Legal Project Management: Thoughts, tips, and discoveries related to the management of legal projects.

September 2009 Archives

Another Agile Project Management Blawg

By Paul C. Easton on September 30, 2009 5:12 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
Yesterday, I introduced The Rosetta Brief, authored by  by Regina Mullen, CEO of a company called Dialexia, which is a founding partner of the Agile Lawyers Association. I failed to note, however, that the Agile Lawyers Association has its own blawg, titled: Raising The Bar "Iteratively!"  The posts do not include the author name(s), but I assume that Ms Mullen is currently writing most of the content.In addition to posting updates to events and developments related to the Association, the blog also posts about Agile-related topics and applies them to the practice of law.  The Agile Lawyers Association is still in an early stage of...

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Fios Webinar Promotes Project Management in E-discovery

By Paul C. Easton on September 30, 2009 4:14 AM | 7 Comments | 2 TrackBacks
I think I may be the first Internet stalker of legal project management gurus and Matt Lane is my hapless victim.  It seems there isn't a Webinar he gives that I don't attend, a White Paper he authors that I don't read, or a restaurant in Portland he dines at that I don't...ahem.  Matt Lane is a Director of Client Services at Fios Inc. and an expert in e-discovery project management. I've commented on his LPM whitepaper and on blog posts he's written (here, here, and here). I've also attended an excellent Webinar on project management presented by  Kate Billera, Client Services...

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Project Management for, uh, Managers

By Paul C. Easton on September 30, 2009 3:23 AM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
Today in SmartPlanet's Pure Genius blog, Vince Thompson interviews Michael Bender, CEO and Founder of Ally Business Developers about his new book A Manager's Guide to Project Management. [1]  The title isn't as redundant as it sounds.  The book does not tell project managers how to run their projects, but instead targets senior managers and executives to help them get the most out of their projects and project managers. With my mind still filled from recent in-blog discussions with Steve Levy with thoughts of implementing legal project management at the system level, coming across this article seemed synchronicitous. According to the author, this...

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Dialexia Throws Down the Gauntlet: Agile versus the EDRM and PMI PMBOK

By Paul C. Easton on September 29, 2009 10:39 PM | 2 Comments | 1 TrackBack
I just discovered a new blog, The Rosetta Brief, which is authored by Regina Mullen, CEO of a company called Dialexia, which is a founding partner of the Agile Lawyers Association and plans to debut the first Agile Document Review Team in 2010.  Although it looks like the blog was launched this month, and Dialexia's Web site is still under development, it already has a number of provocative posts. The most recent post is rather dismissive of PMI's project management standards, arguing that the "PMI crowd" places too much focus on removing all risk from a project, whereas Agile embraces and manages...

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LPM the Talk of the Blawgosphere

By Paul C. Easton on September 28, 2009 12:58 PM | No Comments | 1 TrackBack
Usually I can go a week or so without hitting my Google Reader account and not miss much about legal project management (LPM). September, however, has been a busy month. Steven Levy and I have been having an ongoing discussion on the role of project management tools in the legal environment, which has been picked up by Ron Friedman in his most recent post to Strategic Legal Technology, where he also notes a surge of interest in the topic.[1] In addition to Levy's and my blogs, Friedman also cites a recent post to the 3 Geeks and a Law Blog, which...

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Project Management Tools in the Legal Environment: Can Old Dogs be Taught New Tricks?

By Paul C. Easton on September 26, 2009 2:46 PM | 1 Comment | 2 TrackBacks
A few days ago Steven Levy wrote a toughtful and thought-provoking response to my post "Buying a Lathe Does Not Make You a Carpenter" in his Lexician blog. Steven B. Levy, Rethinking Legal Project Management Tools, Lexician, Sept. 21, 2009, at URL. In Rethinking Legal Project Management Tools, Levy argues that "standard project management tools" are not appropriate for most law firm environments. Not only that, but focusing on the software could cause efforts to implement project management to fail. In explaining why this is the case, Levy discusses what he sees as the three levels of project management. These are:...

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The Lawyerification of Litigation Support: Is a Legal Education a Benefit or Just Baggage for an E-discovery Project Manager?

