Law Firm PM Watch: SeyfarthLean Featured in iSixSigma Magazine and the Profit Through Process Pod Cast

Seyfarth Shaw is featured in the cover story of the current issue of iSixSigma Magazine.  Lisa Damon, Managing Partner; Andrew Perlstein, Partner; and Carla Goldstein, Director of Strategic Management, discuss the firm's Seyfarth Lean program.^[1]  Seyfarth Lean is the firm's adoption of Six Sigma methodologies to the practice of law.

This is the most detailed explanation of Sayfarth Lean that I've seen to date and is well worth a read for any firm considering Six Sigma. I took away two tips for successfully implementing Six Sigma in a law firm: 

1. adopting a less statistics-heavy training for attorneys, and 
2. making sure that implementation is a top-down, firm-wide initiative

It was clear after the first wave, Damon said, that full-bore, traditional Green Belt training contained too much statistical work, and that too many tools were involved for use in a busy law firm. "We had a bunch of lawyers trying to make their way through value stream maps," she said. "We knew that this was not going to be as user friendly for our population or as important to our clients as we liked." So Seyfarth Shaw tailored the Lean Six Sigma training to bring it in line with their clients' needs and goals.^[2]

Another element of the program's success is that it was a top-down, whole firm approach. Ms. Damon credits Thomas Sager, Vice President and General Counsel at DuPont, for this insight.

"[Sager] was very instrumental to us," Damon recalled, referring to their investigation of how Six Sigma could be applied at Seyfarth Shaw. "He said not to do this unless it was a top-down, whole-firm initiative. We did it that way and I cannot imagine our success without it - it's too hard to work on continuous improvement if you have people saying that we've been doing things the same way for 25 years and that's fine."^[3]

I also found it interesting that they include project management training as part of their Seyfarth Lean coursework:

During the second wave of training, a project management aspect was added to the SeyfarthLean coursework. "We recognize from our clients, lawyers and staff that one of the things that makes us successful is our project management," said Goldstein, who is a certified project manager. She explained that the Green Belt curriculum includes project management techniques, such as facilitation and leadership skills, and that there is a project manager on every Lean Six Sigma project, whether internal or client facing.^[4]

Seyfarth Lean's combination of project-management and process-improvement training, customized for legal professionals is compelling and this article provides a good taste of the firm's secret sauce.

Lisa Daman and Carla Goldstein were also interviewed recently on Six Sigma IQ's Profit Through Process podcast.^[4] The podcast pretty much covers the same topics and advice as the iSixSigma Magazine article.