This is another presentation report, my notes from a KM peer group meeting.
Document Assembly is a "hard nut to crack." It is one of the ways however that lawyers can greatly increase their productivity.
Enterprise search, document assembly, contract analysis, and proofreading are all key ways to increase productivity.
At one firm financial industry registration changes and a large amount of anticipated work led them to develop a document assembly package for the new registration forms their clients needed. A few attorneys were able to set up a tool that did a lot of work. One lesson learned was the necessity to set up at times complex processes to maintain document assembly packages. There may be either too high expectations or "blaming the application" for errors introduced after the documents had been generated.
It was a successful effort in that the efficiency gain made it possible to do a lot more work. It was easy to change the model, and quality control was improved. It's not "last deal done" sample use any more. The KM lawyer is very happy to have document assembly in her tool kit.
Joshua Fireman of ii3 looked at the KIIAC application (discussed by Peter Krakauer at the ILTA conference). It assesses the variations and extent of variation of agreements. The firm he was working with delivered over 100 share purchase agreements. The tool deduplicated and determined that there were "only" 55 unique documents. One document was identified as the "most conforming." The fourth on the list was a bar association standard form. The firm KM lawyer went through clause-by-clause and assessed which version would work better. It took him 4-5 hours to figure out KIAAC and another 4 hours to develop the purchase agreement model. Almost every clause included links to most-commonly used variant clauses.
Joshua thinks that KIIAC has some document assembly features but also has a strong quality component. You can compare documents against the "KIIAC standard." The tool can not just develop a model or document assembly package, but can also greatly reduce the time to turn around effective comments on a document received from other counsel. (I had not thought of this use, which further demonstrates that I am a litigator by nature not a transactional attorney).
KIIAC is a tool designed to be powerful rather than user-friendly. PSLs or KM attorneys might use it to set up document assembly but practicing attorneys would not use it that way. Perhaps PSLs could use the tool in the analytical "other counsel" scenario. This can position KM as a real competitive advantage. KIAAC may not be able to deliver a final model, but it can save tremendous amounts of time in the development of such models. It can generate a decent quality model or document assembly package in a very reasonable period of time.
Friday, October 15, 2010
KM and Legal Project Management
These are my notes from a presentation on knowledge management and legal project management (LPM). The first half contrasted the purposes, tools, challenges of LPM and KM. The second half of the presentation covered an impressive, albeit soon-to-be released, legal service platform for delivery of commoditized administrative complaint legal services. It combines an effective workflow with KM and information-sharing of a very high order.
(As with the previous post, the specific presenters and firms are not identified under the rules of this meeting.)
KM Contrasted with LPM
While KM seeks to provide actionable information, LPM tries to provide more structure to what lawyers already do. Both seek to deliver more efficiency, and use software or business process changes. KM seeks to develop content (I note that some content is a by-product of LPM). It is not clear who can or should do legal project management at law firms. The PM role should be embedded within practice areas. Where LPM requires lawyers to create a plan and follow that plan, KM offerings are typically more voluntary. LPM requires a change in organizational methods, it is not simply "more structure."
A commentator noted that some KM practitioners are concerned with quality and consistency as well as efficiency. A project manager will typically balance quality as one component against time and cost.
Some KM practitioners are already concerned with process improvement. It may be time to "grasp the nettle" and get involved with these efforts. LPM is an opportunity
Clients will pay for planning if it is positioned properly.
Process Improvement
The CFO at one firm has been asking the KM department to identify or provide tools and mechanisms for process improvement and LPM. KM feeds into LPM very well. LPM helps you map the process. KM's job is to build the tools that support the processes.
This firm has set up a workflow for firm administrators to track intake on a certain type of administrative complaints that are filed against some clients across the U.S. KM provides forms, wikis, and information specific to the matter at the time that the attorney is drafting the response to the complaint or interviewing witnesses.
The firm has "flex-time" attorneys that can handle these matters. Other attorneys are supervising the matters and conduct or review risk assessments. (It strikes me that this model is flexibly expandable).
The recommendations of both as to how to proceed need to match (or, I assume, the file is escalated to the supervisor's supervisor). They are tracking metrics for frequency and cost of settlement that can be assessed at the flex-time attorney or supervisor level. All the status and monitoring information is available to the client. The client can also track metrics such as claims by location or by client's manager.
This approach is very effective for commodity-level work. You can control for the variables. It combines case management and document assembly. Multiple levels of supervision are critical for the quality control. The tool is not in active use yet but was started in January 2010. It took them two months to conceptualize the project and present to the client. They used an interim database to capture information before the full tool is rolled out.
Essentially the client is outsourcing much of the internal work that used to be associated with these matters to the law firm. The tool and processes (and the staffing model) enable mass-scale commodity work to be done by a large firm, with quality control.
(As with the previous post, the specific presenters and firms are not identified under the rules of this meeting.)
KM Contrasted with LPM
While KM seeks to provide actionable information, LPM tries to provide more structure to what lawyers already do. Both seek to deliver more efficiency, and use software or business process changes. KM seeks to develop content (I note that some content is a by-product of LPM). It is not clear who can or should do legal project management at law firms. The PM role should be embedded within practice areas. Where LPM requires lawyers to create a plan and follow that plan, KM offerings are typically more voluntary. LPM requires a change in organizational methods, it is not simply "more structure."
A commentator noted that some KM practitioners are concerned with quality and consistency as well as efficiency. A project manager will typically balance quality as one component against time and cost.
Some KM practitioners are already concerned with process improvement. It may be time to "grasp the nettle" and get involved with these efforts. LPM is an opportunity
Clients will pay for planning if it is positioned properly.
Process Improvement
The CFO at one firm has been asking the KM department to identify or provide tools and mechanisms for process improvement and LPM. KM feeds into LPM very well. LPM helps you map the process. KM's job is to build the tools that support the processes.
This firm has set up a workflow for firm administrators to track intake on a certain type of administrative complaints that are filed against some clients across the U.S. KM provides forms, wikis, and information specific to the matter at the time that the attorney is drafting the response to the complaint or interviewing witnesses.
