Page 248 - 2019 - Leaders in Legal Business (n)
P. 248
answer depends on circumstance and the forces creating a crucible of efficiency after the Great
Recession in 2008. But a more interesting answer comes from the business world, which has
always implemented project management, specialization, and technology optimization to improve
quality, efficiency, and low costs. LMS companies represent the long overdue application of these
practices to the law.
Legal Managed Services: Project Management, Specialization, and Technology
LMS businesses do not include providers of temporary staff augmentation or part-time
contractors.
As the name indicates, managed services employ full-time professional staff, business
excellence, principles, and process efficiencies, while leveraging a globalized workforce and
adopting technology.
Project Management
This is where the traditional legal industry has simply lagged. For the most part, and with
some modern exceptions, law schools simply do not teach project management. As a result, most
of the powers-that-be in Biglaw firms simply do not know anything about project management
and do not see it as a core skill their new attorneys need to grasp. Some firms are seeing the light
(employing project management strategies in the practice of law), but many attorneys resist the
change, protesting that bespoke, tailored legal advice should not be jammed into a predetermined
workflow. It is fair for Biglaw partners to debate the merits of project management in their practice
of law, which is often as much art as science. But there’s no debate that for process-driven legal
tasks (large-scale contract analysis, derivative documentation, or litigation document reviews),
proper workflows, and team management are of paramount concern.
In fact, as the volume and complexity of legal support work has increased (due to the
exponential increase in electronic communications), managed services providers gained
prominence by proudly implementing the business world’s best practices and statistical error
reduction methodologies.
Methodologies such as Lean Six Sigma ensure statistically validated work and allow errors
to be tracked, corrected retroactively, and eliminated going forward. These project management
techniques both reduce the number of errors in large-scale legal support projects, while ensuring
attorneys complete tasks in a measurably efficient and productive way. Better, faster, cheaper.
Specialization and Domain Expertise
Biglaw firms often do not hold “non-lawyers” in high regard, but LMS companies believe
in that bringing legal, process, and business expertise together creates a better final work product.
For example, while Pangea3 employs well more than 1,000 full-time attorneys, we also
employ and empower experts in Six Sigma error reduction (some of whom are certified Black
Belts), experienced project managers, experts on financial compliance (some of whom are CPAs),
and e-discovery technology experts (many who are CEDS-certified).
These differentiators drastically improve the quality of the work product and ultimately
spell the difference between a traditional LPO (legal process outsourcing — think labor arbitrage)
provider and a true Legal Managed Services provider (think expertise and specialization). An LMS
233
Recession in 2008. But a more interesting answer comes from the business world, which has
always implemented project management, specialization, and technology optimization to improve
quality, efficiency, and low costs. LMS companies represent the long overdue application of these
practices to the law.
Legal Managed Services: Project Management, Specialization, and Technology
LMS businesses do not include providers of temporary staff augmentation or part-time
contractors.
As the name indicates, managed services employ full-time professional staff, business
excellence, principles, and process efficiencies, while leveraging a globalized workforce and
adopting technology.
Project Management
This is where the traditional legal industry has simply lagged. For the most part, and with
some modern exceptions, law schools simply do not teach project management. As a result, most
of the powers-that-be in Biglaw firms simply do not know anything about project management
and do not see it as a core skill their new attorneys need to grasp. Some firms are seeing the light
(employing project management strategies in the practice of law), but many attorneys resist the
change, protesting that bespoke, tailored legal advice should not be jammed into a predetermined
workflow. It is fair for Biglaw partners to debate the merits of project management in their practice
of law, which is often as much art as science. But there’s no debate that for process-driven legal
tasks (large-scale contract analysis, derivative documentation, or litigation document reviews),
proper workflows, and team management are of paramount concern.
In fact, as the volume and complexity of legal support work has increased (due to the
exponential increase in electronic communications), managed services providers gained
prominence by proudly implementing the business world’s best practices and statistical error
reduction methodologies.
Methodologies such as Lean Six Sigma ensure statistically validated work and allow errors
to be tracked, corrected retroactively, and eliminated going forward. These project management
techniques both reduce the number of errors in large-scale legal support projects, while ensuring
attorneys complete tasks in a measurably efficient and productive way. Better, faster, cheaper.
Specialization and Domain Expertise
Biglaw firms often do not hold “non-lawyers” in high regard, but LMS companies believe
in that bringing legal, process, and business expertise together creates a better final work product.
For example, while Pangea3 employs well more than 1,000 full-time attorneys, we also
employ and empower experts in Six Sigma error reduction (some of whom are certified Black
Belts), experienced project managers, experts on financial compliance (some of whom are CPAs),
and e-discovery technology experts (many who are CEDS-certified).
These differentiators drastically improve the quality of the work product and ultimately
spell the difference between a traditional LPO (legal process outsourcing — think labor arbitrage)
provider and a true Legal Managed Services provider (think expertise and specialization). An LMS
233
