Digital White Papers

KM PROFESSIONALS: A NATURAL FIT FOR LPM •As CKO, I was tasked with initiating the program and getting the pieces in place and was given full support for this effort by the firm's chairman as well as the entire executive committee. We formalized a plan and purchased Redwood Analytics as our main tool for pricing and LPM processes. Our plan consisted of four phases; each included an intense awareness campaign. Each phase targeted a different group. We began with the executive committee then integrated our practice group leads, then rolled in our partners and finally the rest of the attorneys by practice group. With the support of management, we also instituted a new policy: All alternative agreement matters now require a plan/budget generated by the LPMO, and each of those matters is then tracked and reported on. We use those plans/budgets to learn what we can do better in the future and to create templates for future use. Our phased approach has been well-received, and we continue to win over partners who seek our assistance on a consistent basis, even for matters that do not involve an alternative fee agreement. What tools are you using for LPM? This question was open-ended, so the data were placed into categories. Some of the lines are blurred, such as tools for creating/managing budgets, tools for managing matter tasks, and budget or matter plan templates. I think the most interesting statistic here is that 13 of the respondents are using commercial budgeting tools, and 4 are using phase/task codes. BUDGET CREATION AND TRACKING: MATTER/TASK MANAGEMENT: DOCUMENT ASSEMBLY: Elite Engage (three) Matter management tool/dashboards (15; nine mentioned they were portal/intranet or SharePoint based) HotDocs (one) Elite Enterprise Matter Budgeting (two) CaseMap/TimeMap (two) Brightleaf (one) Lexis Redwood's Matter Planning module (four) Matter Experience database (two) Unspecified (one) ERM4Legal (two – under evaluation) Checklists/Program Guides/Best practices (four) Data Fusion Matter Planning (one) Excel (seven) Budget Manager (Randy Steer) (three) MS Project (three) Custom/Other Budget Applications or Templates (nine) Visio (one) What is your opinion on the state of LPM in the legal profession? •People can't agree on what LPM means. •No emerging standard on how to do it. A few general themes emerged. The first was the lack of standards in the industry — about half of the respondents made comments about this. •Minimal rigor or standardization within firms.

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