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March 2017 | Volume 18, Number 2
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Artificial Intelligence (AI)—software that applies pattern recognition and inference algorithms to human tasks—is not new to the law, but its power and potential are growing rapidly. Firm leaders, not just firm technologists, must understand what AI can—and cannot (yet)—do, and how it will shape practice in the years ahead.
Things are speeding up. In 1997, IBM Deep Blue defeated the reigning world champion chess player. In 2011, IBM Watson defeated the two best human Jeopardy players. In 2014, Google Deep Mind learned to play and win 46 old Atari arcade games. In 2015, Deep Mind learned to play Go, the most complex board game humans have invented for themselves.
In 2016, Deep Mind beat the world-ranking Go master.
In 2017, thousands of engineers at Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, IBM, and Microsoft are building ever more sophisticated AI tools, available inexpensively in the cloud to anyone with a problem to solve. Scores of young companies also built new AI-based services for the legal market in 2017, joining the established legal research and e-discovery companies who have used AI techniques for years.
So, what is AI?
AI is not magic. It is just software, just algorithms—many of them well-known for many years—applied to data. What’s different today is that the computing power necessary to drive the algorithms, is orders of magnitude cheaper, ubiquitously available in the cloud, and able to reach the vast stores of data that the algorithms need to feed themselves.
Facebook can tell your friends from your cats in photos because its algorithms, on thousands of computers, power through millions of images, most of them helpfully labeled by us as Cat or Friend. Google can translate English to French because it finds and compares millions of documents translated by humans from one language to the other. Siri can answer your questions (some of them anyway) because it analyzes more than a billion queries every day. IBM Watson can assist oncologists with diagnosis and treatment plans because it has digested the medical literature on cancer and been taught by hundreds of doctors over thousands of hours about the rules governing relationships among inputs (patient characteristics,
AI in Law—It’s Here, It’s Coming
By Michael Mills, Cofounder & Chief Strategy Officer, Neota Logic, New York, NY
Please direct any comments or questions to either of the editors in chief:
PracticeInnovations
In This Issue EDITORS IN CHIEF
2
EDITORIAL BOARD
Security Awareness Education for the Mobile Workforce
By Don Philmlee
This article discusses ideas for an effective security awareness program for mobile users and provides some best practice suggestions.
A Case for Standards in the Legal Industry
By Toby Brown
The legal industry is struggling to evolve and find more efficient ways of operating and industry standards will be an effective way to address portions of that need.
The Agile Lawyer—Project Management that Really Delivers
By Don Philmlee
Agile Project Management (Agile) methods may be better suited to the fast-paced change seen in legal projects, and is a great way for law firms to deliver value to their clients more quickly and with less risk.
AI in Law—It’s Here, It’s Coming
By Michael Mills
Firm leaders, not just firm technologists, must understand what AI can—and cannot (yet)—do, and how it will shape practice in the years ahead.
Psychological Safety and the Qualities of Team Success
By Elaine M. Egan
If working in teams is the new normal, what are the fundamental elements that create a highly effective team?
William ScarbroughChief Operating OfficerBodman PLC6th Floor at Ford Field1901 St. Antoine StreetDetroit, MI 48226office: 313-393-7558fax: 313-393-7579email: [email protected]
Lisa Kellar GianakosDirector of Practice Technology SolutionsPillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP333 Commerce St.Suite 1300Nashville, TN [email protected]
Sharon Meit Abrahams, Ed.D.National Director of Professional Development/Diversity & InclusionFoley & Lardner LLP Miami, FL
Toby BrownChief Practice Management Officer Perkins Coie LLPSeattle, WA
Silvia CoulterPrincipalLawVision GroupBoston, MA
Elaine EganHead of Research & Information Services - AmericasShearman & Sterling LLP New York, NY
Sally GonzalezKM Strategy ConsultantFarrell AssociatesScottsdale, AZ
Jean O’GradySr. Director of Research, Information & Knowledge Management ServicesDLA Piper, US, LLP Washington, DC
Don PhilmleeLegal Technology ConsultantWashington, DC
Kathy SkinnerDirector of Research & Information ServicesWhite & Case LLPPalo Alto, CA
William ScarbroughChief Operating OfficerBodman PLCDetroit, MI
Lisa Kellar GianakosDirector of Practice Technology SolutionsPillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLPNashville, TN
Intelligent Innovation
By V. Mary Abraham
Here are some lessons from firms that use intelligent innovation to stay ahead of the market as well as some of the common features seen in innovative organizations.