The firm has "flex-time" attorneys that can handle these matters. Other attorneys are supervising the matters and conduct or review risk assessments. (It strikes me that this model is flexibly expandable).
The recommendations of both as to how to proceed need to match (or, I assume, the file is escalated to the supervisor's supervisor). They are tracking metrics for frequency and cost of settlement that can be assessed at the flex-time attorney or supervisor level. All the status and monitoring information is available to the client. The client can also track metrics such as claims by location or by client's manager.
This approach is very effective for commodity-level work. You can control for the variables. It combines case management and document assembly. Multiple levels of supervision are critical for the quality control. The tool is not in active use yet but was started in January 2010. It took them two months to conceptualize the project and present to the client. They used an interim database to capture information before the full tool is rolled out.
Essentially the client is outsourcing much of the internal work that used to be associated with these matters to the law firm. The tool and processes (and the staffing model) enable mass-scale commodity work to be done by a large firm, with quality control.
Legal Process Management In Action
Another presentation at a KM peer group saw real-life examples of project management in action at large law firms. Under the rules of this meeting, firm identities are not publicly acknowledged. As with the previous notes, these are my near-live notes of the presentation.
The two firms discussed are at different phases of development and adoption of project management. It was interesting to hear real-life examples of the processes and changes necessary in a more PM-oriented law firm.
One firm saw greater client interest in knowing costs in advance of project commencement. They felt that greater certainty and predictability of legal cost would be a market differentiator for them. Clients are also seeking more nonstandard fees. They want to move away from the "cost-plus" model. Capturing historical information about staffing and pricing can be used to provide good estimates for fixed fee or other types of AFAs.
They drew on an IT staff member with significant project management skills. The KM professional worked with this person to try to identify what additions lawyers might be able to handle in terms of additional structure to their work.
They first developed a training program and some proprietary software. A small pilot led to robust feedback about what was and wasn't useful in different ways in different practice areas. Many of the partners who participated became champions of LPM going forward. The pilot has also led to some real stories about improving efficiency that help with training.
They didn't have a KM lawyer on the initial working group. In the second phase they have more KM lawyers, who have made a significant contribution in the areas of information collection and linking existing firm resources into the templates. They have also helped with naming conventions and the technical aspects of information gathering that typical lawyers are not so aware of. The KM lawyer can be a bridge or "de-mystifier" to LPM processes. KM lawyers have also helped managed the breakdown of work.
Legal PM can borrow techniques that have been very successful in other industries for decades. Putting a structure in place for planning, and increasing accountability for keeping to the plan has led to higher standards for matter organization. The communication points are crucial and are reflected in the name of their program. They believe that will greatly reduce their firm's writedowns (writeoffs).
LPM can greatly increase profitability in a few different ways. If the right people are doing the work, you will have the best leverage model for that work.
AFAs can be intimidating for law firms. A historical database of matter information can let you see how you staffed it and priced it, and what you learned from previous matters.
A second law firm is involved in the ACC "Value Challenge." They created a project management office outside of IT. They all got certified in PMI and put formal processes in place. They hired a few PMs from outside. The firm has identified PM skills as a core competency. KM professionals are supporting the PM team but aren't driving the effort.
Their goals were to institutionalize the process of having "value conversations" with clients and to work collaboratively to acheive that goal.
They are doing both process improvement and LPM. They take out ineffeciencies and take out what the client doesn't want. They've reduced the cost of legal services. They have a structure of DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control), or "improve & control." For instance, they examined the matter intake process and found a five-day delay that could be eliminated by combining some forms and rearranging the conflict check process.
They have done process maps for 70 different types of legal work. It's like static. If you know what's going to happen it will happen faster. The maps identify proper resources and task codes. The PM team sits down in "Kaizen Sessions" with a whole team and identifies what happens when (initially using sticky notes). Task codes are a very important piece to let them track how we are providing legal services.
KM "artifacts" are connected with particular steps. What do need at each step? A checklist? Template? Form? Get "brain dumps" for checklists. People from the team can see what they need for what step. Process maps are on their intranet. They are treated as "road maps." There is a time estimate in each step. They also have staffing suggestions (staffing is still under development). They have tools that identify where people are on the map.
They have a monitoring tool they developed in-house. They have created task codes for different areas of law and require all attorneys to use them. Time and expense against the budget is shown on their tool. Attorneys have to assess and add to the tool the actual "percent complete" at the specific phase level.
At the end of an engagement, this firm uses a scorecard and lets clients rate the firm on understanding objectives of the matter, legal expertise, efficiency, responsiveness, budgeting skills, and results, and asks "would you hire us again."
This firm has a "fixed fee" offering for single plaintiff (employment?) litigation. They have reduced the average cost of such matters almost by half by managing such matters more efficiently.
The PM team now consults with in-house counsel on effective process improvement.
They did not require the whole firm to adopt this approach. Attorneys are impressed with the mapping sessions. Clients like knowing that the firm is doing effective project management.
Firm culture has changed. It is a big change. People are understanding that they will have to change with the market.
Outside of formal PM processes, some people might be able to develop a time frame, staffing, and budgeting for a particular deal. But if it is not documented, these plans are not transferable, and can't be as easily reused. If the 189 steps of a deal can be documented it would make it easier to do the high-value work. If the tasking and scope is not confirmed with client, then changes to the scope (as with the discovery of another 400 boxes of due diligence documents) aren't so easily discussed with the client.
The two firms discussed are at different phases of development and adoption of project management. It was interesting to hear real-life examples of the processes and changes necessary in a more PM-oriented law firm.
One firm saw greater client interest in knowing costs in advance of project commencement. They felt that greater certainty and predictability of legal cost would be a market differentiator for them. Clients are also seeking more nonstandard fees. They want to move away from the "cost-plus" model. Capturing historical information about staffing and pricing can be used to provide good estimates for fixed fee or other types of AFAs.
They drew on an IT staff member with significant project management skills. The KM professional worked with this person to try to identify what additions lawyers might be able to handle in terms of additional structure to their work.
