Talking Data with Antonio Acuña (Kennedys) : Iron Carrot

Season 4 Episode 7

Welcome to Season 4 of the Law Firm Data Governance podcast. I’m CJ Anderson, founder of Iron Carrot, the law firm data governance specialist. I’m thrilled to have a new season of insights about working with information and data in law firms.

Data governance is the key to unlocking your law firm’s potential. But it’s not the only area of data activity that is important for your firm’s success. That’s why, in this fourth season, I’m pleased to share some information, questions, and top tips about the other areas you might want to consider.

Episode Transcript

CJ Anderson
So in this week’s episode, I’m delighted to invite Antonio Acuna, the Global Head of Data Strategy at Kennedys, to talk to us about data, strategy and data in law firms. And with over 19 years of experience in data and digital change, Antonio has delivered innovative, impactful and cost-effective outcomes. Public and private sector organisations to transforming the way they use data and technology, he headed data.gov.uk the UK Government Open data service for six years and has also helped over 24 countries develop their digital and open agendas and data services. In 2018 he received an MBE from Her Majesty the Queen for services to government transparency and open data, so I’m delighted to welcome Antonio to the podcast, Welcome Antonio.

Antonio Acuna
Thank you for having me.

CJ Anderson
So I’m going to start by asking you to explain your current role and your current firm and your kind of career journey working with data in law firms.

Antonio Acuna
That’s easy. So, let’s start with my role at Kennedys which is Global Head of Data Strategy. Kennedys is a law firm as most of your audience will know, and one of the things that singles Kennedy out of many others is the fact that very early on Kennedys has been innovating things like the, you know, Kennedys IQ and things like that. So, there was this trend of innovation and we need to do other things better and so forth, innate in the DNA of the firm. There was also an individual at Kennedy’s, Martin Stockdale, who is who is extremely, you know, on top of this innovative thing. And I came to cannabis through Martin, you know, he was leading. The creating the role and putting it out and mainly Kennedys, of course, is a growing company.

It’s a fast-growing company touching many, many, many moving parts, and the idea of the data strategy or having it a strategy for data is because it’s not just the machinery you put in place to capture your data and hold your data and all that beautiful technology, but also is the changing minds and hearts. It’s understanding how people use data, how lawyers use data, what products and services can originate from the data we capture and the data we use and how knowledge information can come together with data and form better services and better opportunities to provide and create new avenues. So in terms of this role in Canada, is mainly trying to bring together how we handle data, how we use data, how we understand data. It doesn’t try to do everything it tries to capture that.

My career, my journey has been quite mixed because I started, as I said,15 years in government and worked as part of the environment and then I went to Cabinet Office number 10 and I ran they told go to UK. There was some big transparency and open data movement in 2010 onwards. During that time you know the Open Government Partnership was created with the Obama’s White House and with Brazil and the transparency team and the data team were involved in all of that. That we had in Kelsey at that time who later on went to the NHS, so there was a lot of big names moving around, Tim Berners, Lee Nigel Shadbolt, you know, so there was a tremendous amount of movement and I was running the National Health Service and we were working with many governments to sort of help open up data release so people can do things so you can you know where the trains are coming. You can use, you know, any of those applications that tell you the bus is late or the bus is early because the data will release because we work with many, many departments, me and others, you know, I just came in at one point it was an alpha already. We help release that data so other entities like startups and so forth could use it. Google, Microsoft, whoever. Apple. All of them have used some of the data that came out of data Gov.UK that was put out of UK.

So, my journey went that way. I went back to do strategy. For the environment after leaving government, digital services coming into office and then I went for the private sector pretty much. And after, you know, pandemic, there’s always that one thing in the middle. What our company called parity with a mixture of consultants and recruitment. Went through a lot of changes. It also went through a point of Reidentifying itself and that was a good, nice little signal for me that actually was the next challenge coming up and hence Kennedys. The role seemed to match what I wanted to do. The strategy element of data. You know, I move in that direction now where that’s where I’m at.

