Whether you are planning to climb Mt. McKinley or to provide well-managed legal services to a key client, assaying the possible and probable changes to your plan is key to success. Recent headlines in Alaska told a tragic story about four climbers on Mt. McKinley, the highest peak in North America. Because the weather had… Continue Reading
Category Archives: Legal Project Management
Subscribe to Legal Project Management RSS Feed“Grubby Money” – Lawyers’ Reluctance to Talk About Fees
Posted in General Counsel, Law firm management, Law firm practices, Law Firm Profits, Legal Project Management, Legal Spend, New Normal, Outside CounselIt’s no secret – and no surprise – that in today’s competitive and cost-constrained legal landscape the Almighty Dollar has taken center stage: clients are increasingly fixated on tightened budgets and efficient service delivery. It’s also clear that discussing the dollars is something a lot of lawyers prefer to avoid. We recently led a Legal… Continue Reading
Why Lawyers are Lousy Collaborators
Posted in Law firm management, Legal Project ManagementGuest Post by Douglas Richardson Partner, Edge International In an evolving legal profession in which the players are ever more functionally interdependent, the ability to collaborate has become a core competency. In managing law firms and legal departments…managing legal projects…in client service and client relations…and in marketing and business development, the ability to play well… Continue Reading
A Case Study at the Cutting Edge: Legal Project Management in Australia
Posted in General Counsel, Law firm practices, Legal Project Management, Legal Project Management tools, Legal Spend, New Normal, Outside CounselThe legal profession, sad to say, rewards its denizens with relatively few breakout moments, a dearth of challenges that allow its movers and shakers to break new ground. All the talk about law’s “New Normal” notwithstanding, the legal landscape is a pretty conventional place, populated by more “first followers” than “first movers.” That’s why it… Continue Reading
THE LOW DELTA FIRM: Demise of the Low Ball?
Posted in General Counsel, Law firm practices, Law Firm Profits, Legal Project Management, Legal Spend, Outside Counsel, Request for ProposalIf you are racing to stay competitive in today’s rapidly-changing legal marketplace, you probably have learned some new words and acronyms. Convergence programs. Alternative fee arrangements – or AFAs. RFPs, those increasingly draconian client requests for proposals. LPM, that is, legal project management. LPOs, those legal process outsourcing enterprises. The Key Selection Criterion All of… Continue Reading
You Can’t Make Lawyers into Techies: 3 Lessons About LPM
Posted in Law firm practices, Legal Project Management, Legal Project Management toolsAs a result of a conversation I had this week with David Rueff, a partner at Baker Donelson and an ardent advocate of Legal Project Management (LPM), right now I am particularly mindful of the adage, “never try to teach a rhino to dance. The results are generally unsatisfactory and it annoys the rhino.” Mind… Continue Reading
Extreme Magical Thinking: Technology Won’t Take You Off the Hook
Posted in Intersection, Law firm practices, Legal Project Management, Legal Project Management toolsOn the eve of LegalTech, I have been encountering a lot of magical thinking recently when talking with law firm partners about Legal Project Management. One partner, hoping that the IT and KM folks can simply buy a tech solution so that he could avoid making any real changes to the way he manages matters,… Continue Reading
A General Counsel’s Take On LPM & Foreseeability
Posted in Alternative Fee Arrangements, General Counsel, Law firm practices, Legal Project Management, Legal Project Management tools, Legal Spend, Outside CounselGuest Post by Russ Dempsey, Vice President and Chief Legal Officer United Retirement Plan Consultants Pam Woldow’s recent blog post, Putting Some Pepper Into Legal Project Management, called to mind my own recent successful use of Legal Project Management (LPM) to manage the risks and foreseeability issues in an engagement with one of our… Continue Reading
Putting Some Pepper Into Legal Project Management?