They first developed a training program and some proprietary software. A small pilot led to robust feedback about what was and wasn't useful in different ways in different practice areas. Many of the partners who participated became champions of LPM going forward. The pilot has also led to some real stories about improving efficiency that help with training.
They didn't have a KM lawyer on the initial working group. In the second phase they have more KM lawyers, who have made a significant contribution in the areas of information collection and linking existing firm resources into the templates. They have also helped with naming conventions and the technical aspects of information gathering that typical lawyers are not so aware of. The KM lawyer can be a bridge or "de-mystifier" to LPM processes. KM lawyers have also helped managed the breakdown of work.
Legal PM can borrow techniques that have been very successful in other industries for decades. Putting a structure in place for planning, and increasing accountability for keeping to the plan has led to higher standards for matter organization. The communication points are crucial and are reflected in the name of their program. They believe that will greatly reduce their firm's writedowns (writeoffs).
LPM can greatly increase profitability in a few different ways. If the right people are doing the work, you will have the best leverage model for that work.
AFAs can be intimidating for law firms. A historical database of matter information can let you see how you staffed it and priced it, and what you learned from previous matters.
A second law firm is involved in the ACC "Value Challenge." They created a project management office outside of IT. They all got certified in PMI and put formal processes in place. They hired a few PMs from outside. The firm has identified PM skills as a core competency. KM professionals are supporting the PM team but aren't driving the effort.
Their goals were to institutionalize the process of having "value conversations" with clients and to work collaboratively to acheive that goal.
They are doing both process improvement and LPM. They take out ineffeciencies and take out what the client doesn't want. They've reduced the cost of legal services. They have a structure of DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control), or "improve & control." For instance, they examined the matter intake process and found a five-day delay that could be eliminated by combining some forms and rearranging the conflict check process.
They have done process maps for 70 different types of legal work. It's like static. If you know what's going to happen it will happen faster. The maps identify proper resources and task codes. The PM team sits down in "Kaizen Sessions" with a whole team and identifies what happens when (initially using sticky notes). Task codes are a very important piece to let them track how we are providing legal services.
KM "artifacts" are connected with particular steps. What do need at each step? A checklist? Template? Form? Get "brain dumps" for checklists. People from the team can see what they need for what step. Process maps are on their intranet. They are treated as "road maps." There is a time estimate in each step. They also have staffing suggestions (staffing is still under development). They have tools that identify where people are on the map.
They have a monitoring tool they developed in-house. They have created task codes for different areas of law and require all attorneys to use them. Time and expense against the budget is shown on their tool. Attorneys have to assess and add to the tool the actual "percent complete" at the specific phase level.
At the end of an engagement, this firm uses a scorecard and lets clients rate the firm on understanding objectives of the matter, legal expertise, efficiency, responsiveness, budgeting skills, and results, and asks "would you hire us again."
This firm has a "fixed fee" offering for single plaintiff (employment?) litigation. They have reduced the average cost of such matters almost by half by managing such matters more efficiently.
The PM team now consults with in-house counsel on effective process improvement.
They did not require the whole firm to adopt this approach. Attorneys are impressed with the mapping sessions. Clients like knowing that the firm is doing effective project management.
Firm culture has changed. It is a big change. People are understanding that they will have to change with the market.
Outside of formal PM processes, some people might be able to develop a time frame, staffing, and budgeting for a particular deal. But if it is not documented, these plans are not transferable, and can't be as easily reused. If the 189 steps of a deal can be documented it would make it easier to do the high-value work. If the tasking and scope is not confirmed with client, then changes to the scope (as with the discovery of another 400 boxes of due diligence documents) aren't so easily discussed with the client.
Legal Project Management
Susan Raridon Lambreth of Hildebrandt Baker Robbins presented on legal project management (LPM) at a meeting of KM peers this morning. She is an effective (albeit extremely quick-talking) speaker, and seems to have found an effective approach to communicating LPM themes and approaches to lawyers.
What is Legal Project Management
LPM is a "disciplined approach to the management of legal matters." We have to acknowledge that lawyers have been successful in managing legal projects before the formal application of LPM. In training LPM don't suggest that they have been doing everything wrong. Emphasize that LPM will enhance communications with clients and managing client expectations.
Process Improvement and LPM
Process improvement might be better tackled before LPM improvements. Many law firms have gotten on the LPM bandwagon, perhaps because it is less threatening. You can "back into" process improvement after doing some LPM. Process improvement may lead to greater efficiencies faster.
Drivers
One of the trends driving LPM is client demands for "better, faster, and cheaper." Clients saw more serious economic effects of the recession than the legal industry as a whole did (referred to increased profits at AMLaw 100 firms). Clients expect costs to be lower every year. Clients are looking more for alternative fee arrangements (AFAs).
The profit equation is also changing. Billable hour productivity had been going down. Billing rates were driving increased profitability. This is now flat or down in many firms. Law firms have to get more profits by changing the way that they work. There is also more competition for legal work in terms of outsourcing and aggressive pricing (large firms competing with and sometimes beating medium-sized firms on price).
The procurement offices are also getting more involved in legal work sourcing. Procurement officers may be in a position to put more pressure on outside firms.
Increased client power is driving faster segmentation and devaluing. Work even within a high-priority matter might get broken out or segmented, so that "trusted advisor" work would be compensated or sourced differently than the due diligence or filings work. The more strategic, high-value work is not getting bigger and may be shrinking. Operational or routine work might be expanding. Lower-tier work can be more highly leveraged. Some litigation practices can be very profitable, with the right work / staffing structure.
She considers project management to be not a business-world "fad" (like TQM?), but a natural evolution of application of certain tools and disciplines, already in place at the practice or department level, to the matter level. Eventually it may be internalized and not broken out as a different aspect of work.
Two hidden benefits of project management are a greater emphases on professional development and knowledge management. It leads to a greater emphasis on training and development for younger attorneys. Associates like being part of a formal project team because of the higher level of communication and awareness of the bigger picture. We can enhance the professional development of lawyers as part of an LPM approach.
She referred several times to the ILTA White Paper on alternative financial arrangement.