CJ Anderson
The really interesting and exciting journey and I think gives you a really great platform or position to be able to kind of answer my next question because it’s one that comes up a lot in law firms, which is where does the accountability for data belong?

Antonio Acuna
In the whole of the company. I know it sounds strange to say, but there are discrete roles that will, by virtue of structure, order, and a semblance of accountability, you know, have the label. I’m accountable for this data and that is you cannot avoid it. OK, but in principle, every single person that touches data or that originates data has an account. Bringing for that data. So, in the legal firm, any partner fee earner and you know that is entering associate training that’s entering a data by the matter for example or it’s entering data about a client. The meeting that they’ve been having with the client could be, you know, to try to garner more business. You know, anybody in in business development that is entering information about our clients and our pursuits that is entering information about how our competitors are doing for example, what are the a bit of horizon scanning perhaps and saying ok, what are the next level of things and can we go there or should we go there or? Whatever it is, you know, all of those people have an accountability for being responsible for what they do with the data, how they enter it, even to me, accountability for data belongs in every person that enters, uses or manages data.

When it comes to the structure, you know, then I think accountability for data, at least for the management of that data as close to the data as possible. You know, so I don’t believe in “who are you?” “Well, I am the director of whatever and I’m responsible.” You’re not, because you don’t touch that data. You don’t see it every day. You don’t know the INS and out. You don’t even know why it’s good or bad. So, when you want to be accountable for that data, you need to really go for the people that have the power to identify the problems and do something about them. And that’s not generally the people above. It’s the people very close to the data. So, I have that dichotomy of everyone, but in terms of action, as close to the date as possible.

CJ Anderson
That makes sense, and that’s quite a broad perspective, but I get where you’re coming from about the people who know the data need to have the real accountability for the data. So, that leads me to kind of think about why is it important for organisations and particularly for law firms to have a data strategy?

Antonio Acuna
Yeah, absolutely. And you won’t believe how many times I get asked about it. Well it’s an interesting thing. OK, if I may. Why? Strategy is because as a law firm your life plot is what you learn as you go along. So if you spend 10, 20, 50 years doing claims for example part of your power, your superpower is the fact that you’re good at doing claims and you have a body of knowledge. By virtue of lawyers and so forth and so on, that guarantees that you’re gonna do a good job, you know you have well crafted services and people trust you. So you get used to it only be handled strategically. So when I say, well, let’s do data, ok, where is it data from procurement, how are we getting our vendors? Is it data from the relationship with the clients or you know what we agreed to do for them, etc, etc. It’s the data from court cases. Is it data from the evidence that comes this way? Is it data? And I know I’m being very generic about data here because you could say, well, that’s information at the very end of the day, data two is the point of information data being the plural of datum. When you think about it, you’re talking about points of information. Most of the time it ends up being in a tabular way. And it tends to be a combination of alphanumeric things, but in principle a document is data. Because it has discernible points and you can extract a date. OK, a sentiment. You know, this sentence says that they don’t like it. Well, that’s a bit of data now that you have about that and he gets confused with knowledge. But why is important that law firms have it is because most of what they do, I always say, and I say it internally, nobody who hears this. Anyone who hears, hears intended. In candidates will know that is true that I always say which is in the next 10 years, if not six years. Our biggest competitors is going to be our clients. Because they’re investing money in technology, they’re investing money on being more efficient, you know, and we’re going to have to compete. Against that level of efficiency. Not against the law company next door. You see, and when you do that, you need to look at data strategically. You need to understand. So how am I going to get to that level? How am I going to catch up with that, to give them what they need? That includes technology, it includes AI. It includes, you know, advanced analytics, modeling, prediction, modeling, all of that stuff. It includes good evidence it includes trust and accountability. You know, for your data, a plethora of things are behavioral that are organizational operational and structural. Then the technology element. You know, and some of the technologies are given. Yeah, we have a data link. Yeah, we have a data store. Yes. We have a warehouse. I mean, why wouldn’t you? How are you doing stuff? You know, that is foundation that is not special. It doesn’t make you special. What makes you special is what, how do you strategically see yourself and data as a partnership? To do better. You can only do that by thinking about data strategically, because every time you get a piece of data that data enacts a change. Oh look, we’re not selling enough. Bring an example. We going to do to change that. So, data always presents a point of change. Either we’re doing well. How can we do more of that or what are we doing badly? How can we correct that so we can do better? Because it’s not static, it needs to be a company with a strategic vision of and how is that going to be impacting us? How are we going to respond to the challenges data? What will it give us if you don’t have the strategy for that.

