Legal Project Management (LPM)
Patricia J. Williams, PMP
What law firms do:
 Provide professional legal services to companies and people.
 Advise clients on legal issues and represent clients in adversarial legal matters.
 Get the client’s desired result at or below budget.
What is Legal Project Management?
A disciplined, proactive approach to managing law firm resources:
• Define the scope of engagement (usually detailed in engagement letter).
• Estimate budget and client approval in engagement letter.
• Identify resources (human, technology, knowledge management).
• Schedule human resources (SMEs).
• Identify Budget Risks/Issues.
• Monitor budget and resources through close of the deal or end of the case.
Structured and repeatable processes:
 Plan the matter
 Manage the matter
 Regular and controlled communication with client
 Prevent “scope creep”
 Measure outcomes and close all loops
5 Case Phases:
Initiate
Plan
Execute
Monitor and Control
Close
Why LPM is important:
 Law firms realize immediate value for their clients.
‐ Clients want to know two things – can we win and how much will it cost?
 Allows law firms to serve clients more flexibly, effectively and efficiently.
 Law firms can provide predictable client service at lower costs.
 Encourages transparency and communication.
 Law firms stay attuned to client needs.
Shared Goals:
What successful law firms do:
 Reduce clients’ total legal costs (compared to past cases).
 Provide high predictability of success.
 Improve outcomes (i.e., leverage knowledge, reduce average costs and better settlements for specific types of cases).
Which size law firms benefit the most from LPM?
 Large – (500+) multiple litigations and deals occurring at the same time with thousands of attorney hours invested.
 Medium – (100‐500) several litigations and deals occurring at the same time with hundreds of attorney hours invested.
 Small – (<100) limited resources and multiple litigations and deals.
 Boutique – “specialty firm” can benefit when using a new fee structure for the firm.
Overall benefits to law firms:
 Gain competitive advantage over firms not employing this disciplined practice – more competitive budgets.
 Distinguish firm’s capabilities and strengths.  Increase realization by reducing or eliminating write‐offs.
 Guaranteed case budget (no hidden costs).
 Professional development for Associates and other staff (task optimization‐driven while maximizing resources).
Overall benefits to law firm clients:
 Transparency in budget (no surprises).
 Law firms share more of the risk.
 Clear path to closure.
 Realize immediate cost savings.
 Whole case approach – case planning, discovery and trial phases.
 Lessons Learned throughout the case (check points to gauge progress).
 Comprehensive case plan with accompanying process maps (scope, work breakdown structure, schedule, cost, communications, risks, and resources, etc.).
PM for different fee structures:
 Alternative Fee Arrangements – much more risk of investment for law firms, so PM is essential for firm’s realization.
 Hourly Billing – much more risk of investment for client, so PM is essential for client’s budget. Keeping costs down:
Alternative Fee Arrangements (AFA) are becoming more common.
 Classic example – Contingent Fee (contingency or conditional fee).
Law firm collects fee as percentage of amount won at trial or on settlement.
Client usually pays nothing unless the legal action is financially successful.
 Fixed Fee – law firm takes on single case (or portion) for a pre‐specified, negotiated amount of money – cap on fees to be charged to client.
 Flat Fee – law firm takes on multiple similar cases for an agreed negotiated amount of money, regardless of outcome and length of engagement.
 Bonus Arrangement – law firm receives an extra payment that depends on case outcome (i.e. level of success, speed of resolution, or cost savings).
Impact of AFAs on law firm profitability:
According to Altman Weil 2011 Law Firms in Transition survey, AFAs:
 Used by 95% of all participating firms.
 Used by 100% of firms with 250 lawyers or more.  Non‐hourly billing in 2010, increased in 58% (measured as a percentage of revenue) for all participating firms, and in 81% of firms with 250 or more lawyers.  Two‐thirds of law firms reported their use of AFAs is primarily in response to client requests, while only a third offer AFAs proactively as a means of creating a competitive advantage.
Keys to AFAs:
 Leads to better partnerships with clients.
 Engenders trust in law firm and attorney(s).
 Improves client retention.
 Encourages measuring and analyzing case outcomes (AFA budget to actual time incurred and billed).
 Shared risk between client and firm.
LPM best practices:
 PMs are not lawyers; can support implementation of strategy not lead it.
 LPM represents a culture shift – be patient, open and receptive.
 Align law firm interests (client retention) with client interests (result and costs) to avoid excess of hours worked and billed (prevent scope creep).
 Use real‐time data (measure case progress and milestones).
 Consider an Earned Value Management (EVM) approach to budgeting.  Implement an Integration tool to view information across multiple resources (drill down capabilities).
 Assign partners’ assistant(s) or Associate(s) to PM/Analyst role.
LPM best practices, cont’d.:
 Leverage PM’s/Analysts to participate on pitches and Discovery sessions.
 Create template for ”Springboard” Maps (Process and Mind Maps).
 Conduct regular case status meetings (risks and issues only).
 Use dashboards for quicker analysis to tell “story.”
 Debrief and debug (home in focal points, regularly conduct lessons learned).
 Be Flexible and clear (stakeholder management).
LPM Resources
 PMI.org
 MS SharePoint
 Americanbar.org
 Aderant (formerly  Tikit’s Carpe Diem (time tracking)
 Thomas Reuters’ Redwood Analytics extracts baseline data from Elite)
Elite (accounting and  MS SQL
billing tracking)
 Integration Services
 SQL Reporting Services
 Analysis Services
Questions?
Patricia J. Williams, PMP
[email protected]
202‐422‐2020