You can train LPM as "delegation and communication" skills. HBR's approach to project management breaks down a project life cycle into five phases of Initiation, Planning, Executing, Closing, and Lessons Learned. It's best to teach LPM without using PM jargon. They had left in the term "stakeholder," and despite some objections at a NY meeting in June it turned out that lawyers didn't mind that term.
She outline four approaches to early adoption of LPM.
Training and Education
Early adopters of LPM are starting with training and basic education. A 2-3 hour session is not really training, it's more education about "what" than "how to." It's more effective to get people to volunteer for LPM training. It can also be effective to build LPM skills into competency models for lawyer development.
Pilots
Other early adopters are trying LPM in pilot practices, such as with commercial litigation or other specific practice group. Groups with more client pressure (as described above) are more interested.
Technology / Software
Only a small number of firms have effective budgeting or project management software. Some have done historic data / analysis and others have done several years of tracking with ABA task codes or e-billing vendor codes. Litigators seem to be more on board with this in many firms, because they've had to do a tremendous amount of budgeting. In many cases they have not had to stick to those budgets, until the last two years. Budgets are now treated by clients as fee caps.
Staffing
Full-time project managers are in place at a few firms.
Lessons Learned
Don't make LPM seem mysterious. Attorneys may need support like staffing, software, and other "handholding" before LPM can be broadly adopted. Training associates where partners are not on board can be really challenging.
Adjusting compensation structures may be necessary to reward efficient practices. Client and matter profitability is increasingly the focus of compensation committees. Having partners more accountable for the profitability of their matters is an increasing trend. Some have started by making the information available but not tied it directly to compensation.
For some partners LPM might seem like fundamental change.
Initiating
The challenge for law firms in initiating projects is to slow down and more thoroughly explore the in-scope / out-of-scope parameters of the engagement. An engagement agreement is equivalent to a project charter, although typically in law firms they are much less detailed than a good project charter would be. Exploring detailed client expectations such as "what does success look like to you" (or the in-house counsel's boss) is really important and often neglected.
Planning
Law firms have done a better job at budgeting than at planning. Developing a schedule is often not done well. They don't or can't look back at previous matters and figure out what went well and was completely in a timely fashion and what wasn't. Communications planning needs to be set up for contacts with the client and internally with the matter team.
She showed a couple of examples of "work breakdown structures" that tie into a detailed scheduling processes (like phases and tasks of a matter).
Executing
Avoiding conversations where attorneys talk about increased work with clients is really common. There often weren't conversations about monitoring schedule and expenses.
Closing
They have separated out closing from lessons learned because they deserve extra emphasis in law firms due to their culture.
Lessons Learned
An after-action meeting could be 10 minutes or an hour. Talk about what went well, what they could have done differently. It's hard because lawyers don't like critical feedback. Lawyers are afraid of what might be discoverable in a malpractice claim. Get them to look at how it helps their team or other teams in the future.
Challenges
Who will pay for time spent on LPM tasks? Will clients pay for it? (There is an ABA code, some clients are willing to pay if it LPM is actually being done). There is a sense that LPM will make the work more "cookie-cutter." The greatest motivator for lawyers is their relationships with clients and their sense of accomplishment and professionalism (though they are also driven by relative compensation).
Making "best practices" and sample forms available without much effort can free up lawyers to do more interesting and significant strategic thinking about their matters.
Getting lawyers to work teams can be hard because of typical lawyer personalities and law school training. They teach "anti-teaming" in law school. Lawyers are contrasted with "non-lawyers. She was asked "do you mean that I'll have some project management geek telling me what to do?"
The biggest change will be moving to profitability analysis for compensation, as old metrics of production and revenue will not be as effective.
Keys to Success
Train volunteers. Get firm management buy-in. Give tools and templates matched to their needs (basic versus sophisticated / challenging).
What is Legal Project Management
LPM is a "disciplined approach to the management of legal matters." We have to acknowledge that lawyers have been successful in managing legal projects before the formal application of LPM. In training LPM don't suggest that they have been doing everything wrong. Emphasize that LPM will enhance communications with clients and managing client expectations.
Process Improvement and LPM
Process improvement might be better tackled before LPM improvements. Many law firms have gotten on the LPM bandwagon, perhaps because it is less threatening. You can "back into" process improvement after doing some LPM. Process improvement may lead to greater efficiencies faster.
Drivers
One of the trends driving LPM is client demands for "better, faster, and cheaper." Clients saw more serious economic effects of the recession than the legal industry as a whole did (referred to increased profits at AMLaw 100 firms). Clients expect costs to be lower every year. Clients are looking more for alternative fee arrangements (AFAs).
The profit equation is also changing. Billable hour productivity had been going down. Billing rates were driving increased profitability. This is now flat or down in many firms. Law firms have to get more profits by changing the way that they work. There is also more competition for legal work in terms of outsourcing and aggressive pricing (large firms competing with and sometimes beating medium-sized firms on price).
The procurement offices are also getting more involved in legal work sourcing. Procurement officers may be in a position to put more pressure on outside firms.
Increased client power is driving faster segmentation and devaluing. Work even within a high-priority matter might get broken out or segmented, so that "trusted advisor" work would be compensated or sourced differently than the due diligence or filings work. The more strategic, high-value work is not getting bigger and may be shrinking. Operational or routine work might be expanding. Lower-tier work can be more highly leveraged. Some litigation practices can be very profitable, with the right work / staffing structure.
She considers project management to be not a business-world "fad" (like TQM?), but a natural evolution of application of certain tools and disciplines, already in place at the practice or department level, to the matter level. Eventually it may be internalized and not broken out as a different aspect of work.
Two hidden benefits of project management are a greater emphases on professional development and knowledge management. It leads to a greater emphasis on training and development for younger attorneys. Associates like being part of a formal project team because of the higher level of communication and awareness of the bigger picture. We can enhance the professional development of lawyers as part of an LPM approach.
She referred several times to the ILTA White Paper on alternative financial arrangement.
You can train LPM as "delegation and communication" skills. HBR's approach to project management breaks down a project life cycle into five phases of Initiation, Planning, Executing, Closing, and Lessons Learned. It's best to teach LPM without using PM jargon. They had left in the term "stakeholder," and despite some objections at a NY meeting in June it turned out that lawyers didn't mind that term.
