by Nathan Bowie, Thomson Reuters Engage

I’ve just had the opportunity to moderate two panel discussions on Legal Project Management here at LegalTech. In both cases, I was very fortunate to have such personable and knowledgeable panelists, and I’d like to take a moment to thank them publicly.

On Monday, January 30, Colleen Nihill, Firm Wide Director of Project Management at Dechert, and Curt Selman, Director of Finance at Martin Clearwater & Bell joined me in the Leveraging Legal Technology track on the subject of Profitability through Legal Project Management.  The following day, Jay Nogle, Chief Information Officer of Greenberg Traurig and Thomas Wisinski, Chief Knowledge Officer of Haynes and Boone helped the attendees at the CIO / CTO Forum navigate the ins and outs of Legal Project Management.

Their perspectives and their firm’s varied approaches to LPM made for two lively and informative discussions that I hope were as valuable to the audiences as they were to me. Thank you all very, very much.

Although the subject of each session was different, there were some common themes. Two that resonated with me (and I hope with the attendees) were: 1) who within the law firm owns the LPM process, and 2) will attorneys become project managers?

To answer the first, we need look no further than the titles of the four panelists: Director of Project Management; Director of Finance; Chief Information Officer; and Chief Knowledge Officer. It is clear that each firm has to decide where LPM will live, and who will drive it. In some firms, entire departments are being created that focus entirely on managing legal matters to achieve project management and financial goals. In other firms, the Finance department takes the lead working with attorneys to bring in their matters on time and on budget. At still other firms, IT is seen as the natural repository for hosting the tools and processes that make up LPM. After all, IT has been using project management in one form or another for years for their own initiatives. Lastly, one of the key benefits of LPM is that it helps the firm develop skills to gather valuable data and improves processes over time. This can be seen as the natural province of the Knowledge Manager.

To add to the subject, some firms are hiring dedicated practice managers who are charged with assisting attorneys in setting matter budgets and managing their matters and resources to achieve success. Finally, there are many firms where individual attorneys and practice group leaders are driving the move to Legal Project Management. After all, they are the ones on the front lines dealing with clients, and most directly feel the pressure to accurately price matters and manage to a budget.

The lawyer then becomes the one constant regardless of whether they manage the matter themselves, or whether they are managed as part of a process. If the lawyers do not fully buy in, Legal Project Management cannot succeed.

Which leads us to the second question: will attorneys become project managers? More specifically, one audience member asked if attorneys will actually seek Project Management Professional (PMP) certification from the Project Management Institute.

As an acquaintance of mine was quick to point out, no self-respecting lawyer is going to put letters after his name that resemble the word pimp. John Q, Smith, Esq., PIMP just isn’t going to happen any time soon.

All levity aside, that may change, and it may change sooner than many of us are willing to believe. As Colleen Nihill pointed out, Dechert is already developing internal programs to train attorneys in the basics of project management. A small, but growing number of consultants such as the LawVision Group are providing boot camps and project management training for law firms and other professional service organizations. In fact the Project Management Institute itself has created a working group called the PMI Legal Project Management Community of Practice. Perhaps it won’t be long until the PMI offers a specialty certification in Legal Project Management for attorneys and other practitioners.

Ultimately, as Jay Nogle observed, the market will drive any move toward attorneys seeking formal certification in Legal Project Management. If clients see value, and more importantly, if RFPs begin to require that certain members of matter teams be LPM certified, you can bet that lawyers will line up in droves for the right to put the appropriate series of letters after their names.

Competition seems to be heating up, not only as firms fight for more business, but also as clients seek greater demonstrated value for work performed, increasingly pushback on rates, and use more competitive bidding and convergence.

All this makes it imperative that firms find ways to improve efficiency and productivity.  A recent Serengeti survey found that while the most cited reason that firms are not retained was (not surprisingly) fees, 51% of clients said that inefficiency was also a factor.

Friction points that lead to inefficiencies can pop up at multiple points in matter management, client management and firm management.  And technology can provide key solutions to ease some of those friction points.

Many of those solutions are being unveiled, demonstrated and discussed this week at LegalTech New York, including new mobile solutions such as the WestlawNext iPad app and ProView eReader app, MatterSphere for integrated matter management, and Westlaw Drafting Assistant – Transactional integrated drafting tools and content for transactional attorneys, to name just a few.

