Digital White Papers

EXPERIENCE MATTERS AT DECHERT while conceptualizing the platform, we spent significant time determining how experience should be captured, classified and leveraged. Matter Classification System: It was readily apparent the development of a comprehensive matter classification system would be critical to the goal of tracking matter-related experience. How else could the concept of "experience" truly be captured without a scheme that would categorize and describe effectively the particular service types provided on all Dechert matters? While everyone accepted the principle that a useful classification system would be the backbone of our experience application, the actual development of such a system proved to be another issue entirely. It is important to note that — for both better and worse — we did not have to start from scratch. A matter classification system had been developed for many of the practice groups at the firm before EXP was contemplated. On one hand, we had a framework — essentially a system in place whereby a primary (broad) and a secondary (narrower) legal service would be "tagged" to a matter when it was opened and fed into Elite (our time and billing system), where it would remain permanently attached to that matter and the matter's timekeepers. Therefore, we were in decent shape from a technical standpoint. However, in considering the experience types to be accounted for across all practice areas throughout the firm, it became clear the actual classifications in many areas were woefully inadequate. Thus began the daunting task of refining the matter classifications already in place. The myriad challenges we faced with respect to this aspect of the development of EXP alone are outside the scope of this article. That said, we thought we should underscore a few difficulties we encountered: •It was a challenge to achieve consensus on the appropriate classifications in each practice area, particularly because in some instances we needed to "sell" the concept that refinements were, in fact, required to capture experience more effectively. Reasonable minds can differ on how to define and describe service types, and we struggled to agree on classifications. •All appropriate parties' opinions needed to be considered, including those of attorneys and administrative staff. This often involved many conversations and disagreements. •We needed to be thoughtful about accounting for synergies across practice groups that handle the same work, so an end user of EXP could pull data on the experience type regardless of the practice group to which the original matter was assigned. (The primary and secondary legal service choices are driven by the practice group

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