The quarterly publication of the International Legal Technology Association
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/34686
“Today, every process in the firm has a map.” Pretty simple, really — our clients were demanding change, market forces were screaming, our lawyers were unhappy. We decided to make the bet that if we listened to all of them, distilled the core message and embarked on a program of operational excellence, true market differentiation would follow. Our strategy broke out like this: • Legal Lean Sigma • Intellectual Property • Scalability • Tenacity • Equity Value • Net Promoter Scores Norm: Okay, so let’s walk through this. Regina, you were one of the earliest pioneers and advocates of Legal Lean Sigma. Today, it’s a household term. But back in 2011, the notion of process waste elimination was pretty foreign to the industry. Can you tell us how this played out at your firm? Regina: Lean Sigma provides a structured methodology for identifying several types of inefficiency and offers a disciplined approach to analyzing and crafting response plans. Any approach like this has its fans and skeptics. We tried to be philosophical in terms of our particular approach and commitment level. For example, we decided early on to be institutionally offended by inefficiency. Our view was that regardless of whether efficiency improvements helped us or our clients more, we were going to root out all waste and “heat loss.” And, as a bonus, we would make marketing hay out of our heightened standards and present them as a competitive differentiator. To begin, we became maniacal about process mapping. We hit the obvious candidates up front — time recording, billing and collections, matter intake and so forth. From there 110 www.iltanet.org Peer to Peer we would hold Friday afternoon brainstorming sessions across departments to find additional targets. These process maps became living, breathing animals. Today, every process in the firm has a map. And we’re always looking to do more. We encouraged a culture where our folks review and challenge the assumptions and definitions across our business processes. It’s one way we push for further improvement. It’s then Natalie’s job to take these maps and eliminate the waste. Norm: Natalie, no small task. Natalie: No kidding! At the start, it was a significant challenge. From a change management standpoint, we were asking a lot of our lawyers. Time, money, patience — you name it. But with our Managing Partner’s leadership, we got people on board and started achieving real results everyone could appreciate. Norm: What specifically did you do? Natalie: Once we had the process maps in hand, we first looked to automate what we could, especially anything that slowed our lawyers down. Then we looked to re-architect the major elements in order to work more efficiently and faster. Early on, it was about automating time-capture. We needed truly accurate records of both billable and non- billable activity for several reasons, not the least of which was developing a true cost model for alternative fee arrangements. We also prioritized legal project management, and a commitment to proper workflow management. The major re-architecture came around 2012/2013, when we realized that we were not in the hours business, but in the matter business.