The new year always starts off with hope for a better year, and excitement around new technologies.  And we look forward to talking with you, not only at LegalTech, but throughout the year to find out more about how your needs are changing in a rapidly evolving marketplace, and how we can hopefully help meet those needs.

Allison Guidette is senior vice president, large law firms, Thomson Reuters

That’s about 60 new regulatory announcements every working day, and up 16% from 2011.

The study says the problem will only grow worse in 2012.  Major portions of the Dodd-Frank Act take effect later this year.  And while the SEC and FSA get most of the attention, the major regulators in the U.S., U.K., Australia and Hong Kong combined accounted for just 20 percent of overall activity last year.

A copy of the report can be downloaded here.

The first version of Microsoft Project^TM for Windows^TM was released in 1990. Between then and now, many law firm CIOs have variously cajoled, begged and even threatened attorneys to apply even the meanest vestiges of project management tools and methodologies to their practices. Until very recently, these attempts have met with unmitigated failure, especially when it came to adopting new software and business processes.

The reason for this failure is essentially that lawyers want to practice law – period – full stop – end of discussion. Where the CIO could see the value of applying project management principles and processes, attorneys could only see interference with, and interruption of their practices. Besides, as long as clients were willing to pay the going rate, why bother to mess with the status quo?

Read more…

In my mind, this has always been somewhat of a puzzle. Why? Well, as I see it, the best and most prolific rainmakers – that is, the ones that bring in sizeable, repeat business year after year – already possess and utilize the skills and qualities of excellent project managers.

To restate: consistently successful and profitable lawyers instinctively use the basics of sound project management.

To understand what I am talking about, let’s look at the definition of Legal Project Management as offered by Susan Raridon Lambreth of the LawVision Group (http://lawvisiongroup.com/Susan_Raridon_Lambreth.html). According to Ms.  Lambreth, Legal Project Management is:

• A process for defining, planning, executing and evaluating matters/projects
• A more proactive, disciplined approach to the management of legal matters which includes application of specific knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to achieve project objectives
• Underlying principle: effective communication and setting and meeting of expectations

If we distill Ms. Lambreth’s definition to its basic elements, we come up with the essentials of, Define, Plan, Execute and Evaluate with an emphasis on Communication. Not coincidentally, these attributes are reflected by Phillip Austin, Chief Sales Officer of Nixon Peabody, who defines Legal Project Management similarly in four steps: Define, Plan, Execute/Monitor, and Debrief http://www.nixonpeabody.com/project_management.asp.

The challenge for firms today is that somebody has most definitely been messing with the status quo, and that somebody is personified in the financial crisis of 2008, and the subsequent economic turmoil we continue to suffer. Clients are definitely NOT willing to “pay the going rate,” at least not without a full understanding of everything that is involved and a realistic expectation of the value they will receive. Matter budgets are expected up front, and be they based on hourly billing, fixed or alternative fee arrangements, law firms are being held accountable for meeting expectations and sticking to those budgets. And, while some attorneys do this instinctively, it is of utmost importance to take these concepts, and to create tools and processes that can be applied somewhat uniformly across all of a firm’s practices.

What this all boils down to is that in order to win work, lawyers are increasingly put in the position of having to define the parameters of a particular matter, plan them out in increasingly minute detail, and create accurate budgets. Once the work is sold, lawyers have to execute according to the plan, achieve desired results within the budget, and communicate status regularly to the client as the matter progresses.

At the risk of beating a dead horse, I’d point out that key words in the preceding paragraph are define, plan, execute and communicate. In other words, good lawyering equals good legal project management.

It’s no wonder then that today we are seeing attorneys coming to the CIO with requests for tools and training in project management that is specific to the unique needs of the attorney and the law firm. At last, project management for the legal profession has come full circle.

Next, Lawyers as Project Management Professionals

Who Owns Legal Project Management, and What Training/Certification Do They Need.

The more I listened to LegalTech attendees and fellow vendors, the more I heard them talk about tools that would complement current processes, provide measurable results, and continually improve their ability to deliver to their clients… All hallmarks of project management.

