Legal Business Development and Project Management

Five Ways to Increase Engagement of Virtual Teams (Part 3 of 3)

Note:  This blog series is based on one of our new “Work from Home™ Series” of LPM tools and templates.

In this last part of our blog series on increasing engagement of virtual teams, we discuss ways to create an open team culture and foster shared vision, outcomes, and a sense of purpose.

Action Step 4:  An open team culture

In an open team culture, every­one feels heard and is free to ask for help when they need it.  Building this type of culture takes time as team members get to know each other and build rapport and trust.  An open cul­ture requires an understanding of each team member’s perspective and preferred approach to work.

Although a full discussion of this topic is beyond the scope of this article, at a minimum, team members should have a sense of the impact of their words, and they should try to conform their behavior to high standards to avoid generating defensiveness in other team members.  The chart shown at right, which appears in our online LPM library, offers a few tips to help.

Another way to create an open team culture is to hold periodic virtual meetings to review lessons learned. Here are a few examples of the types of questions your team might want to address as part of a Lessons Learned Review:

• What did we do well?
• What could we do better?
• What was supposed to happen?
• What actually happened?
• What were the positive and negative factors?
• How well did we meet client objectives?
• Were all deadlines met?
• How well did we communicate with each other?
• How well did we communicate with the client?
• Did we manage fees and expenses well?
• What have we learned and what can we do better next time?

Action Step 5:  Shared vision, outcomes, and a sense of purpose

The primary task at the start of any legal project is to set objectives and carefully define the project scope with the client and with your team. Doing so will align mutual expectations.

A Statement of Work (SOW) must fix the boundaries of what is within the reasonably expected scope for the matter and what is not. The details of contents and format will vary depending on the circumstances, but could include:

• The client’s objectives
• Detailed deliverables such as the number of depositions
• Deadlines or expected timelines
• Teams and roles, if relevant
• Assumptions and exclusions
• Risks
• Budget or fee as well as payment terms

The first draft of the SOW should be shared with both the client and the team members for their review and input. Your team needs to understand the client’s goals and expectations and align them with the team’s overall approach, focusing on the business problem or dispute from which the matter arises and on acceptable outcomes and deadlines for the client.  For that reason, you must ensure that every team member is familiar with the final project objectives. It does not hurt to remind them of the client’s objectives by way of regular e-mails and during virtual meetings.

Conclusion

Managing a legal team or a client matter becomes significantly more challenging when your team is working remotely.  We have provided you with a sampling of LPM tools and templates that can help you engage lawyers and other legal professionals that are working from home.  Many more examples are available in our online library of LPM tools and templates.

Five Ways to Increase Engagement of Virtual Teams (Part 2 of 3)

Note:  This blog series is based on one of our new “Work from Home™ Series” of LPM tools and templates.

In Part 1 we discussed how to increase the engagement of virtual teams using a Communication Plan, which helps ensure regular, clear communication, and a Matter Plan, which helps define clear roles and responsibilities within the team. In this Part 2, we present valuable suggestions on how to improve virtual team meetings.

Action Step 3:  Improve virtual team meetings

Another way to engage remote team members is to improve the team’s virtual meetings.  Below are some suggestions:

Before the meeting:

• Schedule a video conference as opposed to a phone call. The platform should be secure and easy-to-use and offer screen sharing technology.
• Clearly define the meeting objectives.
• Assess how long it will take to realistically complete the most important items on the agenda with the people you have invited, and keep the meeting as short as possible.
• Distribute an agenda in advance. This can be a one-sentence e-mail, or a more formal document.
• The agenda should include:
• The start and end time.
• The topics or decisions to be made or discussed, in order of importance.