Law Firm Business Development Forecast: Looking Brighter
By Chris Fritsch
In the past, attorneys were content to bill time and grow their practices by simply doing good work. And attorneys bristled at the thought of having to actually ‘sell’ their services. But those days are gone.
3Practice Innovations | March 2017 | Volume 18 | Number 2
AI in Law—It’s Here, It’s Coming
test results, research data) and outputs (statistically relevant literature, probable diagnoses, potential treatments).
What is AI doing in law practice?Although there may be no “AI Inside” label on the box, the techniques of AI are used in many areas of law practice, as illustrated in this map:
(Like all terrain, AI in the law changes daily: the mapmaker welcomes additions and corrections.)
Here we can take a quick tour of key attractions.
Legal ResearchLegal publishers have applied natural language processing and other machine learning techniques to legal research for many years. The hard (very hard) work is practical implementation against good data at scale. Legal research innovators like Fastcase, RavelLaw, and ROSS have taken a fresh look at the algorithms and exploited them to create distinctive capabilities such as result relevance ranking, “bad law” flags, judge analytics, conversational interfaces, and visualization.
In October 2015, Thomson Reuters, publishers of Westlaw, announced a collaboration to use Watson across TR’s information businesses. A rumored first product is a financial regulatory compliance information service.
Electronic DiscoveryMachine learning in e-discovery. New? No, but still important, challenging, and not yet as widely accepted by the profession as, say, typewriters. Technology-assisted review (TAR or predictive coding) has been proven to be faster, better, cheaper, and much more
consistent than human-powered review. See, for example, Cormack & Grossman, Evaluation of Machine Learning Protocols.
Yes, it is assisted review, in two senses. First, the technology needs to be assisted; it needs to be trained by senior lawyers very knowledgeable about the case. Second, the lawyers are assisted by the technology, and the careful statistical thinking that must be done to use it wisely. Thus, lawyers are not replaced, though they will be fewer in number.
Outcome PredictionLex Machina, after building a large set of intellectual property case data, uses data mining and predictive analytics techniques to forecast outcomes of IP litigation. Recently, it has extended the range of data it is mining to include securities and antitrust.
Good predictions depend on good data—well-structured (consistent across cases and jurisdictions, normalized, etc.), fine-grained (facts and findings expressed in detail), and big enough (not everything, but enough to be statistically valid.) Traditionally, law has not been data driven. We think about documents, not about data. No wonder that prediction is a hard problem, and that so far it has been solved in very narrow areas.
Self-Service Guidance & ComplianceExpert systems go beyond automation of documents to enable automation of legal guidance and processes. For example, the Internal Revenue Service offers a suite of Interactive Tax Assistants (created with Oracle’s Policy Automation software) that answer questions about complex issues of federal tax. Riverview KIM augments matter intake for corporate law departments.
Neota Logic applies its hybrid reasoning platform, which combines expert systems and other artificial intelligence techniques, including on-demand machine learning, to provide fact- and context-specific answers to legal, compliance, and policy questions. (Disclosure: I am Cofounder and Chief Strategy Officer of Neota Logic.)
New Mexico Legal Aid and other not-for-profit legal services organizations use expert systems technology to recommend the most suitable agency for people in need, to assess their eligibility for agency services, and, when they are not eligible, to route them to self-help information.
