Digital White Papers

16 WWW.ILTANET.ORG | ILTA WHITE PAPER MARKETING AND BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Are You Experienced? One Firm's Experience Management Journey We fixed what we could and continued our implementation, but we knew we needed a beer long-term solution to manage our experience. Reaching Out for Resources I am a big believer in process over technology, but in this case our homegrown technology solution had been holding us back. In early 2015, I saw a demonstration of Foundation, a newly developed experience management and proposal generation system. I knew immediately it was the direction in which we needed to go. Orrick is known for innovation, and working with a start-up company as one of its first four clients was a unique opportunity to co-create an innovative solution. The Foundation platform gave us the flexibility to take the best of our previously defined process and make it even beer. Our marketing team was thrilled to be gaining a system that could generate proposals in addition to capture experience. We kicked off our implementation in December 2015, and our first business unit started using the system in April 2016, with others joining later in the year. We had a state-of-the-art technology solution that met our needs. We had established the associates' critical role in updating maers, and we had refined both the workflow and incentives to facilitate that process. But, as Peter Drucker famously said, "Culture eats strategy for breakfast." Associates wanted to be good firm citizens but needed reminding that their active engagement in experience management was crucial to the firm. Understanding the value of leadership support, we asked partners from each business unit to advocate for the importance of capturing experience. We developed reports and metrics to establish accountability, and we were rewarded with a marked increase in participation. We continue to work with partners and our marketing team to find creative ways to recognize our firm's success stories and, most important, the people who help us execute and capture them. Experience Pays Off Aer almost three years on our experience journey, we still haven't reached perfection, but we are solidly marching forward into the "good" category. Our flexible technology allows us to continually improve the process of experience collection and ensure we are targeting the right maers for updates. We have almost 5,000 quality maer descriptions in our database, and finding particular experience, like renewable energy deals in Africa, is infinitely easier. Another measure of success is our growing distinction on global league tables, facilitated by improved deal reporting. In the Thomson Reuters global mergers and acquisitions ranking for announced transactions, Orrick rocketed from number 84 in 2015 to number 18 in 2016, with 130 additional deals reported year over year. That is surely something to celebrate at our next corporate retreat. ILTA CINDY THURSTON BARE Cindy Thurston Bare is the Director of Knowledge Management at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, a firm known for its culture of innovation and collaboration. Cindy's mission is to enhance client service through technology and process innovation. She has over 15 years of experience leading people and projects in large global law firms. Her current projects include collecting experience, developing a next-generation intranet and introducing cloud technologies for collaboration, case management and business development. Contact her at cbare@orrick.com.

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