She outline four approaches to early adoption of LPM.
Training and Education
Early adopters of LPM are starting with training and basic education. A 2-3 hour session is not really training, it's more education about "what" than "how to." It's more effective to get people to volunteer for LPM training. It can also be effective to build LPM skills into competency models for lawyer development.
Pilots
Other early adopters are trying LPM in pilot practices, such as with commercial litigation or other specific practice group. Groups with more client pressure (as described above) are more interested.
Technology / Software
Only a small number of firms have effective budgeting or project management software. Some have done historic data / analysis and others have done several years of tracking with ABA task codes or e-billing vendor codes. Litigators seem to be more on board with this in many firms, because they've had to do a tremendous amount of budgeting. In many cases they have not had to stick to those budgets, until the last two years. Budgets are now treated by clients as fee caps.
Staffing
Full-time project managers are in place at a few firms.
Lessons Learned
Don't make LPM seem mysterious. Attorneys may need support like staffing, software, and other "handholding" before LPM can be broadly adopted. Training associates where partners are not on board can be really challenging.
Adjusting compensation structures may be necessary to reward efficient practices. Client and matter profitability is increasingly the focus of compensation committees. Having partners more accountable for the profitability of their matters is an increasing trend. Some have started by making the information available but not tied it directly to compensation.
For some partners LPM might seem like fundamental change.
Initiating
The challenge for law firms in initiating projects is to slow down and more thoroughly explore the in-scope / out-of-scope parameters of the engagement. An engagement agreement is equivalent to a project charter, although typically in law firms they are much less detailed than a good project charter would be. Exploring detailed client expectations such as "what does success look like to you" (or the in-house counsel's boss) is really important and often neglected.
Planning
Law firms have done a better job at budgeting than at planning. Developing a schedule is often not done well. They don't or can't look back at previous matters and figure out what went well and was completely in a timely fashion and what wasn't. Communications planning needs to be set up for contacts with the client and internally with the matter team.
She showed a couple of examples of "work breakdown structures" that tie into a detailed scheduling processes (like phases and tasks of a matter).
Executing
Avoiding conversations where attorneys talk about increased work with clients is really common. There often weren't conversations about monitoring schedule and expenses.
Closing
They have separated out closing from lessons learned because they deserve extra emphasis in law firms due to their culture.
Lessons Learned
An after-action meeting could be 10 minutes or an hour. Talk about what went well, what they could have done differently. It's hard because lawyers don't like critical feedback. Lawyers are afraid of what might be discoverable in a malpractice claim. Get them to look at how it helps their team or other teams in the future.
Challenges
Who will pay for time spent on LPM tasks? Will clients pay for it? (There is an ABA code, some clients are willing to pay if it LPM is actually being done). There is a sense that LPM will make the work more "cookie-cutter." The greatest motivator for lawyers is their relationships with clients and their sense of accomplishment and professionalism (though they are also driven by relative compensation).
Making "best practices" and sample forms available without much effort can free up lawyers to do more interesting and significant strategic thinking about their matters.
Getting lawyers to work teams can be hard because of typical lawyer personalities and law school training. They teach "anti-teaming" in law school. Lawyers are contrasted with "non-lawyers. She was asked "do you mean that I'll have some project management geek telling me what to do?"
The biggest change will be moving to profitability analysis for compensation, as old metrics of production and revenue will not be as effective.
Keys to Success
Train volunteers. Get firm management buy-in. Give tools and templates matched to their needs (basic versus sophisticated / challenging).
Friday, August 27, 2010
Social Media At ILTA: Sharing and Collaboration Explodes at Conference
Four years ago, Kevin O’Keefe contrasted the social media activity that had already become prevalent at most technology conferences with the relative lack of such activity at the International Legal Technology Association conference. He noted some improvement in 2008, and in past years only a few sessions mentioned either social media or secure collaborative software.
This year ILTA conference saw an outpouring of social media activity in many different channels. Social media tools were embraced by the association itself, by conference co-chairs, by vendors, and by peer attendees.
There is still room for increased adoption and smart use of these channels (such as a more friendly and effective pre-conference wiki platform), but I believe that the benefits of social media to people who attended or who followed from afar were great, and that the refindability and reusability of all this content will continue to benefit ILTA members and the legal technology industry.
An earlier version of this post made invisible all but the Twitter section of this post, due to formatting errors.
Tweeting In The Halls
Perhaps the most visible change from previous years was the formalization and much broader extent of Twitter use. It was professional, not personal I’m-eating-a-sandwich tweeting. In addition to the #ilta10 conference hashtag, each session had a formally identified short and useful hash tag such as #km2; in some sessions as many as four or five people were highlighting and sharing key thoughts through twitter.
Legalerswelcom used What the Hashtag to graphically show the tweeting by day; each day with educational sessions had over 700 tweets, and there were over 3,000 for the week. I reproduce a picture of it here, because the WTH service shows the previous five-day’s tweets and the week's view will not be available soon.
And this was despite the regrettable absence of Jenn Steele, one of the twitter champions of previous conferences.
Vendors did tweet about events and offerings, and there were some fun twitter-based giveaways / contests, but as you can tell from the “top 10 tweeters” list from WTH, above, there was not vendor abuse of the conference hashtag in any serious way.* Certainly the two on the vendor/consultant front on the "top 10 list," Legalerswelcome and InsideLegal, were adding rather than taking away value from the online conversation. I hope that such an approach will continue.
Twitter generated face-to-face social interactions as well as on-line activity. There was an initial, formal tweetup on Sunday, and a less formal but also fun “#tweetup2” on Tuesday organized by conference attendees rather than the conference itself.
Sessions About Social Media Or Enterprise 2.0
On the educational side, a dozen sessions covered social media and collaboration topics including:
Day 1, August 23
- Social Media Policy Development by Julia Montgomery and Karen Sheehan.
