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

November 2009 Archives

Dan Michaluk on Project Management as a Key Litigator Competency

By Paul C. Easton on November 27, 2009 5:05 AM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
Dan Michaluk, an associate at Hicks Morley, recently discussed why project management is a key litigator competency on Slaw.CA.[1] His post discusses a number of points that this blog has covered in the past, but placed in a Canadian context.He starts with a quote from the Sedona Conference's Commentary on Achieving Quality in the E-Discovery Process endorsing legal project management and then provides a brief definition of "project management" taken from Wikipedia, without delving into too much detail (defining "legal project management" can be tricky).[2] Next, he points out that poor legal project management may have ethical implications: There are other sources of...

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Exterro to Discuss E-discovery Project Management for Law Firms

By Paul C. Easton on November 25, 2009 2:46 AM | No Comments | 2 TrackBacks
Right on the heels of their recent Web cast discussing how to apply project management to the Electronic Discovery Reference Model, Exterro will present another Web cast focusing on e-discovery project management, this one focusing on the law firm rather than the corporate legal department: E-discovery Project Management and Legal Hold: A Practical Approach for Law Firms Tuesday, December 8, 2009 10:15 AM - 11:15 AM PST Register at: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/928623072 Natasha Keitges, Senior Director of Business Development at Exterro, will be joined by Randal Girourard, Litigation Support Manager at Haynes and Boone, LLP, to discuss "how to weave project management principles...

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Exterro Shows How to Apply Project Management to the EDRM

By Paul C. Easton on November 23, 2009 5:13 AM | 1 Comment | 2 TrackBacks
Last Thursday, Exterro gave an on-line presentation that discussed e-discovery project management in the context of their suite of legal work-flow tools.[1]  Co-presented by Natasha Keitges, Exterro's Senior Director of Business Development, and Pete Warner,[2] a litigation technology specialist at Sandia National Laboratories (an Exterro client),[3] the Web cast discussed how e-discovery project management fits into a company's government, risk, and compliance program and, more specifically, how applying project management processes to the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM)[4] can establish key efficiencies, cut costs, and allow legal departments to more effectively monitor the successes and failures of their e-discovery projects.  The presentation...

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David Allen, the "Project Management Problem", and the Need for Legal Context Over Legal Applications

By Paul C. Easton on November 19, 2009 3:51 AM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
Productivity Guru David Allen's recent newsletter discusses two "project management" problems that should resonate with any legal project manager: (1) having a system that covers various projects requiring different levels of planning detail, and (2) integrating "horizontal vs. vertical" control.[1] Mr. Allen defines a project as "anything ... that is not likely to be finished with one action step."[2] This might be a broader sense of the term than most people intend when they talk of "projects," but adopting this definition helps highlight a common issue faced by legal project managers: I've never seen any two . . . projects that needed...

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LPG Says Project Management Crucial to Performance-based Pay

By Paul C. Easton on November 18, 2009 7:57 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
The Law Firm Group (LFG) at Citi Private Bank[1] cites project management skills as important for successful fixed-fee billing and performance pay systems. In a recent article pubished in The American Lawyer,[2] Dan DiPietro,[3] advisory head of LFG discusses how client demands for lower legal bills and fixed-fee billing is forcing firms to move away from lockstep, seniority-based pay and advancement systems and towards performance-based systems.   One of the four key elements of a successful attorney-performance program, according to the article, is the adoption of "a more sophisticated approach to work allocation that takes into account client goals and...

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Rocket Matter Founding Partner Applies Agile Software Development Principles to Running a Law Firm

By Paul C. Easton on November 13, 2009 2:53 AM | 2 Comments | No TrackBacks
Lary Port, a founding partner of Rocket Matter, a practice management SaaS solution, recently spoke about legal project management at MILO Fest [1], a "a conference for Mac-Lovin' Lawyers and their families."[2] His talk was entitled "Running an Efficient and Error-Free Law Firm" and its goal was "to delve into the world of project management, applying techniques long known in manufacturing and software industries such as Agile Software Development to the practice of law."[3] He has posted the presentation's slides to SlideShare[4].The slides do not have much text, which is an indication that Mr. Port is a good presenter, but which...

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Eversheds Cites Project Management as Key to Winning Tyco Business

By Paul C. Easton on November 9, 2009 2:21 AM | 1 Comment | 1 TrackBack
In a recent press release announcing a two-year contract with Tyco, Eversheds cites Project Management as central to the success of this relationship.[1] The firm's focus on metrics and project management is driven, I would argue, by the fixed-fee arrangement it has with Tyco. As I've recently discussed, adoption of legal project management will be driven by the move towards alternative billing arrangements.[2]Here is the section of the press release that pertains to legal project management: With an emphasis on transparency, control and metrics, in the past two years, the contract has achieved by way of example, a 27% reduction...

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When Data Collides with Legal Decisions

By Paul C. Easton on November 7, 2009 4:12 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
Seth Godin recently posted on a topic that any legal project manager shouting like a madman in the wilderness can take to heart: even when good data exists, it may be ignored by decision makers.[1] It takes more than data to overcome habit, prejudice, and hunches.  Data is much easier to come by in the Internet age. It may not feel that way when we consider legal work, but as Steve Barret points out in a recent post to the Legal Business Development blog, there is a lot of data that firms capture about legal work (especially time data) that...

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International Project Management Day

By Paul C. Easton on November 6, 2009 3:11 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
Yep, there's a day for that. In case you missed it, yesterday was International Project Management Day: http://www.internationalpmday.org/Well...if you are in New York, Louisiana, North Dakota, or Colorado (USA) then it was November 1st.If you are in Arkansas (USA), it was on November 2nd.If you are in Arizona or Michigan, you get a whole week to celebrate project management. November 1-8 for Arizon and October 30-November 6 for Michigan. For an "international" holiday, it seems to be mostly recognized in the United States, at least seven of the 50 states. A number of large corporations and PMI chapters around the world have, however,...

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Firms Must Base Fixed Fees on Sound Data, Not Guesstimates

By Paul C. Easton on November 6, 2009 9:54 AM | No Comments | 1 TrackBack
As I have noted in prior posts, project management standards are likely to be adopted by law firms lockstep with fixed-fees billing. In a recent guest post to Jim Hassett's Legal Business Development blog, Steve Barrett, former CMO at Drinker Biddle, discusses "three prerequisites to success in implementing alterative fees," which require a level of project management maturity that most firms have yet to achieve. These are: systems to "screen and approve all off-hourly deals and monitor them as they progress";tools to "rigorously [analyze] the financial outcomes of their past alternative fee client matters, either separately or taken as a whole"; andthe discipline of tracking cost histories...

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Exterro to "Show Why Project Management is the Key to Success for Every E-discovery Undertaking"

By Paul C. Easton on November 6, 2009 4:52 AM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
On Thursday, November 19th, Exterro will Web-cast a one-hour panel presentation of e-discovery experts who will "show why project management is the key to success for every e-discovery undertaking by deconstructing the electronic discovery reference model from a new perspective: Integrated project management." The Web-cast, titled "A Simplified Approach to E-discovery Workflow" is scheduled to start at 10:15 a.m. USA-Pacific Standard Time. For more information and to register, visit the following Web site: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/263821849...

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