By Paul C. Easton on September 25, 2009 11:41 PM | No Comments | 5 TrackBacks
If you have a legal discovery project that will cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars for data collection and processing, document review, and production; in a litigation with millions of dollars at stake; who do you want managing the e-discovery? A lawyer? A paralegal? A litigation support professional? I would say any of the aforementioned professionals is fine, so long as he or she has the right experience, personality, communication ability--and project management skills. It seems, however, that others in the industry touting the importance of project management in e-discovery projects seem to favor one professional background over the others....

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Buying a Lathe Does Not Make You a Carpenter: Setting Realistic Expectations for Legal Project Management Software

By Paul C. Easton on September 21, 2009 4:38 PM | 1 Comment | 2 TrackBacks
Rees Morrison brings up an important point in a recent post to his Law Department Management blog and touches on one of my pet peeves with many who discuss "project management" in the legal environment. The title of his post nicely sums up a point I often struggle to make with some of my colleagues: "project management software doesn't necessarily mean the discipline of project management."Rees is characteristically concise in this post, a positive character trait I have trouble emulating. He doesn't go into much detail on the tools available and which support project management standards, or whether supporting standards...

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Reframing Law Firms' "Five Imperitives" with Project Management

By Paul C. Easton on September 18, 2009 1:56 AM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
A blog I've just recently discovered and am enjoying a great deal is Steven Levy's "No Secret."  Steven Levy recently left his job as a Senior Director of Microsoft, where he led the company's legal technology business team. He is currently the Principal at Lexician, a consultancy that "helps law firms and law departments get value, savings, and rapid return on investment from their technology and their projects" (from the company's Web site).Thursdays are "Project Thursday" on Levy's blog and are rewarding reading for any project manager. I particularly enjoyed today's post, where he makes the case for why "smart firms"...

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Law Firm PM Watch: Seyfarth Shaw's Six Sigma program highlighted in the ABA Journal

By Paul C. Easton on September 17, 2009 3:57 PM | No Comments | 1 TrackBack
Seyfarth Shaw's Six Sigma program, "Seyfarth Lean", has been getting a lot of press recently. Following on a mention in BusinessWeek, the law firm's Six Sigma program was highlighted in a recent article in the ABA Journal.  Debra Cassens Weiss, Seyfarth Shaw Says Six Sigma Method Has Cut Client Fees by Up to 50%, ABA Journal, Law News Now, Sept. 14, 2009, at URL.I've written about Seyfarth Shaw's adaption of Lean Six Sigma principles to their legal work in the past and Lisa Damon, Managing Partner at the Seyfarth Shaw's Boston office, was kind enough to take the time to provide more information...

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Do You Have What it Takes to be an E-discovery Project Manager?

By Paul C. Easton on September 15, 2009 2:13 PM | No Comments | 4 TrackBacks
In this month's issue of ALSP Update, Brett Tar, General Counsel of Emag Solutions discusses what he sees as the new breed of electronic discovery project managers. Brett Tar, Skills, Savvy and More: The New E-Discovery PM, ALSP Update, Sept. 2009, at URL.Tarr makes the important point that expertise in e-discovery law, budgeting, or firm management do not guarantee success as an e-discovery project manager. He argues that "[i]n today's multimillion-dollar, multimillion-document lawsuits and regulatory inquiries, the ideal PMs are a new, absolutely unique breed."As General Counsel of a top electronic discovery vendor, Tarr is well positioned to observe the development...

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Share your Organization's Experiences with Legal Project Management

By Paul C. Easton on September 3, 2009 2:36 PM | 5 Comments | 1 TrackBack
Does your law firm, litigation support bureau, or legal support services company employ project management standards or methodologies? If so, I would love to hear about it!One of my on-going series of posts is on "Law Firm PM Watch" where I post about law firms who have implemented a project management program and/or have made efforts to apply PM methodologies at their firms. I like to invite representatives of the firm to explain their thoughts and experiences in their own words. For examples, see:http://legalprojectmanagement.info/law-firms-who-get-it/To date, my focus has been on law firms, but I also want to hear from corporate...

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Making the Case for e-Discovery Project Management « Electronic Discovery Project Management

By Paul C. Easton on September 3, 2009 12:29 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
Do you need to make a case for Project Management in your firm? Erika Santiago (@lsptrainer on Twitter) has put together a list of must-visit resources on the Web.  I'm honored to see this blog linked to in a list that includes the Sedona Conference and Ralph Losey's E-discovery Team blog. ...

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