Posted in Intersection, Law firm practices, Legal Project Management, Legal Spend, Outside CounselIt is not uncommon for law firms being pressed by clients for more accurate budgeting and better budget management to raise the “unpredictability defense.” Whether in litigation or transactional matters, the unpredictability defense asserts that it is nearly impossible to precisely plan and completely control legal spend because legal matters are subject to such a… Continue Reading
Dialing for Pizza: Practical Perspectives on Scoping Legal Projects
Posted in General Counsel, Law firm practices, Legal Project Management, Outside CounselLegal Project Management (LPM) assigns extraordinary importance to providing legal services that deliver value as perceived by the client. Yet over and again we observe that while in-house counsel tend to view legal matters in terms of broad business issues and the pressures of “commerciality,” law firm lawyers tend to focus on identifying narrow legal… Continue Reading
More Eureka Moments in Legal Project Management
Posted in General Counsel, Law firm practices, Legal Project Management, Legal Project Management tools, Midsize firms, Outside CounselWelcome to the new site for At the Intersection. We are settling in to our new address and relationship with Lexblog, and are delighted to commence the kickoff with a GUEST POST. Proving that great minds and great firms think alike, I’m pleased to share a guest post contributed by Sheri Palomaki, Director of Practice… Continue Reading
Call Me INDISPENSABLE
Posted in Law firm practices, Legal Project Management, Legal Project Management tools(Part 5 of 5, LPM in Transactional Practices) This is the last in our series of posts about conversations with Lex, who heads a large New York law firm’s transactional practice and is an avid supporter of using Legal Project Management (LPM) to plan, manage and assure consistent quality in the deals he leads. An… Continue Reading
The Random Lunatic — Always an Unhappy Surprise
Posted in Law firm practices, Legal Project Management(Part 4 of 5, LPM in Transactional Practices) EUREKA! Ever had that experience when someone coins a phrase that perfectly describes something you could never find the word to describe? It happened recently during a fascinating conversation with “Lex,” head of a large law firm’s transactional corporate practice and an advocate for applying Legal Project… Continue Reading
Communicating With “The Client” – Lessons From Lex
Posted in General Counsel, Law firm practices, Legal Project Management, Outside CounselBy Pam Woldow & Douglas Richardson (Part 3 of 5, LPM in Transactional Practices) Welcome Back, Lex In the last several posts, we’ve been telling you about Lex, the head of a national firm’s transactional practice group, and his staunch support for the application of Legal Project Management (LPM) principles and practices to transactional work…. Continue Reading
KM Triumphs at the Lex & Larry LPM Showdown
Posted in Intersection, Law firm practices, Legal Project Management, Legal Project Management tools(Part 2 of 5, LPM in Transactional Practices) Welcome Back, Lex In our last post, we introduced you to “Lex,” head of a large firm’s transactional practice group and a powerful spokesman for the benefits of applying legal project management (LPM) principles to transactional legal work. What Lawyers Should Do Lex learned — and now… Continue Reading
Legal Project Management: Lessons from “Lex” (Part 1 of 5, LPM and Transactional Practices)
Posted in Law firm practices, Legal Project ManagementBut Not for Me Over the course of four years of implementing large law firm Legal Project Management (LPM) initiatives, it has been common for transactional lawyers to ‘inform’ me that the whole Legal Project Management (LPM) trend may be well and good for litigators, but has little to add to the effectiveness of lawyers… Continue Reading
A New Approach to Collaboration: Legal Project Management
Posted in General Counsel, Intersection, Law firm practices, Legal Project Management, Outside Counsel, Request for ProposalGiven the hard-nosed economic realities of the legal profession, it strikes many lawyers as a little touchy-feely, and even a bit naïve, to speak of “partnerships” between law firms and their clients. Although the parties share a need and appreciation for high-quality legal work, law is basically a vendor-purchaser relationship where one side’s desire to… Continue Reading
LPM Momentum: The Dechert Experience
Posted in Alternative Fee Arrangements, General Counsel, Law firm practices, Law Firm Profits, Legal Project Management, Legal Project Management tools, Legal SpendIn 2009, Dechert established itself as a committed first-adopter in the burgeoning Legal Project Management (LPM) trend by offering LPM training to every partner in its U.S.and European offices, certainly a major undertaking. I was retained to design and facilitate LPM training that included scores of workshops for hundreds of partners over a 9-month period…. Continue Reading
Legal Project Management Tools: Let Rube Goldberg Rest in Peace
Posted in Law firm practices, Legal Project Management, Legal Project Management toolsAsked how he likes his “next generation” automatic dishwasher, the disgruntled purchaser’s voice drips with disdain: “Totally useless,” he says. “I’ve had it a week now, and it hasn’t even cleared the table yet.” I’ve heard similar responses from law firms that thought their Legal Project Management (LPM) implementation would be effortless if only they… Continue Reading
Is Legal Project Management Really Different than Project Management?
Posted in Law firm practices, Legal Project Management, Legal Spend, Outside CounselIn recent weeks, several bloggers have waged a spirited debate about whether Legal Project Management (LPM) is really just plain, old Project Management in a law firm setting. As you might expect, there are advocates on every side plus plenty of folks asking, who cares? Here’s my take, as posted at 3 Geeks and a… Continue Reading
5 Key Takeaways from General Counsel Outside the US
Posted in General Counsel, Law firm practices, Legal Project Management, Legal Spend, Outside CounselMore than 60 in-house General Counsel and Chief Legal Officers met in Sao Paulo last month to participate in the Latin American Corporate Counsel Association (LACCA) annual meeting. They haled from companies based throughout Latin America, as well as international companies with major offices in Latin America. A sampling of the companies included Dow Corning,… Continue Reading
Drivin’ the Legal Project Management Road
Posted in Law firm practices, Legal Project ManagementThe managing partner of a large firm has just called with my most common FAQ: “So what’s the best way for us to implement Legal Project Management (LPM)? How do we gear up and get up to speed quickly?” Appropriating his automotive metaphor, I said that while I understood the desire to accelerate quickly, the… Continue Reading
General Counsel Colloquium
Posted in General Counsel, Law firm practices, Legal Project Management, Legal Spend, Outside Counsel, Request for ProposalThanks to one savvy GC for the great suggestion that At the Intersection provide a periodic summary of the posts for corporate counsel. Here then is the roll call (in reverse chronological order): The Client’s New Voice No Place to Hide Warning Bells Legal Project Management Moves In-House An Open Letter to General Counsel in… Continue Reading
Drivin’ the Legal Project Management Road
Posted in Law firm practices, Law Firm Profits, Legal Project Management, Outside CounselThe managing partner of a large firm has just called with my most common FAQ: “So what’s the best way for us to implement Legal Project Management (LPM)? How do we gear up and get up to speed quickly?” Appropriating his automotive metaphor, I said that while I understood the desire to accelerate quickly, the… Continue Reading
