all offices to provide WAN and LAN connectivity
- BlackBerry’s as a default smartphone device (although they will support Windows Mobile units on request).
In other words, as Steve puts it, a "very boring" philosophy of equipment and infrastructure. "Why learn two things when you can learn one?"
Understandably, there are times immediately post-merger when hardware will not be standardized, but integration is accelerated by insisting on a standard user interface "on top" regardless of hardware differences "underneath." For example, Steve notes, take phones: With the Preston Gates & Ellis combination, PG&E used Cisco VOIP hardware and K & L used Siemens. Nevertheless, on the day the merger became effective, dialing the prefix "101" got you the Seattle office no matter what equipment you were on.
Similarly, the website, attorney and professional staff bios, email addresses, stationery, billing templates, etc., are all standardized and consistent on day one post-merger.
So that’s Phase One of merger integration.
Phase Two is integrating the key infrastructure itself: WAN and network connectivity, key business processes and applications, HR, finance, time & billing, document management, litigation support, backup/disaster recovery, etc. Phase Two, interestingly enough, commences before the merger is formally consummated and continues well after.
Since Phase Two is largely inward-looking, there’s more flexibility in timing. For Phase One, by contrast, the firm’s self-imposed and self-enforced deadline is that the standardized user interface be in place the morning after the merger takes effect.
Phase Three is integrating the application inventory. Ultimately, the goal is complete standardization across the entire firm regardless of office and regardless of user.
What other initiatives are on his plate?
Consolidated data centers is #1, he replies. The firm is consolidating key computing infrastructure in primary and secondary facilities in a few regions around the world including the US, Europe, and later, the Far East. Consolidation is "not just good IT hygiene," Steve opines, "but it serves the goal of freeing staff to serve our lawyers and their clients and spend a lot less time on just ‘keeping the trains running on time.’"
I ask Steve who he reports to, and he gives me the right answer: He reports to Pete Kalis, Chairman of the firm. Why, Steve asks, is that the right answer? In my experience, I relate, CIO’s, be they in law firms or corporations, who report to the CEO or Chairman, have the proverbial "seat at the table," whereas those who report to the CFO, COO, or Executive Director, are viewed as well-paid plumbers, responsible for a utility like electricity or a dial tone, but not strategic partners in the firm’s success.
While we’re on this topic, Steve elaborates that the management committee has been "very supportive" of IT initiatives. The firm "recognizes and offers sponsorship of IT. Two things have to come together to enable IT to have a lasting competitive impact. First, the actual ability to implement important initiatives, but equally important, the willingness of the firm to let it be done."
What’s the hardest part of your job, and what’s the most rewarding?
Hardest is recruiting talent—"especially to a law firm. People know that there are extremely high customer-service level expectations, at all times and at all levels, even in the back room." Recruiting talent is an ongoing struggle, one that seems to be more of a challenge all the time. Steve belongs to a Pittsburgh area council of CIO’s from companies ranging from about $100-million to $5-billion in revenue, and at the most recent meeting everyone reported recruitment and retention of talent was their single biggest challenge.
The second challenge is staying relevant from a business perspective: "Being more than a utility or a service provider—being a true client partner." And third is obvious: Scale. As the firm grows, there’s "a simple issue of magnitude."
The most rewarding?
Taking IT out of the back room and into the front office, all while supporting growth. It may be challenging to retain people, but it’s immensely rewarding to be viewed as a key part of the business.
So? Take one energetic and disciplined CIO, add deep and enduring management support, sprinkle with clients willing to appreciate technology initiatives by their law firm, and, with luck and perseverance over a course of several years, you win a CIO100 award. "Plus One."