CJ Anderson
So, what is a data strategy and what isn’t a data strategy?

Antonio Acuna
This is an interesting conversation because there are a thousand and one books out there that tell you what strategy is. You know you have strategies that come from the military, for example, and in the sense of you have very well-structured strategies for either handling and invasion. Yes, handling post invasion, for example, handling conflict, post and free conflict and that’s fantastic. It’s one type of strategy and many books have that, but actually a strategy. At the end of the day, is what is your approach to get your vision done.

So, if my vision is that every single person that lives in this building that I live in, I think we have about 250 families living in the buildings here. Let’s say that my vision is that every one of them will get a gift this Christmas. Let’s assume it’s from me. Never. But no. Let’s assume it’s from me. But what is my strategy to achieve that? How am I going to make that vision a reality that is strategic thinking? My strategy is going to be that I’m going to get a go fund me page. But I’m going to identify I’m going to do it by raising funds through selling cakes. All I know is it sounds silly, but at the very core that is the strategic point. What is my strategy to enable the vision?

Ok, so if I’m in the law firm and my vision is that we are going to expand by looking at predictive analytics and take a look at what we do best, what the market is doing and identify little windows where we’re not there. That’s growing. We have some skill in that area. Let’s go for it. To know that you do need some. Predictive analytics, Ok. If that is our vision that we will be able to use predictive analytics to do that. There then what is your strategy? To do that is your strategy to outsource that predictive analytics is your strategy to upskill your lawyers, to understand what the predictive analytics says or is your strategy to simply do it and hope for the best. You know, how are you going to achieve that vision? So doing predictive analytics is not a strategy. How are you going to bring that into how you do business is your strategy. You know, buying phones is not a strategy. How you’re going to use them is a strategy. At some point. It was a strategic move when phones. First came out so there is that element. You know when something is very new, then the very acquisition of it is strategic move if you know what you’re going to do with it. So that’s the thing with a data strategy is that it tells you what you are going to do with your data. How are you gonna capture it? How are you gonna use it? How are you gonna understand it and how you’re going to respond to the challenges it will bring as you go along. So it always forces continuous improvement. You can say you’re doing data in a strategic way but you’re not, it goes against it. The flow of data forces change, so that’s what the data strategy is to me at least it’s a view of how we’re going to achieve a vision that revolves around, you know what that data is going to support what a technical document that tells you how many data stores or the houses or whatever you’re gonna build, you know it isn’t gonna tell. We’re gonna use power but that’s a technical strategy.