During the meeting:

• Be crystal clear about who is running the meeting. That’s probably you. But maybe it should be someone else if they have skills that will enable them to better meet the objective.
• If the meeting goal is simply to communicate decisions that have been made, anyone in authority can do it.
• But if a meeting requires joint decision-making or consensus building, you will need a facilitator with good communication skills who can keep the discussion on track without bruising feelings. For meetings of this sort, it may be useful to start by reviewing the process and ground rules about how decisions will be made and how you will deal with items that cannot be resolved in this meeting.
• In any case, the meeting leader must be a good role model: On time, organized, fully engaged, and focused on the topic and on what people are saying.
• Whenever possible, start exactly on time.
• The reason that this piece of advice starts with “whenever possible” is because the ‘client’ is always right. If the managing partner, practice group leader, or visiting general counsel wants to start 10 minutes late, do that.
• Follow the agenda. If there are three topics to be covered, finish number one before you begin number two. If the conversation drifts, refer to the agenda and get back on track.
• Drive topics to resolution. Summarize comments and bring the group to a decision or ask them to confirm that what you’ve said is a fair summary.
• Never end late. No matter what time you start, the meeting should end at the announced time. People have other commitments, and meeting leaders should honor them. Unless, of course, the client or boss disagrees.
• If a topic turns out to require more discussion than you expected, table it for an outside meeting or propose a quick action plan for how to resolve it.
• Be prepared to deal with people who will inevitably be inclined to go beyond any time limit. The meeting leader must prevent that.
• End early if you can. Once the objective is met, end the meeting. Make sure everyone knows that you ended early, the objective was met, and you put a few extra minutes back into everyone’s lives.
• If your meeting objective includes building team efficiency and/or morale, make an effort to get everyone involved:
• Ask team members to report project status.
• Ask the team for feedback on discussion points.
• Develop buy-in on the issues and solutions.
• If one or two people are doing most of the talking, make a point of including others and asking for their input.
• Handle problems promptly but diplomatically:
• Say: “It looks like we’ve drifted a bit; let’s come back and focus on the agenda item.”
• Acknowledge the person’s experience with a subject but suggest the issue be raised at a later time.
• Say: “We’ve heard from X, does anyone have a different view?”
• If the conversation is important but time is running out, assign a smaller group to either gather more information or move the process along once the meeting is over. Find the ‘owner’ of the problem and assign it to that person.
• If two people are dominating the conversation, send them off to figure it out.
• Record all decisions:
• Keep simple meeting minutes, including all conclusions reached, who is assigned to do what and by when, and any items tabled for later.
• If it would help, assign someone else as the note-taker who will be responsible for keeping the meeting minutes.
• If a follow-up meeting is needed, ideally the minutes should include the time for the next meeting and an initial agenda including any outstanding or tabled items.

After the meeting:

• As soon as possible after the meeting, distribute a written report of what was decided and any action items. Like the agenda, this can be a one-sentence email or a fancy report, but it must be done.
• Monitor follow-up on action items.
• Give recognition and appreciation to excellent and timely progress.
• If any high-level problems came up, discuss them with decision makers.
• Consider evaluating this meeting to help you improve the next one. What worked and what didn’t? Most importantly, did the meeting achieve your objective?

In Part 3 we will complete this series by discussing how to increase engagement by creating an open team culture and fostering shared vision, outcomes, and a sense of purpose

Five Ways to Increase Engagement of Virtual Teams (Part 1 of 3)

Note:  This blog series is based on one of our new “Work from Home™ Series” of LPM tools and templates.

In a survey of nearly 400 project management professionals from a variety of industries, Dr. Penny Pullan asked participants to identify the greatest challenges they faced when working remotely. Far and away, the single greatest challenge was “engaging remote participants” (76%).  When asked what actions would help virtual team members be more engaged and productive, survey respondents often gave the following answers:

1. Regular, clear communications, without lengthy gaps in between;
2. Clear roles and responsibilities;
3. Improve virtual team meetings;
4. An open team culture; and
5. Shared vision, outcomes, and a sense of purpose.

The rest of this article offers practical tips to address each of the recom­mended action steps identified above.  It draws on material from our extensive online library of LPM tools and templates.

Action Step 1:  Regular, clear communications, without lengthy gaps in between

Using a Communication Plan is critical when team members are working remotely to ensure regular, clear communications.  The Communication Plan shown at right, taken from our online library, identifies who on the team is engaging in the communication, and with whom they are communicating.  It also describes the information that is being communicated, and when and how that communication is to be delivered.

