Legal Project Management: July 2009 Archives

Six Sigma as a Legal Project Management Tool, Part 2

By Paul C. Easton on July 29, 2009 1:00 PM | No Comments | 1 TrackBack

This is the second post in a planned three-part series looking at ABA materials discussing Six Sigma. Hat tip to Rees Morrison and his excellent Law Department Management blog for bringing these articles to my attention. Here I'll discuss the second of two papers on Six Sigma presented at the ABA 2009 Litigation Section Annual Conference (Atlanta, GA): Six Sigma, the Discovery Process and the Corporate Legal Department, co-authored by Betsy P. Collins, Burr & Foreman; John H. Goselin II, ING Americas US Legal Services; Caroline B. Keller, Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation; Joe Mann, Navigant Consulting, Inc.; and Andrea Tecce, Navigant Consulting, Inc.I believe that you have to be a member of the ABA...

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What Legal Project Managers Can Learn from Rocket Scientists

By Paul C. Easton on July 29, 2009 3:14 AM | 4 Comments | No TrackBacks

Better technology does not ensure better quality. W. Lawrence Wescott, a senior consultant with Kahn Consulting, takes the opportunity of the recent Apollo Moon Mission anniversary to point out that: Despite the fact that the computers available to NASA at the time had a fraction of the power of today's laptops (the computers within the command module itself had less power than an ordinary cell phone), the many complex systems had a failure rate of less than .01 percent. The key to the success of the space program was superior management. Project management is likewise the key to success in e-discovery....

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Does your Project Management Documentation Make the Case--for the OTHER Side?

By Paul C. Easton on July 28, 2009 9:56 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

While the focus of this blog is to convince lawyers to improve the management of their legal projects, it is important to note that non-attorney project managers need to understand their legal obligations and plan for litigation risks. One area where most project managers could do a better job with risk planning is setting up project documentation policies and systems with an eye towards potential litigation.Matt DeVires points out in a recent post to his Best Practices Construction Law blog, project documentation is often a rich source of adverse evidence. Matt DeVires, Project Documentation: The Bad Little Email that Got Produced,...

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Six Sigma as a Legal Project Management Tool, Part 1

By Paul C. Easton on July 28, 2009 4:42 AM | 2 Comments | 3 TrackBacks

In a post revisiting his earlier writings on Six Sigma, Rees Morrison reminds us that "Many people think of Six Sigma as a method to root out defects but it is also a technique for project management." Law Department Management: Six Sigma projects in various legal departments. He also mentions a white paper on "Six Sigma, The Discovery Process In The Corporate Legal Department" that was presented to the ABA Litigation Section earlier this year. Although I'm a member of the ABA Section of Litigation, I missed this white paper, so I logged into my ABA account and found it...

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Sharks in the Clouds: Can Legal Projects Succeed with Cloud-based Teams?

By Paul C. Easton on July 25, 2009 3:53 AM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

Can law firms manage large projects effectively in the cloud? Or will physically disconnected teams lack the cohesiveness needed to maintain the esprit de corps required to push the project to success? Brian Sommer, author of the Services & Software Safari blog on ZDNET is skeptical. In a post titled "Teams in the (Troubled) Cloud" he writes: "Small projects might be more manageable in the cloud but more study is needed on the ability of really large projects to work well in the cloud."To grossly over-summarize his post, the issue with cloud-based projects is that having all the collaborative technology in the...

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Law Ministry wants judiciary to go the Six Sigma way

By Paul C. Easton on July 23, 2009 5:19 AM | 2 Comments | No TrackBacks

I just came across an Indian Express article from January, which states:If the Union Law and Justice Ministry has its way, the Indian judiciary will soon adopt the Six Sigma concept to improve its efficiency. ... A concept paper in this regard prepared by Union Law Secretary T K Vishwanathan, which will be sent to the Chief Justice of India, contains many other recommendations to speed up the judicial process and make the judiciary more transparent and accountable. All this, ministry sources say, will be implemented if the CJI puts his stamp of approval and once the Rs 442-crore e-courts project, being implemented...

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Taking on the Agents of Chaos

By Paul C. Easton on July 22, 2009 8:59 AM | No Comments | 1 TrackBack

Matthew Lane of Fios once again takes up the cause of project management against the forces of evil. In a "recent" (okay, yes, it's taken me a week to get to it) blog post entitled Bringing Order to Chaos: The Proper Pace of Project Management Push, he sounds as if he's a martial arts master using his opponent's energy to pull him in and then applying force to his opponent's momentum to push him where he wants him. He writes: Those of us championing project management are eager to encourage the use of tools and techniques we feel will add value...

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Practicing law may not "suck" as bad as computer programming, but the grass isn't all green.