Ok that is an implementation approach. And we could debate for thousands of hours about is that is not, but in principle, in my experience, those things are in the realm of the implementation, Ok the strategy is not prescriptive. The strategy gives you channels pathways. Ok we will go by sea. It’s a strategy. I haven’t said how or if it’s going to be a small boat, a canoe, a cruise. You know, the Queen Mary. But we will go by sea. That’s the strategy. Now you could then say and we will implement that strategy by buying a bunch of small boats. Because financially that works. You’re implementing that strategic view that the sea is going to be the thing that gets us there. Same with data. If we’re going to be a data-driven, I don’t like that word. But if we’re going to be a data-driven entity, what are the things that need to be in place? For us to make the most out of that. What is that strategy? It’s never a technical document, a prescriptive document. You know, something that begins to specify to a detail. Because then there’s not structure, just actually. You know, it’s the implementation of it, and you, I’ve seen it many times where people write a strategy and the strategy is through technical. And you? Well, that’s lovely and needed, but that’s not really your data strategy as much as it is your Technology Strategy to enable the use of data. Once you have the data, what are you going to do with it and why are you going to have it? What’s the point of gathering all that data? What role does it play so you have clients you have matters with a bunch of information. Is that there? Because what? What will that do to you as a business going forward versus going to stay as a matter as a silo? You know that’s what the data. Strategy comes in. How you are going to bring all that together and why it matters? At least in my, in my view.

CJ Anderson
Your view is, you know, a much more experienced than mine. You’ve worked in so many industries and sectors. So I think that leads me into asking about law firm strategies and are they particularly different to other kinds of organisation?

Antonio Acuna
Yes, you know I think this, they are because something very simple so. One thing you find in law firms is you have a very clear distinction between the partnership. The legal of work and the business services. that’s just clear in most companies in most places that you work, there’s a direct link between what you do. Be it a call center, be it an IT printer person. And the outcomes of the business so we saw more products. Our consultants help more companies etc. There is a direct link because everyone is an employee basically in that sense you know everyone is pretty much similar but in law firms that’s not the case. You have the owners pretty much the partnership. They do their thing as a business services you might not get to see how what you did actually made the money the company made. Maybe people in business development get to see a bit of that because they’re involved in pursuits and so forth, but you take it, you take even transformation sometimes. And it becomes very difficult to see it. So when you’re looking at the strategy for data partners, enter a lot of the data. Because they opened the matters and so forth. But on this side is where you have the analytics. You know, they understand, you know, behaviors, they understanding of custodianship, contextualisation. So hi, we’re going to begin to use this taxonomy to refer to those type of matters because we need to understand where we are actually making the most money. For example, parking couldn’t care less. It just couldn’t care less. I’m making money and that makes perfect sense. So you have these two worlds. And the strategy? Instead of being A1 flow thing, it’s actually negotiating. How can I make you not lose the earning time yet get you to work with this because it’s going to give us something else and you might not be able to see yet, but we’ll have a positive impact in what you’re working on. And that gap makes data strategies for both firms slightly different. You know, because when Amazon, you say if we change that on the website we get 10% more people clicking on it and buying it lovely that impacts warehousing, that impacts delivery. You know you can see the line all the way to the individual and Jeff Bezos making more billions. That’s harder partnerships so the data strategy becomes an enabling abridging instrument, you know.

CJ Anderson
So it’s that that bit between the link between the business services side and the partnership side and the fee earning side and trying to get rid of the tension between the two.

Antonio Acuna
Yeah. The natural tension and also if you think about it, it gives you something. Let’s say you have a CRM system. So every partner has to go in and open the matter. And he has to put information about the client, whatever. Fine, they have to use it. It is looking at it from the point of view of how can we maximize the usage of this tool. Data and analytics are looking for. How can I make the most of the data that’s being entered there. How can this be the shortest possible so I can keep on making money? Because I cannot spend three hours entering data on this thing. So that triangle that’s where the data strategy comes in and says every activity we do here captures data. Every matter is just an encapsulation of a cluster of data evidence. You know, paperwork. CCTV, X-rays, you name it. Every single matter is an encapsulation of data points. We can’t escape the reality that the DNA of a law firm is the movement of data and its interpretation. So when you bring in a data strategy, you can bring in the mathematical interpretation of the analyst. Looking at trends, looking at throwing AI for example, as I know it solves every problem, even the ones we didn’t have, we have, we know we didn’t know we had. But you know, you could throw AI and find patterns beautiful, you know. But the partner also has knowledge that needs to be put into context. So when you bring those two together then you get that beautiful bridge of this one machinery it’s just moving forward.