 

 

Action Step 2:  Clear roles and responsibilities

Using a Matter Plan is a simple way to determine who is responsible for which tasks and the deadline for each task.  The precise format of a Matter Plan varies depending on the needs and preferences of the users.  The Matter Plan shown at left is excerpted from our online LPM library.  Additional columns could be added to include each timekeeper’s hourly rates, estimate fees for each task, and estimate total fees. 

Many project managers find it useful to visualize project schedules in the form of Gantt charts, which are bar graphs that show the start and finish dates for each task of a project.  A Gantt chart for the example shown at left would look like this:

Note: This image was taken from our LPM tool “About Gantt charts.”  Many free programs can be found on the internet to generate charts like this. This sample was created with free software at www.tomsplanner.com. However, for legal projects it may be simpler to create a chart in Word or Excel or even on a handwritten document

A Gantt chart can be quite useful to team members, since it shows tasks and deadlines in a form that clarifies what must happen first, and when certain tasks might conflict with one another.

In Part 2 of this blog series, we will present valuable tips on how to increase engagement by improving virtual team meetings.

Online LPM Library of Tools and Templates: Frequently Asked Questions (Part 2 of 2)

In part 1 of this blog series, we explained how our online library of LPM tools helps law firms implement a robust internal LPM coaching program, and we also listed several benefits firms have experienced when using this resource.  In Part 2, we describe what your firm can expect if it licenses our online LPM library.

What specifically does the license include?

We will help you develop a well-defined program that fits your firm’s culture and resources. This will increase buy-in by helping to ensure that lawyers use the tools to increase efficiency, client satisfaction, and profitability at your firm.  Specifically, each license includes:

• Unlimited, non-exclusive rights to reproduce and adapt all of the content within your firm and with your clients for one year (renewed annually)
• Separate files for each tool (in both Word and PDF format) so you can easily deliver just the information a particular lawyer needs in your preferred format, and so you can customize existing templates to meet your firm’s needs
• New tools and templates that are released to license holders every June and December
• Consultation with the authors of these tools to maximize the value to your firm, ensure quick wins, and establish a foundation for future success
• Sample emails for use by the managing partner or another senior partner announcing the availability of these tools and their benefits to the firm and to individual lawyers
• Twelve “LPM tips of the month” each year, for publication on your intranet, internal newsletters, or email to remind lawyers of the value of this resource
• A proven method for hosting and facilitating a lawyer panel discussion to help promote the use of the online LPM resource among firm lawyers
• A suggested menu structure that can be adapted to your intranet

Tell me more about the consultation that’s included with the license.

Each license includes four hours of consulting support, plus materials to help build a stronger culture of LPM within your firm, including:

• Specific tasks, objectives, and timelines for using these LPM tools and templates
• Systems to provide exactly the information lawyers need, precisely when they need it
• A list of the top ten tools that have proven most useful in implementing LPM, and the top ten tools that are most effective in introducing LPM concepts
• Guidelines for prioritizing which lawyers to focus on first when introducing LPM tools
• Suggestions for working with LPM champions, practice group leaders, and LPM Directors
• Tips for designing an internal program to publicize successes, including sample “LPM Tips of the Month”
• Guidance on how to save time developing firm-specific processes and procedures by customizing our templates
• Suggestions on how to customize our tools for in-firm presentations and training

What are the contents of the online LPM library?

A complete list of the current LPM tools and templates can be found on our website. 

All files are delivered in both Word and PDF format so that they can be made available on your firm’s intranet, and, when necessary, customized to fit your firm’s or practice group’s needs. 

New tools and templates are added every June and December so that lawyers can easily keep up with developments in this rapidly changing field.

How much does it cost to license the resource?

The answer to this question depends upon the number of lawyers at your firm.  If you want a customized quote, please contact us at [email protected]. 