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AI in Law—It’s Here, It’s Coming
Contract AnalysisGeneral Counsel recognize that their high priorities of risk management and cost reduction are served by understanding and managing the rights, obligations, and risks in a company’s contracts. Natural language processing, machine learning, and other AI techniques are being tailored specifically to many aspects of the contract lifecycle, including discovery, analysis, and due diligence. For example:
• Kira Systems reports that contract review times in due diligence can be reduced by 20 to 60 percent.
• KM Standards can “identify common clauses, agreement structure, standard clause language, and common clause alternatives.”
• LawGeex reviews draft contracts to identify clauses that “are rare, missing, or potentially problematic.”
• RAVN will “read, interpret, and summarize” key information from contracts.
• Seal Software can crawl a network to discover, and then classify, all a company’s existing contracts.
What should firms be doing about AI? The tools and techniques of AI enable lawyers to:
• Serve more clients more effectively at lower cost.
• Create new revenue streams not dependent on the billable hour.
• Focus their time and expertise on work that requires the uniquely human and professional skills of empathy and judgment.
• Increase access to justice by meeting the legal needs of the poor and middle class.
These are central business and professional goals in the new normal of legal services. As the AI wave rolls forward across law practice—as it is doing (more rapidly) across all of business—law firms must:
• Learn, and keep learning, about AI and the companies bringing AI to law.
• Adopt long-proven solutions such as TAR in e-discovery.
• Create a culture and process for continuous experimentation in every practice area.
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5Practice Innovations | March 2017 | Volume 18 | Number 2
The Agile Lawyer—Project Management that Really Delivers
Traditional project management methods often require heavy upfront planning and can be difficult to apply to legal matters. Agile Project Management (Agile) methods may be better suited to the fast-paced change seen in legal projects, and is a great way for law firms to deliver value to their clients more quickly and with less risk. Learn about the Agile approach, and it’s uniquely-named key components like Sprints, Scrums, and Kamban!
Faster and Better! More Bang for the Buck! Less is More! These are all catchphrases for today’s service industry. But beyond such slogans, how do you really deliver value to clients faster and with less risk?
A new method of managing projects, called Agile, is revolutionizing project delivery with a simple stack of sticky
notes, a pen and a wall. Agile projects are faster and more nimble. Agile projects can deliver the value of a project very quickly and interactively manage new risks as they come up. Agile use self-organizing and iterative techniques to achieve success. At its core, Agile is focused on faster delivery and responsiveness to change. Since Agile itself is flexible, each organization can adapt its own methods to implement Agile management that best fit their needs.
Agile generally uses the following core ideals:
1. Define the project into smaller deliverables
2. Delivery of services is iterative rather than sequential
3. Allow iterative delivery so requirements can change on the fly as needed
4. Continually adapt the project as problems arise rather than planning out every detail in depth
5. Use smaller teams to work on deliverables simultaneously
6. Collaborate constantly and inclusively with the team
7. Solicit rapid and constant feedback from all levels
8. Address risk quickly in the iterative process
How does Agile work?
To start an Agile project, the team members and the team leader (called a product owner) meet to develop a list of what needs to be done (called a backlog). This backlog is a prioritized list of features or outcomes, each with a short description of what it is. The backlog is a living document and will grow and mature as the project progresses.
Team members are divided up into small teams of 4 to 7 people (called a Scrum team1).
The backlog is then divided up into smaller projects (called sprints) that are typically only 1 to 2 weeks of work each. Each Scrum team is assigned a sprint. There may be several sprints operating at the same time, all with different teams. Each Scrum team is self-contained and capable of completing and delivering each sprint.
By Don Philmlee, Legal Technology Consultant, Washington, DC
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The Agile Lawyer—Project Management that Really Delivers
Each sprint is a lively and fast small project that typically follows this lifecycle:
• Sprint Planning—an initial planning meeting to determine what the sprint will accomplish.
• Daily Scrum—a short 10 to 15 minute meeting, that is the absolute core of a sprint and is critical for the Scrum team to stay in synch. These meetings absolutely NEED to be fast and short to remain effective—typically no more than 15 daily. Each team member should be prepared to report: 1) What was done, 2) What will be done, and 3) Are there any risks or obstructions?
