Lawline.com

Best Practice Awards

Human Resource & Leadership Award

Lawline.com

What the company does: Established in 1999 and based in Manhattan, Lawline.com is a leading provider of online continuing legal education (CLE) courses for attorneys across the country. In early 2011, Lawline.com became the first CLE provider to stream video courses onto mobile devices.

Best practice: Lawline.com CEO David Schnurman believes employees treat customers the way management treats employees.

Schnurman says, “We all spend a large portion of our lives at the office, and what is more important to your well-being than having a fun place to work? Stressful work environments lead to unhappy and stressed workers, which leads to a lower enjoyment of life and less enthusiasm at work. The energy of every interaction with a customer is directly transferred—it is either going to be a positive or a negative experience. If you want to grow a successful business, you have to be sure each and every interaction is positive, and this starts with our employees having creative opportunities.”

Lawline.com has established five integral programs in the past year to reflect this culture: the core value card, the idea room, the AM huddle, the company newsletter, and the culture blog.

Core Value Card

Every member of the company has his or her own personal core value card. The laminated business card features five core values: actively learning, seeking creative solutions, taking time to help others, exuding optimism, and driven to find a better way. The company mission statement is also printed on the card: “To become the universal standard for continuing education—one market, one state, one course at a time.” Employees are encouraged to keep the card with them at all times to reinforce the company’s mission and core values in all facets of the business.

Idea Room

In the Lawline offices, the company has a dedicated “idea room.” Inside, there is whiteboard painted directly on the office wall for employees to write down ideas or for facilitating brainstorming sessions. The rest of the room is painted an energetic green. A poster of the company core values and mission statement hangs at the front of the room. The room is equipped with a webcam and projector for interactive virtual meetings. Employees are encouraged to utilize the room at any hour of the day to write ideas, brainstorm topics, create interactive meetings, and foster innovation.

Daily AM Huddle

Every morning, the entire Lawline team gathers in the idea room—whether physically or via virtual connection through the webcam—for a brief and energetic huddle session. “The AM huddle is meant to get everyone in the company starting the day off with positive energy and clear direction,” says Schnurman. “Each meeting starts with a three to five minute presentation based on one of our core values. For example, we passed out the book Success Principles to everyone in the company, and an employee will give a brief presentation on one of the principles in the book. After the presentation, we go around the room and everyone speaks on three topics: yesterday, today, and what’s in my way. Each person comes prepared, and quickly goes over what they achieved yesterday, their goals for the day, and anything that stands in the way of accomplishing those goals. This has been tremendously useful in helping our employees to have direction and feel prepared to start the day.”

Company Newsletter

Lawline.com produces a monthly intercompany newsletter featuring stories of how employees exemplify the core values. Featured employees also receive a gift card to the store of their choice.

Culture Blog

The company culture blog serves as a shared platform for employees to express ideas and stories relating to the core values of the company. Each of the five core values serve as blog categories, and employees can even post video blogs. Employees are encouraged to start their day by visiting the company’s intranet, where the culture blog is part of the homepage. While still in its first year, the five point program already is paying off. According to Schnurman, he noticed an increase in how long people stayed at the office after the program was implemented. “On average, employees willingly put it an extra one to two hours every single day,” says Schnurman. “Without prompting, everyone in the staff arrives early to put together their agenda and will stay to complete any tasks, or if their work is done, just stay to hang out.”

Schnurman also believes the program has improved customer retention. “Though it is difficult to put 100 percent correlation to this—I would say we retain more customers as a result,” he says. “Our number one marketing tool is our customer service. We are all about interactions with our customers and making their day when they call in. This isn’t possible if people don’t love what they do.”

Tips for implementing your own best practice: According to Schnurman, culture stems from your own beliefs. “I very much believe your business and your company culture is an expression of yourself. We promote our core values so much that it may seem like overkill—we have cards, banners, posters, acronyms, newsletters, meetings, awards, and just constantly reiterate our company’s core values. It is the one and only way to truly instill it and get it to stick.”