What we can tell you is that this online LPM library can offer a rapid return on investment. As soon as one lawyer who is responsible for a large engagement adopts an LPM best practice, the return on investment can quickly exceed the license cost by, for example:

• Increasing the accuracy of an initial fee estimate and the likelihood of payment in full by using the template “15 questions to ask clients to help define scope”
• Renegotiating a fixed fee by using the template “Prepare and negotiate for approval of a scope change”
• Using any of the more than 170 tools and templates in the online library to increase client satisfaction and/or firm profitability

What else can you tell me about this resource?

Four previous editions of these tools have been tested and refined in firms around the world that encompass over 100,000 lawyers.  Additional details can be found on our website, including:

• The names of more than 35 contributing authors from both large and small firms, including Baker McKenzie, Morgan Lewis, WilmerHale, Pepper Hamilton, and Bilzin Sumberg
• The names of 25 LPM experts who currently serve on our Board of Advisors, including representatives from Norton Rose Fulbright, Lathrop Gage, Baker Botts, Winston & Strawn, and K&L Gates
• Testimonials from 22 additional LPM experts at firms such as Perkins Coie, Jackson Lewis, Ballard Spahr, Orrick, and Saul Ewing

Online LPM Library of Tools and Templates: Frequently Asked Questions (Part 1 of 2)

In over a decade of research and consulting with hundreds of law firms, we’ve seen that one-to-one coaching is the most effective way to accomplish the goal of increasing LPM results. To assist legal professionals in implementing LPM tactics, it is imperative that law firms have a proven and effective way to easily provide LPM resources to their lawyers and legal staff when they need it. 

This blog series explains how our online library of LPM tools and templates can help your firm implement a robust internal LPM coaching program, as well as what your firm can expect if it purchases our license.

Note:  Although we use the term “LPM coaching” in this blog series, it does not matter whether your firm adopts that terminology or not.  Whatever your firm calls it, and however your firm does it, the critical element for increasing LPM results is to implement a program that changes the behaviors of your firm’s legal professionals.

Why use just-in-time training materials like our online library?

The primary goal of any LPM coaching program is to help legal professionals apply LPM tactics quickly to find “low hanging fruit” and directly experience such immediate benefits as (1) increasing realization and profitability, (2) reducing risk, (3) protecting current business, and (4) increasing new business. 

As explained in our white paper, The Keys to Legal Project Management Success, the five most effective ways to increase LPM results are to:

1. focus on changing behavior and solving problems
2. aim for quick wins to create internal champions
3. publicize successes within the firm
4. use just-in-time training materials; and
5. take action now and follow up relentlessly.

A critical component of any LPM coaching program is to provide legal professionals with the resources they need “just-in-time” to help them resolve real-world challenges they face on a daily basis.

In most professions, “just-in-time” training materials like ours have become the standard way to teach new skills. For example, when people need to use an unfamiliar feature of Microsoft Word, very few would consider taking a class or looking it up in a manual.  Instead, they simply look it up online, exactly when they need it.

Although LPM coaching is the most effective way to change lawyer behavior and achieve quick wins, there are a number of different ways that LPM coaching programs have been structured internally at law firms.  Regardless of the approach, however, it is essential that law firms have a proven set of LPM best practices to offer to their legal professionals. 

Our LPM tools and templates have been developed and refined over thousands of hours in our one-to-one LPM coaching programs.  Our online LPM library provides LPM Directors, LPM coaches, champions, group leaders, and others with over 170 tools and templates that have been proven to increase client satisfaction and firm profitability.  Each license also includes consulting support and supplemental materials to ensure that lawyers actually use the materials.

Who should license the online LPM library?

Any law firm that is interested in changing the behavior of its legal professionals to implement LPM practices should consider licensing this library.  It is absolutely critical for firms to have an online LPM resource if they want to provide “just-in-time” LPM training materials to lawyers and legal staff.  A key question then is whether firms want to “reinvent the wheel” and develop these materials on their own or license them. 

To create a quality online LPM library takes thousands of hours of time over several years.  It makes sense that firms would want to rely upon proven LPM best practices, and they would want to obtain the “know how” to promote and implement an online LPM library in a way that ensures it is actually used by firm lawyers.  Instead of paying to reinvent the wheel, firms can now start from a proven foundation that has helped thousands of lawyers. 