CJ Anderson
So that then leads me to think about this the role of data governance and data strategy. So how would you describe the relationship between data strategies and data governance?

Antonio Acuna
And data strategy needs to make sure that it always points to governance and I don’t say this lightly. So if my strategy is that we will embrace AI. Let’s say that you know the vision is that we will be the most modern in the world. We will be the most modern law firm in the world. So the strategy that the strategy says to fulfill that vision, we’re going to bring in, we’re going to focus on two areas, predictive analytics and AI. That’s our strategy to enable that ambition. Very rapidly, you get into a situation. So what do we have? Where is the data? How structure is it? Who’s taking care of it? How much do we have? Can we actually do what we say we want to do, or am I just putting something in a piece of paper that’s going to be wasted about but never realised, you know? So when you build it immediately you need to go. Ok, how are we going in this? And immediately suggest if it’s not there and most of the time as you probably know, it’s not there. It’s loosely there but not quite there is making it part of the strategy said in order for our strategic aims. To be fulfilled. These actions must follow the strategy. To be implemented, and that is common. That’s what you slam immediately, a governance layer that says we need to be able to look back and say we said we’re going to do this. This is what we’ve done. But the only way to do that is by bringing in a governance structure that tells you what has been happening with the data. Is it better? We said we’re going to do AI, what are you going to? Do rubbish in, rubbish out. No, you need to make sure the data is good. There is some low quality that is fit for purpose, that is well understood, that is contextualised. That’s convenience. Give or take. You know you need to bring that into the strategy because those are the key tools you’re going to use to make sure that the promise of the strategy can be enabled.

CJ Anderson
I want to pick up on something you said earlier, which is that data being a change activity, so why is that? Why is data change activity?

Antonio Acuna
OK, let’s say you and I like growing apple trees and we measured the soil. Yeah, we planted apple trees. You’re my neighbor. We have a little a little plot. We planted apple trees. We’re measuring the soil. It turns out that we suddenly realise it’s too acidic for the apples. We’ve been looking at the data. Oh gosh, what is it going to do immediately? We’re going to change the way in which we plant? The trees either counter the acidity or whatever it is that we need to do so immediately that data was an agent for change. We now change how we deal with the trees. We will continue to look at that data and when we see that it’s level. Then we will do things to maintain that level so it doesn’t go down. So it’s constantly changing the things you’re doing and when the weather changes, it might not be that the facility is working badly, but that the weather is now presenting the problem. What are we gonna do about that? We bring that data into question. So how has it responded in the last three years to changes in weather or we never had that low temperature? Before, so we need to do something about it because it’s way past a threshold that we know the tree can support, etcetera, etcetera. It’s always calling for change for calibration. So you could say data is an agent for change. You could say it’s simply that data force is calibration always.

CJ Anderson
A great perspective to think about it as calibration, I hadn’t quite thought about it that way. Another change that firms are making or I’m seeing friends making is looking to hire Chief Data Officers. What is a CDO and why would you need one?

Antonio Acuna
It’s interesting because it depends on the company. First thing is a Chief Data Officer. I mean, do you have CDO’s, Chief Data and Digital officers and you have CEO’s and you have CDO’s. I mean it’s a never ending but in principle. As CEO, in my mind is somebody who should be at sea level, not below in the sense that it reports to the operating officer. Because I’ve not as many places have the, for example, a CIO, and they put a CEO under the CIO and so forth. If you don’t have power to make changes, all you are is a glorified doer. For whatever the CIO thinks. You see what I mean? They might as well don’t have it. Just have a Director of Data or have a Head of Data. Don’t bother with the city or role, you know, unless you’re gonna give them the position they deserve at the business because they are custodians of one of the biggest assets to business has, if not the biggest data asset.

