publication of the International Legal Technology Association
Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/306297
KNOW YOUR ROSTER Tapping into the most appropriate talent for a given matter is not a simple process. It's one that can take a great deal of time, energy and legwork that could be better spent on generating revenue. When putting together a dream team, "best" is certainly subjective; it doesn't necessarily mean the most successful, highest-paid lawyers in your firm. A dream team should reflect the best combination of talent, billable rate, client experience and skills that management deems necessary to bring about the desired outcome for a case. Putting your most expensive, experienced lawyer on every case or matter isn't always necessary. But it is important to assemble a team made up of the right people, whether for a specific case or even when seeking business. To make the appropriate selections, you need in-depth knowledge about your attorneys from the moment they step through your door, if not sooner. "We make a significant investment in the acquisition of lateral partners, so it's imperative we ramp up their integration into the firm and showcase their knowledge and experience in the most impactful way possible," said Dave Egan, Chief Marketing Officer at Reed Smith. "We sell our knowledge, so knowing as much as possible about our lawyers and serving it up in an intuitive way is paramount. We have the ability to uncover and promote our lawyers' capabilities throughout the firm and to clients, maximizing cross-selling efforts and achieving better outcomes across the board." There are a slew of activities that must occur to essentially "transplant" a lateral lawyer and their practice and assimilate them into the firm. All too often, collecting the proper information becomes low priority, and it can be difficult to collect once the lateral has settled in. Even if you're fortunate enough to obtain their experience and knowledge, where do you put it? How do you make it searchable and discoverable? How do you use it? It's a multifaceted problem that should be addressed sooner rather than later. OLD SCHOOL DOESN'T CUT IT At the international law firm Reed Smith, rudimentary information used to be captured on paper or via an electronic form. Some of it eventually flowed into the firm's website for marketing purposes, and some would go into the human resources system (e.g., languages spoken), but there really wasn't an effective method for lawyers to provide self-service updates to their profiles. Experience could inadvertently be omitted, or an attorney might forget about experience they'd accumulated since joining the firm. This presented a problem, particularly in the assessment and recruitment of laterals. It's not prudent to send a company-wide email message that says "Hey, we're looking at this group of laterals from the Jones firm. Has anybody ever worked with them?" You simply can't do that. Your recruiting efforts and research need to remain highly confidential. With a searchable platform, you can see who's worked with a candidate and reach out privately to that attorney for information. Having that level of discoverable, searchable insight is powerful and advantageous, especially when a firm needs to be discreet. This is the kind of functionality Reed Smith wanted to provide its lawyers. A FIRM DIRECTORY AND THEN SOME Industry-wide, publicly available firm directories are a well-known resource, but most contain very limited information on individual attorneys, often taking a "name, rank and serial number" approach not conducive to maximizing the talent within a firm. The ILTA WHITE PAPER: APRIL 2014 WWW.ILTANET.ORG 34 Jason Noble Jason Noble, General Manager of Neudesic Pulse, has nearly two decades of experience in building and managing complex, mission-critical applications. Most recently he has had extensive experience with advanced collaboration and knowledge management applications. This includes enterprise search applications focused on expert identification and inferred user knowledge. Jason has spent over 14 years focused on collaboration software solutions for DARPA, the U.S. Navy, Fortune 500 companies and countless small businesses. He can be contacted at jason.noble@neudesic.com.