What are the general benefits of licensing the online LPM library?

Law firms have reported the following benefits as a result of licensing the online library:

• Internal LPM coaches, LPM champions, practice group leaders, and others provide lawyers with exactly the information they need to increase efficiency, exactly when they need it.
• Lawyers can directly access all the LPM tools on the firm’s intranet, and can download the information from their laptop, tablet, or phone, whether they are in their office, on an airplane, or in a hotel room.
• Firms save time and increase results by building their LPM efforts on a proven foundation that has been developed and tested over many years.
• Firms keep up with the latest developments in this rapidly changing field, as new tools and templates are added to the library twice a year.
• The library multiplies the effects of firm LPM initiatives by helping LPM Directors, practice group leaders, and others provide more lawyers with more help more quickly.
• Firms improve client relationships by sharing LPM tools with key clients.
• LPM staff use the online library to create more awareness by sending LPM tips of the month to lawyers throughout the firm.
• LPM staff introduce key LPM concepts by demonstrating how to use the online library at practice group meetings, firm retreats, and in other settings.

In Part 2 of this blog series, we will describe what your firm can expect if it licenses our online LPM library.

Case Study: An Integrated Approach to Providing Clients with Greater Value (Part 2 of 2)

By Tim Batdorf and Jim Hassett

Q: In the first part of this post, we talked about the big picture of your approach, and the success it has produced. Now let’s go into the nuts and bolts, and discuss how the matter management side of your team operates.

A: The matter management team is a small but mighty part of our group. In many ways, it is the glue that holds the group together. Once we agree with clients about pricing, the matter management team takes over and is involved for the rest of the matter. It makes sure we properly track and manage what we’ve agreed to and communicates with the client about what is happening. It also helps drive all of the client technology we are building. It talks to our internal and external clients about what they need and develops the requirements that help our technologists build solutions.

When I came to Ballard Spahr four years ago, many of our interactions with clients centered on the pricing function. That’s why it’s so great that the matter management team now plays a prominent role. While pricing is incredibly important, once matters are underway our clients also want to know how we deliver on what we agreed to. If we don’t engage in matter management, costs quickly escalate. This can jeopardize client relationships and affect the firm’s bottom line.

Q: That’s very interesting. As you may remember, several years ago we interviewed 15 LPM Directors, including you, about how their job was defined. At that time, most spent more time on setting prices for new matters than on managing the work to help assure that lawyers stayed within these budgets. We concluded that (p. 298 in the fourth edition of our Legal Project Management Quick Reference Guide), “in our opinion, improving the management of existing matters would lead to a faster financial return [than improved pricing].”

A: I completed your Certified Legal Project Manager® program and received tremendous benefit from it. I agree that matter management is absolutely essential.

Ballard Spahr has a requirement that attorneys must submit budgets for the majority of their matters when we open them. This requirement encourages us to take a disciplined approach to managing our matters from day one. The budgets go into our matter management application, which gives our attorneys real-time access to the matter to see budget-to-actual information. One of the challenges we face, however, is that budgets are iterative and often change over time. This is where the matter management team comes in. It takes an active role in working with our attorneys on updating budgets, setting up phase and task codes that track budgets, monitoring, reporting on, and actively managing ongoing matters. The team helps attorneys proactively address with clients out-of-scope issues that may arise.

Q: The function of the value-based pricing team seems obvious from the title. Is there anything you’d like to add?

A: The pricing team plays a crucial role in our department and is often involved with matters before they come in. The team works with our attorneys to identify the diverse team members who will be responsible for working on the matter or matters and to model several pricing options from which clients can choose. During the RFP process, team members are often also involved in communicating the benefits of our program to clients and demoing our Ballard360 client technology.

Q: What about the data management part of the team?

