Does “culture eat strategy for breakfast”?
Does “culture eat strategy for breakfast”? We explored Peter Drucker’s famous quote this year as we considered how we as a business are putting our people and values first.
On reflection, it’s rewarding to see the ways in which the Lighthouse values and culture have enabled us to better execute on our 2022 strategy. How they have translated into tangible outcomes for our clients, personal growth for our lawyers, and professional and commercial success as a firm and company more generally. Here are a few highlights.
Deliver Excellent Service: The team’s excellent work has yielded a number of awards and accolades, including listings in Best Lawyer and Chambers for IT & Telecoms and being shortlisted for the African Legal Awards TMT Team of the Year; Alternate Legal Service Provider of the Year and Environmental, Energy & Natural Resources Team of the Year. Most recently we have been shortlisted for the Chambers 2022 South African Specialist Law Firm of the Year (with winners to be announced in January 2023).
Create a Place to Thrive: The awards and accolades reflect the calibre of our team, and the skills they hone at Lighthouse. It is no surprise that “Training” comes out top every year when we canvas our team on what we are getting right. Upskilling our lawyers supports their professional and personal growth, making sure they can “Deliver Excellent Service”. We run training programs for many of our clients too, particularly the legal and procurement teams – so get in touch if this is something you would be interested in.
Lead From Where You Are: It’s been a busy year! We’ve worked on over 2,500 matters of varying complexity (averaging approximately 210 matters per month), including a number of large, strategic commercial deals both for SA and UK corporate clients. This is a phenomenal accomplishment from our team, and we are immensely proud of the effort and dedication shown to our clients. And it would not be possible without a structure that encourages and empowers all team members to contribute and lead from where they are.
Be a Force for Good: Amongst all the deals done this year, particularly rewarding have been the ones helping our clients’ reach their sustainability goals. We’ve worked on innovative renewable energy transactions for a global alcoholic beverages company, helping to execute on its impressive global strategy for achieving carbon neutrality and sustainability across its business. We advised the same client in the rollout of a sustainable innovation incubator project, which aims to help major global companies in achieving their 2025 sustainability goals on climate action, water stewardship, smart agriculture, and circular packaging.
Build Relationships Based on Trust: The Lighthouse Academy continues to flourish, and we celebrated with great pride as some of the first Academy students joined Lighthouse this year as fully admitted lawyers! Our relationships with our clients continue to play an essential role in the Academy, including through our “Stories that Inspire” program where some of our most senior clients have shared their professional journeys and insights with our students.
Innovate: LightHub, our legaltech tool, continues to expand in SA, the UK, and the USA. LightHub has become a key differentiator in how Lighthouse services our clients, providing an end-to-end offering from intake, allocation, reporting, matter management and producing key management data. We showcased LightHub at the Legal Innovation and Tech Fest held in Johannesburg in November, and on various blogs and podcasts.
With Covid travel restrictions having been lifted it was wonderful to be able to spend more time together as a team, and the Vibe&Culture committee have been keeping us entertained with everything from pottery painting to pasta making. It’s also been great to get back to seeing some of our local and international clients in person and we look forward to more of that in 2023.
As the year draws to a close, we’re proud to be able to say that 6 years on, our culture remains the bedrock of our firm. Be it in how we service clients, grow our firm, support each other and our communities, we remain committed to a company culture that is shaped by a few simple, but deeply held values: Lead from where you are. Deliver excellent service. Innovate. Create a place to thrive. Build relationships based on trust. Be a force for good. We end 2022 thanking all our clients for trusting us to be your business partners and we extend our very best wishes to all our clients, and industry colleagues.