Peer to Peer Magazine

lessons learned What are the most challenging aspects of your role? Chris: The most challenging aspect of the job is meeting the everincreasing demand. Despite having 12 full-time people in the group now, we perpetually are short-staffed. Some of our pain stems from the fact we stay involved with our client teams, and they have come to rely on us. We also are working continuously on improving our capabilities in all areas. There is never a dull moment here. Stuart: Given the geographic coverage of my firm, my biggest challenge is making our approaches pertinent across a range of jurisdictions — ensuring we have the right local coverage and resources in place to support those on the ground. Like my colleagues, I also need to ensure I focus on the activities that are most beneficial and impactful to the firm. Vincent: We need superior financial and staffing dashboard products connecting all financial and time entry systems. We need an advanced response for proposal (RFP) system — one that can tie into the financial systems while tracking budgets and monitoring expertise and availability. The biggest challenge is industry standards; better task codes that work in ALL practices would be helpful. Toby: It's the lack of systems, tools and services. The role is so new and changing so quickly that not many tools exist. Those that do exist need a bit of evolution before they truly will be useful. Also, given the dynamic nature of the role, it's hard to know how you are doing and to get useful feedback from leadership. How visible is your role in the firm and to its clients? Stuart: It's becoming increasingly visible, both from a negotiation of deals perspective and in sharing expertise and approaches with our key clients. Vincent: It is extremely visible. I have the full support of the chair, COO, CMO, our practice group leaders and our value initiative leadership team. I meet with firm and practice group leadership regularly, and I present to partners, our clients and key leadership across the firm. Toby: I have the support of the chair and meet with firm and practice group leadership regularly. I am presenting continuously to partners and lawyers across the firm, so my role is very visible. Chris: I have seen continued growth in the visibility of my role every year. It is common for me to join a call with a client to discuss billing arrangements or to join a team for a presentation/pitch. I 114 Peer to Peer think this trend will continue to increase, particularly as we work toward helping manage projects and solve problems within law departments. It is common for me to join a call with a client to discuss billing arrangements. What future trends do you think will impact your role in the firm? Vincent: Task-based billing and tracking how matters are actually managed are the keys to ensuring aggressive pricing works. The legal industry will continue to be pressured on rates and costs of operations. It will be interesting to see if the industry heads toward having a non-partner partner become part of the pricing leadership. This individual wouldn't focus on an industry or practice; he/she would be dedicated to reporting on the scoring and statistics of investment opportunities for leadership. Toby: Continued market pressures will increase the need for more thoughtful pricing arrangements and project management. We are on the front-end of significant change, so as the full impact of change comes to bear, pricing roles will come under much more pressure to drive profit. Stuart: The ever-closer integration between pricing, project management and knowledge management — requiring an ever broader skill set — will have an impact. The increasing number of pricing and legal project management (LPM) applications potentially could encourage more fee earners to go the selfserve route. The pricing director role needs to become more of a change agent, and I think we — Vincent, Toby, Chris and I — are already working on that. Chris: Stuart hit the nail on the head with this one. That is my reality, and it's becoming more so. We will continue to see adoption of the project management methods we evangelize. Success often breeds more opportunities, and our approaches to managing the work are effective. The ability to leverage technology to create efficiencies will also be very important.

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