• Sprint Demo—a sharing meeting where the Scrum team shows what they’ve accomplished in that sprint.
• Sprint Delivery—a meeting where the team shows the clear value that is delivered at the end of the sprint.
• Sprint Retrospective—this is a post-sprint “lessons learned” meeting to review what worked and did not work.
• Next Sprint Planning—the Scrum team plans its next sprint.
A project may have multiple sprints and when all sprints have been completed the project is done. The diagram below shows a single Agile sprint:
Kanban BoardsOne very simple and extremely useful technique used by Scrum teams to stay on track is a Kanban board. Kanban2 is a visual project management system that allows you to organize your work and effectively communicate tasks with the Scrum team. The board has multiple columns and each column has a heading. These columns can be customized to meet project needs. A simple example would be:
• Backlog—a list of all the tasks for the project
• Work In Progress—tasks that are currently being worked and must be done by the end of day
• Under Review—work that is done, but being checked
• On Hold—tasks in progress but something is holding it up
• Completed—tasks that are done
To start a sprint with a Kanban board, all work items are added to the Backlog column of the Kanban board. Each work item is a task that can be completed in one day. As work progresses, items are moved out of the Backlog to other columns. You can also have various horizontal “swim” lanes for different types of work.
A Kanban board can be done on a whiteboard, a wall, or by using software. In its most basic form, a Kanban requires nothing but sticky notes and masking tape. Tape the columns on a wall where everyone on the team can see it, add a sticky note for each work item in the backlog, and you have a Kanban board!
Below is a simple example of a Kanban board:
The Kanban board is used in every meeting and fast becomes the core tool to manage each sprint. It is collaborative as each Scrum team member can move tasks forward, so it is critical the purpose for each column is clearly understood. Kanban boards provide transparency into the project progress and allow the Scrum team to quickly reveal and address any potential bottlenecks.
Kanban boards are a highly useful tool for Agile, but can also be effectively adapted to almost any process.
Agile as Change AgentAdapting to Agile project management can be quite a challenge for project teams who may not be used to concentrating on iterative smaller projects, with daily status meetings that involve intense collaboration and constant communication with the Scrum team. In this way, Agile is an agent of change. Because it moves so quickly, Agile motivates team members to take more responsibility, communicate often, work quickly, and concentrate on quality and delivery.
7Practice Innovations | March 2017 | Volume 18 | Number 2
The Agile Lawyer—Project Management that Really Delivers
Agile in the Law Firm Agile project techniques can significantly improve how law firms deliver services. Agile has a long track record of success in delivering value to clients quickly and responsively. It can allow legal teams to work in close collaboration and easily adapt to projects small and large and to situations that require a rapid service delivery.
Traditional project management usually requires too much upfront planning and can sometimes be difficult to apply to legal matters. Agile methods, however,
1. elicit a fast-paced cadence of communications
2. create a collaborative environment that helps quickly define what is needed
3. flexibly adapt to changing client requirements as the work is being done, and then,
4. rapidly deliver value to a client.
This is all better suited to the fast-paced changing environment of legal projects. Further, as more and more law firm clients embrace Agile project management, there will be a corresponding demand for law firms to embrace the same techniques.
In today’s high paced market where everything must be done “faster and better,” Agile project management can help meet that need for your clients. Agile projects typically have a better, more predictable outcome with fewer risks. This is a competitive edge that can’t be ignored.
Sources1. The term “Scrum” is not an acronym for anything. It is a term borrowed from the sport of rugby. In rugby a Scrum is when team packs together tightly and jointly works to move the rugby ball down the field.
2. Kanban is a Japanese term that means billboard or sign.
The Agile Lawyer—Project Management that Really Delivers
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The legal industry is struggling to evolve and find more efficient ways of operating. Industry standards will be an effective way to address portions of that need. A group, called Standards Advancement for the Legal Industry (“SALI”), is forming to develop these standards in such a way that will get broad participation and ultimately broad adoption. Their initial focus will be developing standard for “type of law”. Learn what the key elements in good standards design are, and how developing a matter type standard will benefit the legal industry.
