How would you define Mayora & Mayora’s culture?
I would define our firm’s culture externally
as one that is centred on personalised service to the client. The partners and associates in charge of handling cases know every detail of the case and this allows us to provide an excellent service to the client.
Internally, the culture is one of camaraderie and harmony. This helps us work as one team, which makes our work more efficient and effective.
What changes have you made in the firm that will benefit clients?
The main change we have made as a firm is to expand regionally. We are no longer a well-respected local firm, but instead an integrated regional firm with offices in every country in the Northern Triangle. This translates into providing clients quality legal services across borders, while taking advantage of cost-saving synergies between offices.
What are the biggest challenges facing firms in your region?
The biggest challenges are rapidly changing technology, regionalisation, decreasing foreign direct investment and government corruption.
What are the top three things clients want and why?
Clients want immediate attention, quality service and reasonably priced fees. The reason why they want immediate attention is because, as they say, business doesn’t sleep. Clients want answers quickly so they can continue on with their business operations.
With the other two items, these are related in some sense. Clients want quality service at a reasonable price because legal services are a business cost that they want to minimise as much as possible. However, they still want a robust, well thought-out answer because they understand that legal issues must be resolved correctly or they risk large losses or, in the worst of cases, shutting their doors.
What have you found is the best way to retain your top talent?
We have found that the best way to retain talent at the associate level is to offer flexibility and work-life balance. We are entirely on the cloud, which allows our associates to work from anywhere in the world, so long as they have an internet connection.
We also do not have any formal hours for associates so if one associate is a morning person and wants to come in at 7:00am and another is a late-riser who wants to come in at 10:00am, we do not mind so long as during the month they complete their minimum billable hours. We also invest heavily in professional development of our associates, assisting them in payment of LLMs, continuing education courses and other events to improve their legal knowledge.
At the partner level, all partners across all jurisdictions share from the same profit pool. This helps retain partners because it aligns all our goals and helps us work as one, single unit leading the firm.