Day 2, August 24
- The Cloud and Law2020: Where Megatrends and Vision Collide, Super Session, Tom Kolopopulous
- SharePoint 2010 for LegalServices, Julie Kremer, Microsoft
- Transparency: Beyond the Extranet, featuring Deborah McMurray of Content Pilot LLC, Jon Parish of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, Julie Kremer of Microsoft, and Steve McHargue of Project Leadership
- Smarsh Social Networking Compliance Solution, Stephen Marsh and Sam Kolbert-Hyle of Smarsh (vendor session)
- Improve Information Flow With Enterprise 2.0, Paul Domnick of Freshfields Bruckhaus and Mary Abraham
- Managing Information Overload Through Personal Knowledge Management, Mike McBride and Sean Brady
- Failure Leads to Success in Enterprise 2.0 Adoption
- Meaningful Metrics to Quantify ROI for KM and Enterprise 2.0 Deployments, LTC Charlotte Herring and Clark Cording, Orrick
- How KM Supports Alternative Fee Arrangements
- Open Text Social Workplace (vendor session)
- Uniting Project Teams with Collaboration Sites
Live blogging was made feasible, after Monday, by the generally high-quality wi-fi at the Aria resort. The conference organizers were refreshingly up front about the problems before Monday evening. Conference setup included “Click Zones” that were really designed to limit typers to a certain part of the room (understandable due to the tapping), rather than provide power. I eventually learned to simply open up a side panel in the session rooms, but it would have been better (and safer) to have power strips with taped-down extension cords available in “Click Zone.”
In addition to these other Caselines posts, the following are some of the blog posts covering the conference:
- LegalCurrent blogged about Universal Search Implementations and the Metrics for Enterprise 2.0 session that I also addressed.
- Ron Friedmann blogged about outsourcing and the keynote.
- Jason Plant a/k/a NoOption blogged about Day 1, August 23 (keynote and Office 2010), Day 2, August 24 (iManage and search), Day 3 (August 25).
- Legal IT Professionals provided a Vendor Response to ILTA Conference
- Inside Legal provided a lot of online content including this Technology Purchasing Survey
Mike McBride has collected a number of conference posts at his Delicious account. I haven't tried to be comprehensive here--comments and additions welcome, of course. And the fact that it wouldn't be easy to be comprehensive is telling.
Videos and Podcasts
Vendors and consultants are leading the way in integrating video and audio content into conference.
Legal consultants ii3 professionally produced and made available hours and hours of high-quality video known as "ILTA TV," with chats hosted by Shy Alter. Day 2 for instance featured an interview with a visiting general, along with a discussion on KM supporting legal administrative departments with knowledge management attorneys Mara Nickerson, Rachelle Renegal, and a certain bass-voiced litigation knowledge manager (at about 120 minutes in).
Over at Legal IT Professionals, Christy Burke had a number of podcast interviews with a variety of vendors and peers broken down into Days 1, 2, and 3.
Kevin Hunt of Thomson Reuters also made a number of other podcasts, including a video interview of conference co-chair Meredith Williams; the post includes a link to interviews with Patrick DiDominico, Craig Ball, and yours truly.
Kevin Hunt of Thomson Reuters also made a number of other podcasts, including a video interview of conference co-chair Meredith Williams; the post includes a link to interviews with Patrick DiDominico, Craig Ball, and yours truly.
I also made my first podcasts, releasing by Cinch (http://www.cinchcast.com/) a podcast about the initial tweetup and another short one about showing pictures of faces in Outlook and elsewhere based on a conversation with Mr. Alter. Cinch is a really easy way to record and share short audio recordings on the iPhone or over the internet.
*occasional exception aside.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
ILTA Day 4--Using Business Process Management to Increase Matter Efficiency
Session Materials
Formal Description:
"Managing individual matters is where firms can realize the biggest efficiency and cost gains. For firms that are serious about efficiency and alternative fee arrangements, this session will discuss the strategic application of principles from the fields of business process management and project management and highlight firms that have put these principles to work. While law schools may not have project management or business process classes, lawyers can still learn from experts in these fields."
For tweets see #info15.
Monroe M. Horn ("Monty")- CIO, Sunstein Kann Murphy & Timbers LLP, Boston IP boutique
Angel Garcia-Manso - Goodwin Procter LLP
Bill Decker - Hubbard One, a Thomson Reuters Business
Toby Brown - Fulbright & Jaworski
Disclosure; Angel is my colleague at Goodwin Procter. I know Monty personally, he's an outstanding tenor! Also, these are my unedited notes (live-blogged).
BPM in an IP Boutique
Monty started. Why BPM? Technology benefits come from integration and automation rather than new "killer apps." They determined it would be best to have apps that exactly met their needs. Most users are suffering from information (email) overload. Very often business processes involve sending and acting on email. Yet users often don't have the information they need to act on when they need it (this sounds like a KM problem to me!).
They chose to automate a client-facing business process, IP docketing. They rolled out in Beta using live data (in parallel). They've applied for a patent and are working with a vendor to commercialize it.
Key elements of successful automation are:
1. Filling in "white space" between application without changing the way people are working.
2. Provide rich user interfaces, especially to attorneys and paralegals. They are not tolerant of things acting clunky and not following Windows protocols. Usually BPM applications don't have to have that level of user interface.
3. Allowing users to organize and prioritize the work and tasks is really important. For instance, break out attorney's work by stage, by whether they are directly responsible or supervising, and so forth. Add "flagging" that people can leverage as they see fit [I'd advocate for tagging by keyword!]
4. Supervisory capacities need to be baked in.
5. Try to give them the information they need when they need it.
Bill Decker
He spent the last five years doing project management at a large law firm and is now at Hubbard One / Thomson Reuters. How can PM techniques assist attorneys with fixed fee arrangements?
Project has four (or five) phases. Project Initiation is for understanding what your goals are. Project planning is the most important piece. Identify (and document) the processes needed to establish the scope and the objectives. Project Execution (lumped in with Project Monitoring), then Project Closure, where you show that you did what you set out to do.
Communication is the key success factor. Poor communication is the primary reason why projects fail.
Traditional projects are similar to a legal matter in that they have definite ends and goals.