A Case for Standards in the Legal Industry
common measurements, specifications, and materials for how electrical outlets are designed and built. Imagine if every outlet was different. We would need custom plugs for every electronic device we use to match every manufacturer’s outlet style and size. For those who have traveled abroad, you may have already experienced the consequences of not having an international standard for outlets. Magnify that frustration by 100,000 and you have an idea of why a standard has value.
Standards come about when industry participants recognize that a there is no real competitive advantage to having a custom and unique design, instead realizing that the lack of a standard hinders the market, limiting adoption, innovation, and creativity. Standards have value for all participants in the market, from raw material companies, to manufacturers, to supply chains, and especially the ultimate consumers. The costs of consumer products would be dramatically higher absent multitudes of standards.
And it’s not just manufacturing industries. Service industries have been in the standards game for quite some time too. One shining example is that of the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). Imagine if every company utilized different accounting practices. Attempts to value companies in a common,
A number of organizations and individuals have come together to form a product definition standards effort for the legal industry. The group is named Standards Advancement for the Legal Industry (SALI).
The first question one might have is obvious: What is a standard? The second follows naturally: Why create standards? This article tackles
these questions along with questions on how to best to achieve these goals.
What is a Standard?Simply answered, a standard is an agreed upon approach for how a product or service is classified, categorized, or designed.
Why Create Them?Industry standards have been around a very long time. Their purpose is to enable a more effective and efficient market for a product or service. A relatively simple example is that of electrical outlets. Years ago industry participants came together to establish
By Toby Brown, Chief Practice Management Officer, Perkins Coie LLP, Seattle, WA
9Practice Innovations | March 2017 | Volume 18 | Number 2
A Case for Standards in the Legal Industry
understood fashion would be much more complicated and expensive. Custom bookkeeping is obviously not a best practice for businesses.
Why Legal Standards?The legal industry has had limited efforts and success around creating product standards. The best known example in place is the UTBMS Task Codes Set. These were created in a world of hourly billing so that invoice data could be easily exchanged between law firms and clients. The need to have one data exchange standard was obvious, since having a unique exchange protocol for every e-billing system was cost prohibitive and slowed adoption of e-billing systems. So a segment of the industry came together to agree on a standardized method for exchanging billing data. Since that standard was created, the legal market has experienced significant change, becoming more commercial and competitive, with buyers expecting more demonstration of value from their legal services providers. Simultaneously, hourly billing is slowly diminishing as a method of billing and engagement. This is putting demands on the billing data standard that it was not intended to serve.
We are working in an environment in need of standards that address the more sophisticated requirements of legal buyers as well as the service providers responding to those demands and their attempts to highlight their competitive differentiation. We need standards to enable the market to mature past one-off customized approaches for every engagement.
Where to start?A logical starting place for most industry standards is defining products or services. This allows buyers and sellers to have a common basis for a more rational marketplace for pricing, selling, and delivering services. For the legal market this means describing service offerings in a common manner, or more specifically, agreeing on the definition of the various types of work lawyers provide. From a high level, this might include: Dispute Resolution (e.g. litigation), Transactional Services, Regulatory Offerings, and General Advice and Counsel.
Once this high-level is established, then sub-segments can be tackled. The group noted above recognized this need and moved to create a not only a standard, but a standards body for the legal industry.
What’s in it for Buyers? For clients, this new standard will allow them to better secure bids on work. Many times (absent standards) when clients put out requests for bids or proposals, the law firm replies are difficult to compare, since each firm
bases its bid on their interpretation of the type of work. This is frustrating and counterproductive for clients. They typically have to go through a second cycle (and sometimes a third) to get all of the law firms bidding on the same definition of work.
What’s in it for Sellers? For law firms, defined types of work will allow them to produce more focused and effective bids for client work and do so with fewer resources. It will allow for an easier evaluation and decision on whether it makes business sense to respond to an RFP or bid in the first place. Going forward it will enable firms to better understand the costs for each type of service, allowing for more value-driven delivery approaches.