And there’s always that confusion I mentioned earlier about. Is it technology? No, it’s not technology. You’re a contract drafter. That doesn’t make you it, but you need work. To run to write the contract you need a server. To save it you need probably Microsoft Office or something or Google you know office to be able to share it with your colleagues and make changes and track changes. All of that is technology that doesn’t mean contract drafters are in it. It enables some of the elements, so the contract after can draft the contract and I think with data we have the same problem. The misconception that because you do have a technical aspect to enable. The right use of data and the right management of data it is a technical thing. So the CDO actually looks at the business. How? Data is used to understand the needs of the business and that I’m talking about user research. Here I’m talking about proper, you know, understanding of the needs of the user. Sees what technically we can do. Runs the teams that provide the insights out of that data and supports all the parts of the business in embedding within their own modus operandi within their own processes elements of data so you don’t have 27 analysts over here. You try to embed them in the business. You try to work with the different areas, so they begin to speak a different language, they begin to speak a language they think with data. You begin to do that so the CEO knows that the CEO doesn’t have to be a techie person. The CEO doesn’t need to be a power BI expert or you know somebody who can configure in US or whatever, or do heavy SQL, whatever. None of that, as long as they know what good. Looks like as long. As they know that. They need to know about business. They need to know about people, they need to know about behavior. They need to understand usage, user research, digital. How are people using this technology, which generally is the window through which we see data? That’s a completely different thing to attacking. That’s what a CDO does. They look after data, they make sure there’s good governance, they make sure Neta is in the narrative of everything we do and they make sure everywhere we go in the business, people understand the value of data, the importance of data and are probably using and doing something about. That’s not technical.

CJ Anderson
So all of them being, you know, at a C-Suite level and not being technical, being more of a business focused. Is there anything else that makes this CDO successful, particularly in a in a law firm?

Antonio Acuna
Context strategic thinking, so you know is that ok? What are we doing now and what are we doing? So if you are a CEO or a Director of Data or Head of Data, and you come every day and you’re thinking about what we can do now, you’ll always be one step ahead at Max from the problems that you have. But if you start looking at what can I do tomorrow that will determine what you should be doing today to enable that. And that’s the main problem I’ve seen in many places is they only look at today. Well, I’m fixing yesterday problem. But if you actually say, what could I do tomorrow or what do I want to do tomorrow? Which means what do I need today? So I can do that tomorrow. And that thinking forces you to then look forward, not backwards. And most of the data places are situations I’ve seen are always trying to fix the technical depth or the data depth or you know which are real things. You know what I mean? But nobody’s thinking forward. Nobody’s thinking so what is it that we want to do two weeks from now. We would like to be able to understand how we are performing in ex countries. Do we have the data for that? Would it help the business make money? Absolutely – lovely. Let’s understand what we need to do so we can do that in three weeks time. As opposed to being reactive, which is what most of the time. That experience, that myself, you know, you end up doing, which is that constant reaction to things.

CJ Anderson
This has been an amazing conversation and I’m almost sad that it’s coming to an end, but I’m conscious of time and our listener, so I’m gonna ask you for a final thought on data strategies.

Antonio Acuna
Very straightforward. If you don’t have a vision. Don’t bother with the strategy.

CJ Anderson
I love it. That’s really brilliant. You don’t have a vision. Don’t bother with the strategy. That’s so simple. But I love it. Thank you so much Antonio, for joining the podcast. This has been an amazing episode.

Antonio Acuna
Thank you for having me.

CJ Anderson
Thank you for joining me for this law firm data governance podcast episode. I had a great time talking about data strategies with Antonio and it was great to hear that law firms aren’t so different after all and his final thought was so simple if you don’t have a vision for your data don’t bother with the strategy and that’s definitely something I’ll be repeating. If you liked this episode please share, like and review it so that more law firm leaders can learn about data governance and how to manage data in law firms effectively. Don’t forget to subscribe so that you don’t miss out on any of this seasons data conversations with law firm thought leaders. Or you can head over to irconcarrot.com to get in touch with your questions and ideas for future episodes.