Attorneys do not accept that a legal engagement is unsuccessful if not completed within a reasonable time and under budget. Their goal is to win.
Project management and continual planning will prevent clients from being surprised by the last bill.
With AFAs you need to build models based on previous experience. Bill mentions that ABA codes as a possible source for matter planning. He notes that "CodeSense" has loaded the ABA codes into SharePoint to track status against different parts of the tasks.
AFAs at Fullbright & Jaworski
Toby Brown of Three Geeks and a Law is the alternative fee person at Fullbright & Jaworski.
He described the approval process for AFAs at his firm.
The first step is a "pre-approval" processes where partners seek information and have a dialog. Partners want to know what form of fee to use and how much to charge. Every RFP crosses his desk, needing AFA content.
The second step is the lawyer's preparation of an actual AFA proposal. They seek information about the client (e.g., financial information), the type of arrangements (looking at type, amount, metrics, and probabilities), and value (allowing lawyers to provide more context).
The third step is AFA analysis. Evaluating the margin of a particular billing partner is key. Partners will run the same type of margins. He will compare similar proposals. Toby is using Redwood analytics. Small changes in the leverage can have large variations in margin.
Fourth, a small group of partners approve the AFA. They talk with Toby about the matter.
Fifth, it gets set up as an AFA matter.
Sixth, the budget gets entered into a tracking system. There still needs to be a system for tracking progress against budget (?).
Seventh, monitor budget against performance. Send monthly and quarterly variance reports.
Eighth, report back on closed matters to the AFA system.
Budgeting and other Projects at Goodwin Procter
Angel counted nine sessions at ILTA addressing Alternative Financial Arrangements (AFAs.) Goodwin decided that doing budgeting would be an important step in addressing AFAs. They asked practice managers to talk to partners and break work they do in phases and tasks. They continue reviewing phases and tasks and improving the 70 matter templates.
The Goodwin budgeting system integrates with Aderant and the time-entry system. Goodwin will also be integrating with SharePoint and Goodwin's Matter Pages system.
(Disclosure: I have been a part of the AFA work at Goodwin).
The iStaff project is another example. Goodwin staffing managers help find partners the best associate for a given project. Each staffing manager was dealing with 40-60 associates and had to learn their experience and professional development needs, and wanted to match that with the jobs. They automated the collection of information from associates about their needs and busyness. It pulls in information from Expert, the HR systems, partners' input about what they need, and associate workload reports. The new system increased compliance (associate reports) 70%.
Another example is the IP Practice System. They interviewed attorneys over 10 months to identify process mapping. They identified inconsistent operations across offices. They built a couple of tools that helped people delegate work. They integrated all the different sources of information. It pulled in matter-centric iManage folders where they had scanned and filed the paper records. The case information can be forwarded to other attorneys. It also links to the PTO file and the Matter Pages system.
Partners reported that what used to take them 10 minutes now takes 10 seconds.
Questions
How did they get buy-in? Monty said they have a small shop; the firm decided to change the way it worked; and the paralegals liked it because they could prove they had provided the file(s).
Angel said that adoption depends on the sponsors. Demand for iStaff came from the directors in the firm and was heavily promoted by the staffing managers.
Formal Description:
"Managing individual matters is where firms can realize the biggest efficiency and cost gains. For firms that are serious about efficiency and alternative fee arrangements, this session will discuss the strategic application of principles from the fields of business process management and project management and highlight firms that have put these principles to work. While law schools may not have project management or business process classes, lawyers can still learn from experts in these fields."
For tweets see #info15.
Monroe M. Horn ("Monty")- CIO, Sunstein Kann Murphy & Timbers LLP, Boston IP boutique
Angel Garcia-Manso - Goodwin Procter LLP
Bill Decker - Hubbard One, a Thomson Reuters Business
Toby Brown - Fulbright & Jaworski
Disclosure; Angel is my colleague at Goodwin Procter. I know Monty personally, he's an outstanding tenor! Also, these are my unedited notes (live-blogged).
BPM in an IP Boutique
Monty started. Why BPM? Technology benefits come from integration and automation rather than new "killer apps." They determined it would be best to have apps that exactly met their needs. Most users are suffering from information (email) overload. Very often business processes involve sending and acting on email. Yet users often don't have the information they need to act on when they need it (this sounds like a KM problem to me!).
They chose to automate a client-facing business process, IP docketing. They rolled out in Beta using live data (in parallel). They've applied for a patent and are working with a vendor to commercialize it.
Key elements of successful automation are:
1. Filling in "white space" between application without changing the way people are working.
2. Provide rich user interfaces, especially to attorneys and paralegals. They are not tolerant of things acting clunky and not following Windows protocols. Usually BPM applications don't have to have that level of user interface.
3. Allowing users to organize and prioritize the work and tasks is really important. For instance, break out attorney's work by stage, by whether they are directly responsible or supervising, and so forth. Add "flagging" that people can leverage as they see fit [I'd advocate for tagging by keyword!]
4. Supervisory capacities need to be baked in.
5. Try to give them the information they need when they need it.
Bill Decker
He spent the last five years doing project management at a large law firm and is now at Hubbard One / Thomson Reuters. How can PM techniques assist attorneys with fixed fee arrangements?
Project has four (or five) phases. Project Initiation is for understanding what your goals are. Project planning is the most important piece. Identify (and document) the processes needed to establish the scope and the objectives. Project Execution (lumped in with Project Monitoring), then Project Closure, where you show that you did what you set out to do.
Communication is the key success factor. Poor communication is the primary reason why projects fail.
Traditional projects are similar to a legal matter in that they have definite ends and goals.
Attorneys do not accept that a legal engagement is unsuccessful if not completed within a reasonable time and under budget. Their goal is to win.
Project management and continual planning will prevent clients from being surprised by the last bill.
With AFAs you need to build models based on previous experience. Bill mentions that ABA codes as a possible source for matter planning. He notes that "CodeSense" has loaded the ABA codes into SharePoint to track status against different parts of the tasks.
AFAs at Fullbright & Jaworski
Toby Brown of Three Geeks and a Law is the alternative fee person at Fullbright & Jaworski.