Who is driving this and Where are they?The SALI group has met in person and via conference calls on a number of occasions over the last year and a half. The meetings initially addressed the value of creating a standard along with possible organizational structures. Later meetings began efforts to lay the foundation for a matter type standard.
The earlier effort began with a mix of law firm representatives, in-house client-side people, and technology providers. Recently a number of industry associations joined the effort which will help raise awareness and drive the successful adoption of the standards developed.
Best Practices for Standards DevelopmentFor a standard to have value, it must be broadly adopted in the market. Absent that adoption, it’s not really an industry standard. And the best way to drive broad adoption is to have broad participation in its development. This is accomplished by having representation from key stakeholders around an industry. For the legal industry, this primarily means law firms, clients and those from the ecosystem offering supportive products and services. Most typically those in the last group will be the technology providers in the legal market.
Beyond these three primary stakeholders, a successful effort will need to include representatives from all around the legal ecosystem, such as associations, academics, consultants, government, and many others.
In order to bring this broad group together, the initial members formed the SALI entity. This will provide neutral ground for dialogs on the standard, and equally important, will provide an organization to own the process of developing standards and to maintain the intellectual property of the standards
A Case for Standards in the Legal Industry
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A Case for Standards in the Legal Industry
For instance, they went from two prongs to three prongs. As such, any legal standards we develop will also need to evolve. The new entity will be positioned to own this role for the long term. As mentioned earlier, the entity will be called Standards Advancement for the Legal Industry (SALI).
Going ForwardThis effort already has considerable support from industry associations, law firms, clients, and the vendors who support the legal market. The group has developed a sound strategy involving key stakeholders. The long-term view of this approach will also allow for adapting to the market as it evolves and for addressing other standards needs in the legal market. Watch for more information and movement from this group. For those interested in getting involved in the effort, send an email to [email protected].
IP ProtectionsA common barrier to standards development and adoption is the existence of intellectual property (IP). Think of our electrical outlets example. Prior to the development of the standard, a number of companies had patents on these ideas. These companies would not be willing to submit their protected ideas into a standard unless there was some protection for their IP. Otherwise competitors could steal their IP and use it to take market share. Or in the inverse, a company could provide IP, then demand licensing fees from anyone utilizing the standard.
So what is needed is an IP framework that allows participants to contribute IP in a safe environment. As well, once a standard is created, it becomes IP that also needs to be maintained. Having an entity in place to own and manage that IP is a best practice for these needs.
“Rules of the road” also need to be in place, for how standards are proposed, developed, and approved. Again, having a stand-alone entity provides the vehicle for this. Finally, that entity allows for long-term ownership and evolution of the standards. Once more think about our electrical outlet. The original standard had to evolve as technology and the market changed.
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11Practice Innovations | March 2017 | Volume 18 | Number 2
Improving employee performance has become a central component in realizing the potential for organizational growth, competitiveness, innovation, talent retention, and success. Over the last two decades companies have seen an increase in the work of teams. If working in teams is the new normal, what are the fundamental elements that create a highly effective team? Google invested hundreds of hours studying how workers can transform productivity by building the ideal team. This article summarizes the results of that study and identifies the qualities that develop team success.
