Don’t Have Time to Do it Over? Be Efficient: Do the Right Things the Right Way, the First Time, Every Time.
Every law firm and legal department is interested in determining the best way to carry out a certain kind of work to achieve efficiency, excellent quality of work and service, high probability of successful outcomes, and predictability. That, in a nutshell, is what process improvement (PI) is about.
Legal Project management (LPM) is both a role and set of skills in which are used to actively manage schedules, staff, and deliverables throughout a case, legal matter, or project. More and more legal professionals today are using both PI and LMP skills to ensure that the ideal process is used effectively to deliver high quality work, on time and under budget. Together, PI and LPM also serve as the foundation for building and managing even higher performing, higher functioning diverse teams necessary to acquire, grow, and retain satisfied clients. As such, every law firm, legal office, and department, wherever they may fall on the process improvement continuum, will benefit from learning about the use of process improvement and project management in a legal context.
Suffolk University’s Process Improvement and Legal Project Management course is one of size courses that make up the Legal Innovation in Technology (LIT)Certificate. This particular course provides participants with the tools, concepts, skills, and resources for process improvement and legal project management to increase efficiency and collaboration, deliver greater value to their organizations and clients, innovate, and gain competitive advantages in the marketplace.
Key methodologies such as Lean and Six Sigma, various approaches (such as Agile), and tools are covered in the curriculum, along with how process improvement and legal project management can be used to price, perform, and deliver legal services more efficiently and effectively. The course also addresses the reality that there is no single “right way” to do this work. What it is important is to begin to build business process architecture and to create a culture of continuous improvement. Why? Because when we do, we not only improve the process on which we are working, we also deliver greater value, efficiency, and predictability while increasing our quality and likelihood of successful outcomes. If that is not good enough, keep this in mind: this is all done without tradeoffs; rather, it is a win-win for everyone.
From learning to listen to the “voice of the client” to showcasing benefits derived from improvements, participants will gain exposure to a wide variety of new information. And our rich, engaging online discussions enhance opportunities to share with and learn from each other.
By defining Lean and Six Sigma and then conveying how those concepts might apply in a practical sense to the legal space, the course will help firms and law departments to answer the following questions; the discussions, considerations, and decisions will be different for each organization – and sometimes, different groups (such as practice areas, client teams, or departments) within them:
- How can we use the methodologies and toolkits of Lean and Six Sigma?
- How do we make a decision about when and where to start?
- What are our drivers for employing process improvement?
- What are the specific applications, obstacles, and lessons learned from what others have tried?
- What results have been achieved – what kinds of improvements have been made and how do they translate into benefits?
- In what ways do the framework and outcomes of process improvement help us change the conversation we have with our clients, referral sources, and prospective clients?
- How do we use process improvement to deliver greater value to the firm and our clients?
- What competitive advantages can we develop by using Lean and Six Sigma at our firm?
- How do we structure a process improvement program?
- What’s next?
As another LIT faculty member, Jordan Furlong, wrote, “Lawyers must accept and act upon a single new reality: we cannot continue to make a living in the law the way we used to… We must create sustainable cost advantages through adoption of technologies and processes.” Those who do so will not just survive but thrive. Those who ignore the opportunities that exist, right now, do so at their own risk.
Many law firms and legal departments have already embarked on their continuous improvement journeys however, many are just “beginning to think about starting.” The latter organizations do not have a good grasp of what it takes to do and deliver a particular kind of work – breaking things into steps and tasks, understanding the effort required to deliver what the client values, pricing it appropriately and managing it well are all skills that can and should be developed by today’s legal and business professionals in law firms and legal departments.
Whether your organization is just beginning to explore developing process improvement and project management capabilities, has started to develop skills and undertake projects, or has a fully branded PI or LPM program, Suffolk’s Process Improvement and Legal Project Management course provides participants with the tools, concepts, skills, and resources for process improvement and legal project management to increase efficiency and collaboration, deliver greater value to their organizations and clients, innovate, and gain competitive advantages in the marketplace.
Suffolk’s online Legal Innovation & Technology Certificate program is an excellent education for legal and business professionals who want to learn how to respond to various drivers and not just survive but thrive. The course may be taken as a single program or as part of a certificate that is earned by completing all six courses.
The legal marketplace is rapidly evolving – are you?
Catherine Alman MacDonagh, JD is a member of the Suffolk Legal Innovation and Technology Certificate faculty. She the CEO and Founder of the Legal Lean Sigma Institute and of FIRM Guidance Consulting, a co-founder of the Legal Sales and Service Organization, the Legal Sustainability and Social Impact movement, and the Legal Mocktail. A former corporate counsel and law firm executive, she is an innovator known for award-winning transformation work in law firms and legal departments with a focus on process improvement; project management; strategic, business, scenario, and response planning; business development training and coaching, and marketing. She created Legal Lean Sigma® and the Legal WorkOut® to help people work better together. Catherine is an adjunct professor at Suffolk Law and is a well- known expert, speaker, and the author of many published works, including Lean Six Sigma for Law Firms.