Demonstrations across the exhibit hall met with a common refrain: tell me, no, convince me why this makes sense for me.  Don’t talk about the tool, talk to me about what the tools will do for me.  Again, the emphasis is less on the tool as a technology, and more on the use of tool.  Often this meant less time showing product and more time discussing the nature of the problem(s.)  More than once a client would ask about a specific product, but we ended up in a conversation about a different process or tool than expected.  More than once we found clients coming to us as referrals from others and we made similar references to others.  I’m not saying there was a hand holding moment of solidarity between vendors… Maybe more like a practical recognition of economic benefits from delighted clients.

Having deeper discussions about problems and process resonated.  Having an ecosystem of tools that prove value both independently and together resonated.  Removing the “sale” sign from the window and inviting clients in for a practical discussion about their processes and thinking about the right tools for the right job… Those are the values that resonated.

Next up… Some of the “right” types of tools for clients looking for a better, continually improving process.

Jeff Friedman is director of marketing, Westlaw CaseLogistix

Nixon Peabody said the move was in response to client demand to reduce the risks, burdens and costs of e-discovery review.

Pangea3 was recently voted “Best Legal Process Outsourcing Provider” in the 2011 New York Law Journal Reader Rankings.

After all the show is called LegalTech – as much emphasis on the ‘tech’ as the ‘legal.’  Most of the usual players did not disappoint: a new black box here, a triangle graph there.  But a growing cadre of booths, vendors and speakers have seemingly taken a step backward.  Project management?  Wait, that’s not exclusively legal.  And it certainly doesn’t center on technology.  Has the certainty of LegalTech been replaced by chaos?

Over the last 18 months, a growing emphasis on project management has emerged from the shadows.  The post-financial crisis era has brought new waves of discovery challenges.  Exploding volumes of data.  Proliferation of social media and cloud storage.  The biggest challenge, however, is less about getting the latest tool or a “Simple” button, and more about properly utilizing the right tool(s.)  A friend of mine once said that the best search engine for a box sitting in a basement is a flashlight.  The push for project management may stem from greater corporate client influences or a need to protect margins or maybe the realization that Six Sigma is more than voodoo.  Regardless, project management methodology appears to be this year’s common thread.

Buyers and tools/services across the show are taking note… And as I get more time to observe I’ll talk about each over the next couple days.

Temps in New York City this week are expected in the mid to high 50’s and LegalTech has a project management theme.  Chaos?  Not so much.  But maybe a bit of surprise.

Jeff Friedman is director of marketing, Westlaw CaseLogistix

The trend is expected to continue in 2012 — the number of mergers already announced or completed so far this year has exceeded the number seen at this time in 2011.

While firms continue to remain somewhat cautious about large combinations – often preferring regional tie-ups – merger activity appears to be heading back towards pre-recessionary levels which typically saw 55+ mergers per year.

In addition, mergers outside the U.S. jumped to 54 in 2011 compared to the 44 tracked in 2010.

The complete Merger Watch report can be viewed here.

Online retailing is an increasingly popular way for consumers to do their shopping, and is expected to hit record levels this year.  But online shopping websites usually display detailed terms and conditions regarding subjects such as canceling orders, return of merchandise, resolving disputes and privacy protections for customer information.

According to the FindLaw.com survey, fifty-four percent of Americans say they only quickly read or skim, or completely ignore those legal agreements when they shop online.

To learn more, check out the full news release.

A panel of securities experts surveyed the damage and provided guidance for the future in the live webinar, “Deeper and Deeper: Recent trends in securities related litigation and what you need to know,” presented by the New York Law Journal in collaboration with Pangea3, a Thomson Reuters business, the most experienced provider of high-quality outsourced legal services to the world’s most respected companies and law firms. 

Joe Borstein, director of Litigation Solutions, at Pangea3, and a member of the company’s Mortgage-Backed Securities Taskforce, will present an overview of the year’s key MBS-related litigation, as well as guidance for attorneys working in the field. Webinar topics included:

- Types of claims being litigated

- Industry trends and legal developments

- The future of MBS-related claims: What lies ahead?

Click here to register to view a replay of the event.