Google’s Human Resources People Analytics division dedicates tremendous resources to studying both productivity and employee satisfaction. The People Analytics division compiles data on employee satisfaction, coworker engagement, compensation, work-life balance, and whether employees found their work intellectually challenging. In evaluating employee survey
responses, People Analytics observed a pattern where an employee’s comments would reference their relationship or experience with their team(s). For example, a respondent might say they really have a good working relationship with their manager but don’t feel their team is effective. Comments like this led Google to want to understand what makes a team effective. Based on these survey responses, People Analytics was tasked with the project code-named Project Aristotle (PA). The Project Aristotle team began with an academic review of the literature and studies about team relationships. It seemed to the PA
project team that the literature and studies were all over the place. Based on these findings the PA team turned their attention to theories and studies in academic areas focusing on “group norms.” Psychologists have studied and written extensively on group behaviors and the unwritten codes of conduct that assert themselves within a group. These behaviors then manifest themselves in cultural behavior. These behaviors are most represented by how communication flows within the team. For example, is interruption an accepted model or are static conversational turns enforced? Studies also indicated that individual personality type didn’t necessarily align as expected. For instance, when a team is primarily composed of extroverts they might model their behavior to a team’s sedate norms while conversely introverts might open up and become more expressive. The collection of the PA team’s raw data demonstrated what employees believed made their team effective. Within this framework a baseline for measuring a team’s effectiveness moved beyond the team’s formal scope, such as hitting sales targets. Google teams are highly diverse both in project scope and functional makeup. For example, a team could be made up of friends who socialized outside of work where other teams are composed of strangers in a conference room. Although Google’s data correlated with some elements of team effectiveness, it was
Psychological Safety and the Qualities of Team Success
By Elaine M. Egan, Head of Research & Information Services-Americas, Shearman & Sterling LLP, New York, NY
12
Psychological Safety and the Qualities of Team Success
survey comments like “my team leader is direct and straightforward which creates a safe space for you to take risks,” while others would respond “my team leader has poor emotional control and panics over small issues and keeps trying to grab control.” Survey participants referred to their “feelings” more often than expected. What was obvious to the PA team was the influence of group norms as a contributor to the emotional experience of the team. What was observed over and over again was that “safety” was a major influencer in the perceptions about a team. If the group felt drained because of power conflicts or pressure to demonstrate expertise, perceptions of safety were reduced.
After evaluating more than a hundred groups for more than a year, the PA team determined that the next phase of the study was to identify the group norms that are most important and, further, if one effective team could be just as successful even if it contradicted group norms. In other words, which norms were most crucial? The PA team noticed two behaviors that seem to align with “good teams.” First, with a good team, members expressed themselves evenly. Researchers termed this “equality in distribution of conversational turn-taking.” This didn’t imply a formal speaking rotation but in each case everyone had spoken and contributed equally. Second, a good team had high “average social sensitivity.” In other words, they were skilled in tone, voice, expression, and nonverbal cues. What Google ultimately determined was that in order to be an effective team you needed to manage “the how of teams, not the who.”
In observing these two common behaviors, the PA team turned to the psychology studies referring to traits like “conversational turn-taking” and “average social sensitivity” that identified these traits as aspects of psychological safety. Psychological safety is described as a feeling of confidence characterized as trust and mutual respect and people feeling comfortable being themselves. The research the PA team conducted on psychological safety directed them to those norms that are vital for success. The data Google collected on psychological safety identified specific norms required for the success of the team and, although other behaviors are important such as dependability, it was the feeling of safety that influenced a team’s effectiveness.
Ultimately Google determined that who was on a team was less important than how the team members interacted. Google observed five key dynamics or norms that set successful teams apart:
• Psychological safety: Can we take risks on this team without feeling insecure or embarrassed?
• Dependability: Can we count on each other to do high quality work on time?
• Structure & clarity: Are goals, roles, and execution plans in our team clear?
• Meaning of work: Are we working on something that is personally important for each of us?
• Impact of work: Do we fundamentally believe that the work we’re doing matters?
In response to the PA team research, Google had collected a lot of data and, because they are Google, they treated the data in a way that has meaningful impact. Google created a tool called the gTeams exercise, a 10-minute pulse-check on the five dynamics/norms of how your team is doing to help teams improve.
There are many resources and studies in the field of team effectiveness, but the Google study showed that the company recognized team performance as a beneficial outcome beyond the team scope or task. The team experience has a broader impact on organizational strategy and optimizing the employee experience. Without a doubt, the activities in an organization require interaction and communication, and these activities are most apparent in how teams work together. If an organization is committed to competitive advantage, innovation, talent management, and understanding what makes a good team are a strategic advantage.
SourcesDuhigg, Charles. Smarter Faster Better, the Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business. New York: Random House, 2016.