A: Our data management team is busy right now working on an enterprise data warehouse that combines all of the firm’s data and stores them in one place. One of the challenges clients and law firms have is that we collect a lot of data that go unused or are difficult to use. The data warehouse combines and normalizes data from all firm applications and many of our vendor applications. Having the data warehouse helps us build dashboards with more sophisticated reporting and data analysis capabilities. Our goal is to move away from simply providing our clients with data and having the conversation end there. We want to be seen as a strategic partner to our clients. That means using data analytics and information we’ve gained on client and industry trends to make recommendations regarding how clients should approach business issues and manage client matters. In 2020, we also will focus more heavily on how we can incorporate more artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning into this process.

Q: And what about the practice technology team?

A: Our practice technology team is an interesting group because it includes IT Developers and Legal Solutions Architects, who are trained lawyer technologists. The Developers help us start conversations with our clients about what they want in terms of technology, and then build and implement that technology. We follow an iterative process that we constantly modify and improve based on feedback obtained from clients. Current projects include client extranets, document automation, case management, and financial and knowledge management dashboards.

Q: Do the four teams work together?

A: Absolutely! It’s essential. The key is having constant conversations and interactions with one another so that we are all rowing the same direction and share the same vision for how to get there. Having team members who are focused on different aspects of pricing, matter management, data, and client technology is extremely valuable. Suppose there’s a complex commercial litigation matter that requires an annual fixed fee with a collar. It’s unlikely that the IT developers or data people are going to understand the way the matter needs to be priced, set up, or managed, but other members of the team do. Once the matter is in the door, and is up and running, then the data and technology teams step in to help us implement Ballard360 technology for the client that delivers cost-effectiveness, value, and efficiency. Having a diverse team that works together so closely is how we move the needle to quickly and proactively support our clients and address issues that arise.

Q: Can you give me another example of this collaboration?

A: We’re now using client portals to manage our real estate transactional work. We build an extranet site for each new matter, upload the tasks that will be required, and use a color-coding system to manage the tasks related to the matter. This allows the Ballard team, the client, the borrower, and third parties to communicate and exchange documents and information relating to the matter. It's an extremely efficient, cost-effective, and interactive way to manage deals.

Q: Has your view of LPM changed as you’ve worked with this group over the last few years?

A: My view of LPM has definitely evolved over the years. When I first started doing LPM, my primary focus was scoping, budgeting, and budget-to-actual reporting. I then started to focus on process improvement efforts. Now, we do both, but we’ve incorporated a focus on using technology and data analytics to manage our matters. I view LPM as a tool kit you use to manage matters. Some matters need all the tools we have to offer, while others need only one or two.

Q: You referred to the matter management subgroup as “the brains behind the entire client-value innovation function.” Would you say they are the most important piece of the puzzle?

A: LPM is definitely important, but it’s just one of the ways our team provides value to clients. Each person’s role on the team is important, and the team is doing amazing things. I am excited to see where we go in the next year or two.

Q: Where do you predict you will be focusing most of your energy and resources in the next year or two?

A: The team’s importance is growing because what we are doing is so vital to clients. We may need to continue to grow or borrow resources at the firm to support this demand in a strategic way. We’re also doing great stuff with technology, and the team’s work is paying off. What we are doing next year at this time will probably look completely different. More to come!

Case Study: An Integrated Approach to Providing Clients with Greater Value (Part 1 of 2)

By Tim Batdorf and Jim Hassett

This post is based on a recent interview with Melissa Prince, the Chief Client Value and Innovation Officer at Ballard Spahr, a nationwide firm with more than 650 attorneys in 15 offices. She oversees the firm’s award-winning Client Value and Innovation Program, which focuses on creating a customized client experience centered on value, cost predictability, and efficiency. Under Melissa’s leadership, Ballard Spahr was named to the Financial Times’ “Most Innovative Law Firms: Business of Law” list, a BTI Consulting innovation “Mover and Shaker,” and a finalist for the American Lawyer Industry Awards for best law firm/client team and best business team.

Q: Let’s start with a 10,000-foot view of how your group is organized, and your role.

A: I head Ballard Spahr’s Client Value and Innovation Program, and oversee the pricing, matter management, practice technology, and data management teams at the firm. Our group includes more than 20 business professionals with legal, finance, technology, data science, and project management backgrounds and certifications.

