Business & Financial Management

The P3 trifecta- Pricing, Practice Innovation and Project Management

This year was the first P3 conference the brainchild of Toby Brown and designed to deliver a more advanced level of education for industry professionals who are engaged in Pricing, Practice Innovation and Project Management (the fun bits in law).  There were around 207 attendees at this inaugural conference, which was a great turn out.  The majority of attendees were law firm professionals with an impressive collection of consultants. 

LPM – Don’t travel solo

At King & Wood Mallesons we have been working at this LPM initiative since October 2011.  Some would say we have made excellent progress, those who know me, will know I see LPM as a journey rather than a destination.  Like with any good journey I do like to stop off and take in the sights and I love the joy of finding the unexpected along the way. Trying new experiences and listening to others share their stories adds texture to what can often feel like a solo journey around the world.

At the P3 Conference, every time a room full of people are asked if they have implemented LPM I am always amazed how many hands go up.  Not to be disappointed, the number of firms who have implemented LPM was significant within the room.  Most firms seemed to be in the early stages of the journey-with many firms experiencing difficulties in quickly effecting lasting change within their law firms. 

I personally see three stages to legal project management.  The first being legal project management skill acquisition and transfer.  The second stage being practice improvement  through the use of LPM insights and process mapping, followed by practice automation or innovation using the in-depth practice and process knowledge to redefine a service offering.  Most firms that I spoke with were investing or considering the first stage.

You cannot escape scope

For those project management purists, you will not be disappointed, scoping and objectives took centre stage early to kick off the conference.  There was a great discussion around clarifying scope and aligning the legal services to the address both the clients business problems and what they actually value.  In an example of embedding scoping discussions we heard that clients want to be asked questions when firms are responding to Request for Proposals to ensure each response is as best fit as possible.   We are aware of the hesitancy to dig in or probe the clients on what they are seeking.  Clients in the room confirmed good questions are always well received.   What could initially seem counter intuitive was the statement that lawyers on matters largely perform out of scope work rather than what as initially in scope.  This is true with matters rarely following the initial plan and often requiring significant adjustments in scope and services provided.

Planning was also discussed and it found itself being applied to the fee negotiation stage.  We were encouraged when preparing for a client fee negotiation to plan for all four of the information exchange components. These components included the information you want to give to the client; information you want to ask the client; information you don't want to give the client; and the possible left field questions you may be asked.  Many of the key points to win-win fee arrangements could be found in PMBoK: a collaborative negotiation works best; be prepared and plan; know and understand the negotiation stages; prepare for each stage and learn the respective techniques; continue to focus on the value to each party;  and be creative as early as possible. 

I really enjoyed the Seyfarth session.  Andrew and his team talked about how they ensure their client facing online offerings incorporate their project management values and techniques.  Their solutions are more holistic and are designed to provide management of General Counsels’ work streams.  This combination of tailored technology supported and underpinned by sound project management and lean methodologies really resonated.  I liked the focus of using technology solutions which embed legal project management capabilities around a process as a great way of embedding.   

Seyfarth Shaw try Agile

Seyfarth Shaw walked through a number of case studies with examples of how they had implemented LPM into different matter types.  I liked the piloting on an M&A transaction of components of Agile project management.  They used an Agile technique to embed the project management discipline of regularly updating your progress and recalibrating your course.  Every day at the same time and place, the M&A legal team members spent not more than 15 minutes reporting to each other. This meeting is known as the daily scrum meeting.  It is typically held with participants standing up to reinforce the overall meeting objective of being conscience.   Each team member summarised what they did the previous day, what they will do that day, and what impediments they face.  Again a great example of taking a project management technique and embedding it into legal practice.  Significantly the partner and client both enjoyed the experience and are looking at using again in future transactions.

Taking  time out

We are all too aware of the challenge of taking lawyers out of practice for skills training.  Addressing this challenge Matthew Laws of Crowell & Moring  has introduced 30 minute “drive by” sessions held at 2pm designed for legal staff with a snack and a specific topic.  This short rapid fire format has worked really well to deliver components of education to lawyers.    There was a session on techniques for monitoring progress, which I was lucky enough to be asked to join the panel.  Colleen Nihill and her Dechert team talked about empowering their lawyers to understand and plan their matters for financial success.  They work closely with the lawyers to embed the matter knowledge with the financial drivers to ensure the lawyers are able to hit targets with confidence.  The transfer of proactive understandable actions and financial information give their lawyers the awareness of when they  need to do something, the knowledge of what to do and finally the ability to act.   Great examples of embedding and transferring knowledge and building ability.

COLPM takes us back to the future

I also really enjoyed the COLPM conference and having the luxury of networking again with amazing professionals and thinking about the future of the law for two days.  I was buoyed to hear Jordan Furlong in his presentation on “Law Firm Innovation from Idea to Implementation in 5 Increasing Difficult Steps” include project management in his list.  The full list included: 1 - gather your facts before you begin; 2 – identify a catalyst;  3 – apply legal project management; 4 - engage strong leadership; and 5 – summon your courage.  (item 5 particularly resonated with me!)

My lessons

It would be remiss of me not to include a lessons learnt conclusion in this post on project management.  My lessons learnt on embedding were: no two firms or cultures are the same; there are plenty of good ideas out there if you take the time to listen; and Legal Project Management is growing albeit somewhat organically.  There are no short cuts in embedding lasting change within law firm cultures, it takes time, persistence, boundless energy and regular fresh thinking.

Keep following

I will be back with a number of follow up posts during the remainder of October.  These will include insights from global LPM industry thought leaders on their tips for successful embedding.   So keep following!