He described the approval process for AFAs at his firm.
The first step is a "pre-approval" processes where partners seek information and have a dialog. Partners want to know what form of fee to use and how much to charge. Every RFP crosses his desk, needing AFA content.
The second step is the lawyer's preparation of an actual AFA proposal. They seek information about the client (e.g., financial information), the type of arrangements (looking at type, amount, metrics, and probabilities), and value (allowing lawyers to provide more context).
The third step is AFA analysis. Evaluating the margin of a particular billing partner is key. Partners will run the same type of margins. He will compare similar proposals. Toby is using Redwood analytics. Small changes in the leverage can have large variations in margin.
Fourth, a small group of partners approve the AFA. They talk with Toby about the matter.
Fifth, it gets set up as an AFA matter.
Sixth, the budget gets entered into a tracking system. There still needs to be a system for tracking progress against budget (?).
Seventh, monitor budget against performance. Send monthly and quarterly variance reports.
Eighth, report back on closed matters to the AFA system.
Budgeting and other Projects at Goodwin Procter
Angel counted nine sessions at ILTA addressing Alternative Financial Arrangements (AFAs.) Goodwin decided that doing budgeting would be an important step in addressing AFAs. They asked practice managers to talk to partners and break work they do in phases and tasks. They continue reviewing phases and tasks and improving the 70 matter templates.
The Goodwin budgeting system integrates with Aderant and the time-entry system. Goodwin will also be integrating with SharePoint and Goodwin's Matter Pages system.
(Disclosure: I have been a part of the AFA work at Goodwin).
The iStaff project is another example. Goodwin staffing managers help find partners the best associate for a given project. Each staffing manager was dealing with 40-60 associates and had to learn their experience and professional development needs, and wanted to match that with the jobs. They automated the collection of information from associates about their needs and busyness. It pulls in information from Expert, the HR systems, partners' input about what they need, and associate workload reports. The new system increased compliance (associate reports) 70%.
Another example is the IP Practice System. They interviewed attorneys over 10 months to identify process mapping. They identified inconsistent operations across offices. They built a couple of tools that helped people delegate work. They integrated all the different sources of information. It pulled in matter-centric iManage folders where they had scanned and filed the paper records. The case information can be forwarded to other attorneys. It also links to the PTO file and the Matter Pages system.
Partners reported that what used to take them 10 minutes now takes 10 seconds.
Questions
How did they get buy-in? Monty said they have a small shop; the firm decided to change the way it worked; and the paralegals liked it because they could prove they had provided the file(s).
Angel said that adoption depends on the sponsors. Demand for iStaff came from the directors in the firm and was heavily promoted by the staffing managers.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
ILTA Day 3: Email Management Using iManage
This was an interesting session devoted to email management success stories with firms using iManage. It highlighted three examples from different size firms.
Small Firm
Maritta Terrell is in a small firm in Austin, TX, about 85 users. [She is very engaging and I bet is a great trainer!] Some partners who had serious pain around Outlook performance and email folders led to implementation of a DMS. They now have 8.5 and set up MCC. Test test and re-test was key.
The Outlook speed problem led to some ideas. They had a contest with 1st and 2nd prizes. Secretarial help really shrunk Inboxes. "Stump the IT team" contest. Both approaches leveraged lawyer's competitive.
Training courses included:
- How to clean up inbox
- Preclass videos on intranet
- Regular classroom classes
- Email management
They also had "Room Service" classes--they put out a training menu like a hotel, they could ask trainers to come to them, even after hours "so no-one else would know."
They also sent around a poster with three points. You must file client email in a client/matter folder, administrative email in an admin folder, and everything else (is deleted or) stored in a personal folder.
Success measurement--email boxes reduced by 19%, may go to another 5% lower.
Mid-Size Firm
Fernando Monteleone ("Monty") works for Robinson & Cole.
Moved from DocsOpen in an April to September timeframe. They have a retention policy, all inbound messages filed or deleted within 60 days.
They chose to disallow flat filing (everything in a workspace). Send / Received dates are preserved in filing. The author in the DMS is that of the email author, not the filer. They created personal workspaces automatically.
Tried to keep folder design simple, about eight categories for litigation and another eight for business matters.
Their customization included a tool to reclassify matters, and run integrity checks. A utility created a project workspace with members listed and documents.
They went live over Labor Day Weekend, got to 8.5 by February. Filing 2500-5000 emails a day, half a million since the beginning of the year. Association of an email folder with a workspace in iManage was the largest method of filing.
Foley & Lardner
Dana Moore is the "Records & Information Compliance Manager."
Email became a risk management issue. Exchange servers were bursting at the seams. Under their RM policy, the electronic version of the email is the official version. They realized email needed to be part of the matter. It allowed document holds, litigation discovery, and file transfers to go smoothly.
They set up an ERM Validation Committee and a pilot group. 10% of the attorneys wanted to participate. They set up a communication plan from the top down. They were moving operations offsite.
They created an "Email Archive Repository." It's a DMS repository that only a few have access to. [Not great from a KM perspective].
F & L had a long implementation period. First communications in June 2007 were around "how much email can you delete?" Did lots of deleting for $50 gift cards.
Email really locked down--old email had to be retrieved through records managers, who kept it out of Outlook.
Filing is now a requirement--all in Inbox or Sent over 180 days deleted. The Delete box is on a seven day aged, with a 2 GB size limit. They do not delete from sub-folders.
There was a lot of bulk filing without classification, into their general personal numbers. It was still refindable even through others couldn't. People didn't follow folder naming conventions. There was some refusal and denial. Training was not required. She thinks mandatory training may not be impossible.
Have filed 27 million emails since 2007. All servers are centralized. Filing is a way of life for most.
Questions:
Some attorneys at Maritta's firm who can barely work with Word file email. Such attorneys had another set up the email filing links.
At Foley, going to the 180 day rule really helped adoption. The most appreciation is coming from the professional responsibility partners and the people looking for email as a result of litigation involving the firm.
They all analyzed how everyone managed their emails and adopted email filing to that behavior. They had to understand how many attorneys worked remotely.
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