Q: And how does the Client Value and Innovation Program fit into Ballard Spahr’s organizational chart?

A: We are a stand-alone department that reports to the Executive Director and works closely with the firm’s Chair, Managing Partner of Finance and Operations, Strategic Planning Partner, Board, and Executive Team. The degree of support we have at the top is a key factor in the department’s success. We engage in rigorous planning when we take on new clients and engagements. We perform detailed scoping exercises, select diverse team members to handle each matter, prepare budgets, and provide clients with fee arrangement options. Each new arrangement is reviewed and approved by our Managing Partner and legal department leadership. Since we started our program several years ago, the team has earned the respect and trust of our attorneys. They understand that the process has leadership support and is tied to the firm’s long-term goals and strategy. 

Q: Before we get into the details of how this works, let’s briefly jump to the bottom line: Has your group been able to produce clear evidence of financial success?

A: Absolutely. One of the easiest places to see this is in our role in growing existing and new client partnerships. For example, several years ago one of our clients—a Fortune 500 company that was working with several hundred law firms at the time—decided to increase efficiency and cost predictability by consolidating all of its legal work with just a few firms. It put out a request for proposal (RFP) to select the firms that would handle all its legal work.

Ballard Spahr was chosen as a finalist. The client selected us not only because of our legal experience but also because of our sophisticated capabilities in pricing, matter management, and client technology, which other firms did not have. Much of what we talked about in the client interview meetings was how we intended to price and manage matters, because that was incredibly important to the client. We made a commitment to budgeting and managing the client’s matters and thinking innovatively about the service we could deliver.

The client named Ballard Spahr to a panel of just three firms to handle all its legal work. At the time we responded to the RFP, we had done a limited amount of work with this client. Within the first year after the RFP, however, the work quadrupled. It is a huge success story for our group and the firm. And it is one of many success stories I can point to that demonstrate the value of what Client Value and Innovation is doing.

Q: Did the process of working with this client change your approach in any way?

A: We customize our approach to each client’s needs, and the experience with this client definitely helped us realize that we need to focus more heavily on managing client relationships for larger firm clients.

The problem with law firms is that administrative functions often are siloed, and it’s hard to get everyone to work together closely and communicate about what’s happening. When we started to onboard new matters for this client, we quickly realized that we needed a single point of contact at our firm to ensure that matters were set up properly, to develop budgets, report on monthly accruals, and to help with matter management.

Our matter management team stepped in and now plays a central role in overseeing this process. We understand what’s going on in every matter. We work with the lawyers to manage each matter to make sure we stay within budget, comply with the client’s outside counsel guidelines, and bill the matter the right way. We developed real-time budget-to-actual reporting so that the client can see exactly what's going on at all times, and can be proactively involved in making decisions about its matters. We also worked with the client to develop a quarterly financial report template used by all of the client’s law firms, which provides portfolio- and matter-level details and compares financial performance and cost savings. The client also can see the value-adds that firms are providing, such as secondments, CLEs, pro bono work, advice and counseling, and technology.

The matter management group has direct contact with the client and has, in essence, become the client relationship manager on the business side. We also work directly with the attorneys managing the legal work to ensure that we are doing everything we can to develop the client relationship.  

Q: Do you think that this kind of client-facing role for Legal Project Management (LPM) teams will grow at your firm and at others?

A: I do. In the world we live in, clients are driving change at law firms. Clients with larger legal departments now have legal operations people who expect law firms to have business people in similar roles who speak their language and help manage their matters. Clients with smaller legal departments or “teams of one” that don’t necessarily have a dedicated legal operations function also appreciate that firms like Ballard Spahr have invested in resources, like our team has, to provide support. Our team is much more client-facing than we were even a couple of years ago. I now meet with several clients a week to hear about their needs and work with them to develop pricing, matter management, and technology solutions. I think the importance and the client-facing nature of my role and others like mine will only continue to grow.

In part 2 of this blog series, we will spotlight how the matter management team and other teams at Ballard Spahr operate to provide award-winning client value and innovation.