By Paul C. Easton on July 21, 2009 12:05 AM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

In his blog post, "Why a career in computer programming sucks," Rohan Kanade makes a number of assertions about project management and the practice of law. These are set in the context of an opinion piece that advises young Americans to avoid pursuing computer programming as a career. I'm not going to discuss his main argument about computer programming as a career. Instead, I want to explore a number of supporting claims he makes, which touch upon both legal practice and project management. These raise a number of interesting points, but also contain some misconceptions that I hope to correct.I'll...

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Half of E-discovery Professionals Use No Project Management Software In-house, really!?

By Paul C. Easton on July 16, 2009 1:28 AM | 4 Comments | No TrackBacks

According to an informal poll conducted by Venio Systems, 45.6% of "e-discovery respondents" use no project management software in house. Here are the poll results as posted in the LinkedIn Electronic Discovery Group (linked page requires registration): Latest E-Discovery poll RESULTS: Do you utilize project management software in-house?No 44.6% Yes - Off the shelf project management software 23.9% Yes - Hosted project management software 19.6% Yes - Proprietary project management software 12.0% Last week's poll consisted of 92 e-discovery respondents from around the world.Venio Systems publishes past polls on its Web site, but as of the time I wrote this, this...

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And you thought the demands of your legal projects were extreme...

By Paul C. Easton on July 4, 2009 2:43 AM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

ABA Journal articles tend to sit in my "to read" file until I have a long flight or some idle time to quickly browse though them, so I only now came across this article about a lawyer's father-son trip up Mount Everest. Martha Neil, Climbing Everest Also Tested Lawyer's Practice Management Skills, ABA Journal: Law News Now, June 8, 2008, LINK.Despite the title, the article doesn't go into much detail about how this endeavor involved practice management skills. But the implication should be obvious. Undertaking a challenge as difficult and dangerous as climbing Mount Everest requires an exceptionally high level of planning,...

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New Blog on Electronic Discovery Project Management

By Paul C. Easton on July 3, 2009 1:04 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

As my recent flurry of blog posts makes obvious, I'm playing catch-up on my blogging and social network activities. It seems I missed the May launch of a new blog that touches on legal project management. Even more focused than mine, Erika Santiago's new blog is dedicated to and titled: "Electronic Discovery Project Management."The URL is: http://ediscoverypm.wordpress.com/I've followed Erika on Twitter (@lsptrainer) for some time and am looking forward to reading her thoughts, tips, and experiences on her new blog....

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So. Cal. ACC events has legal project management on the agenda

By Paul C. Easton on July 3, 2009 11:12 AM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

Those of you located in Southern California who are interested in applying project management and process-improvement standards and methodologies to the practice of law might what to check out the following multi-venue CLE event from the Souther California Association of Corporate Counsel:Operating in a Challenging Economy - Creating Efficiencies, Process Improvements and Predictability in Commercial and Employment LitigationWednesday, July 15. Breakfast locations are Beverly Hills, Pasadena, and Irvine, and lunch venues are in Los Angeles, Westlake Village, and Torrance.Topics include:project managementstandardization of staffing and outsourcingSeyfarth Shaw's implementation of ean Six SigmaThe event is free to members of Metropolitan Corporate Counsel and...

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LexisNexis sees corporations adopting a project-management approach to litigation

By Paul C. Easton on July 3, 2009 8:30 AM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

Citing the "trend from viewing litigation as a practice to viewing it as a business process" and increasing expectations of corporate management for their in-house legal departments to adopt a project-management approach to litigation, Lexis Nexis increases focus on tools and services to "putting processes in place to gain greater control and insight early and throughout the litigation process." Craig Bennett, Managing The Law Department With A Tighter Budget: How Integrating Legal Research And Litigation Tools Improves Risk Management, The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel, June 30, 2009, LINK.Authored by the Vice President and General Manager of litigation workflow solutions for LexisNexis, the article focuses...

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Law Firm PM Watch: Seyfarth Shaw

By Paul C. Easton on July 3, 2009 6:05 AM | 5 Comments | 4 TrackBacks

The law firm of Seyfarth Shaw LLP announced today that it is adding a "Corporate Technology and Outsourcing Team" to its Atlanta Office. What caught my attention in what is an otherwise ordinary law firm press release is the extent to which the firm highlights its adoption of Lean Six Sigma methodologies, dubbing the firm's methodology as "Seyfarth Lean." According to the press release, the firm has 75 in-house Six Sigma Certified Green Belts (a certification with fewer requirements than the more advanced "Black Belt" certification, Green Belts typically take up Six Sigma implementation alongside their other work obligations and work...

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July 2009 Archives