I just discovered Debbie Westwood's blog "Two Wheel Geek". Debbie runs InTechGration, an e-discovery and litigation technology consulting company. She blogs about cycling and legal technology for all those who love technology, the law, cycling, or all three. I live in Taiwan, home to manufacturers of many of the world's bikes. Some of my clients are bike manufacturers. So I feel a connection already. But what really excited me was that the sidebar of her blog highlights her presentation "Project Management for Litigation Support," available on SlideShare.net. I'm always happy to see litigation support and e-discovery consultants educating their law firm clients on the importance of project management.
I wish the speakers notes were available, because it looks like a good presentation, introducing the fundamentals of project management to lawyers and litigation support staff. It also incorporates some of the material from the EDRM Project Management Framework. Like most good Powerpoint Presentations, the slides are very concise, leaving it to the presenter to serve up the substance. Therefore, I found myself wishing I was there for the presentation or at least could ask the Debbie to explain some points.
For example, throughout the presentation she shares a number of tips. Her first tip is "Don't Say Project Management." Why?
I'm assuming her point is that few lawyers understand or respond to the jargon of project management and that it is better to clothe it in "case management" or "litigation support." I understand why she would recommend this, but I also think that most law firms need to make fundamental changes in how they manage their work and that this requires a different mindset. I worry that trying to hide project management within business-as-usual will frustrate the transformation required for law practices to truly benefit from the efficiency and quality improvements that a legal project management program can create.
While on the Slide Share Web site, I also came across Mark Hamilton's presentation on "Legal Project Management." From the branding on the slide show's footer, I assume Mark is with Wolters Kluwer Law & Business. Mark's presentation uses fewer slides but crams in a lot of content per slide.
It's nice to see people educating lawyers about project management. If you know of any other public presentations on legal project management, please post links to them in the comments.
Thanks for the shout-out, Paul. You are quite right that I have found it better to use terminology that sounds more familiar to lawyers such as "case management" rather than "project management". Particularly when the concepts are new to lawyers, the association of "project management" with IT projects tends to raise an unnecessary barrier to adoption of the concepts.
Generally, as lawyers become more comfortable with the concepts, and actually start applying them in some basic form, I like to reintroduce the phrase "project management" and its associated terminology in order to move the conversation forward.
But when it's a brand new set of concepts, using the unfamiliar terminology of project management can be confusing and obscures the very necessary changes that must be embraced by law firms if they are to survive the current economy, and the gradual change from traditional to new business models.
Thank you for your comments. I agree that there are times when a gradualist approach is more effective. You need to know your audience. If you are speaking to a general audience of attorneys from whom you hope to gain some new clients, you probably don't want to scare them away with talk about re-engineering their entire practice.
Still, my approach is to give a bit of a shove by contrasting traditional case management with modern project management standards. The trick is to make it clear to the attorneys that you are not telling them how to practice law (the execution of the service) but rather helping them improve the monitoring of the work performed so that THEY can make more informed decisions on how to run their practice and better quantify their value to their clients.
Have either of you (Paul, Debbie) been introduced to iFramework (i-framework.com)? It is the only Project Management Software on the market that is specifically designed for Litigation Support departments. I think you'll be surprised and impressed by this software.
I encourage you to reach out to me for more information.
Jason Wade
Sales Manager - iFramework
jwade@idstechinc.com
703.552.2768
Yes. I just interviewed John Rowley and am having it transcribed. You should see the interview posted here by the middle of next week.