Edmondson, Amy, and Jeff Polzer. Why Psycholgical Safety Matters and What to Do About It. September 6, 2016. www.rework.com.
Rozovksy, Julia. The Five Keys to a successful Google Team. November 17, 2015. www.rework.com.
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13Practice Innovations | March 2017 | Volume 18 | Number 2
Security Awareness Education for the Mobile Workforce
While firms are scrambling to do everything to secure mobile devices, low security awareness among users continues to be one of the biggest barriers to establishing effective security. Security starts with your personnel. This article discusses ideas for an effective security awareness program for mobile users and provides some best practice suggestions.
We live in an age of high mobility. Mobile devices let us be productive and on the go. However, all this convenience and flexibility comes at enormous risk. Critical data can be at risk depending on where and how users use their devices. Mobile device use has become the weakest link to a firm’s data security.
While firms are scrambling to do everything to secure mobile devices, low security awareness among users continues to be one of the biggest barriers to establishing effective security. Security starts with your personnel.
However, mobile users need to know what to do and unfortunately users can lose interest in badly done or repetitive training programs with stale information. How do you effectively and continually educate your mobile users without losing their interest? How do you convince users that security benefits them as well as the firm?
There is no single way to build a security awareness program as each firm has different needs, but the following ideas can help build an effective security awareness program that empowers users:
1. The best approach is to not view mobile users as the problem, but treat them as the solution. Mobile users can be your firm’s first and best defense. Empowering and educating mobile users to recognize and react to high risk or suspicious activities, not only empowers them, but it effectively puts more eyes and ears on your security.
2. Communications with mobile users should go two ways. While a firm can just dictate what users can and cannot do, if given the opportunity, users can provide valuable feedback on existing issues and potential problems that can lead to improvements. Encourage users to communicate with your security group.
3. Don’t just say no. You must provide workarounds. Telling users to never click on links in suspicious emails is not enough. Users need understand the issue and have alternatives.
4. Provide routine and varied touch points to communicate issues to mobile users. Repetition is the key to success, but the information cannot just be sent over and over. Use variety and creativity to develop and deliver communications with mobile users.
5. Don’t confuse security awareness with security training. Good security awareness is a state of being. Users ARE aware and know what to do because of educational efforts. Training is a means, not an end.
By Don Philmlee, Legal Technology Consultant, Washington, DC
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Security Awareness Education for the Mobile Workforce
when their username has been used at a new location or on a new network. This is helpful way to be alerted to unauthorized access.
Connect with Care—Disconnect when Possible • Don’t Connect—when in doubt, DON’T CONNECT
to public Wi-Fi or Bluetooth networks. Limit what gets done on public Wi-Fi networks.
• Disable Bluetooth when not in use—a Bluetooth connection is an open invitation to attack a mobile device. Teach users to disable them when not in use.
• Routinely delete old Wi-Fi networks no longer in use.
• Cellular networks also can run the same risk as a Wi-Fi network. Malicious actors can even set up their own cell towers to intercept traffic from a user’s smart phone. Cell phones are set to lock onto the closet cell tower. When roaming in a strange new land, how do you know that the service you’re using is legitimate? It can be hard to tell. Typically, lower connection speed is the only indication that a device has locked onto a faux tower. When traveling in a foreign country, turn mobile devices off when not in use and remove the battery if possible.
Hide! Make yourself as invisible as possible: • Use a personal firewall—Personal firewalls are a
simple, unobtrusive, and inexpensive and provide a good baseline for securing a mobile user.
• Use a disguised carrying case—put laptops or other mobile gear in non-standard bags, like a gym bag. If it doesn’t look like a laptop in that bag, then a thief may move on to more interesting territory.
• Most portable technology today has a microphone and even a camera. It sounds paranoid, but eavesdropping is a very real possibility. At a minimum, consider turning off mobile devices and removing the battery in confidential meetings to prevent any possible eavesdropping.
• Okay, maybe stay a little visible—inevitably a user’s data-carrying technology will get lost or left behind. Make sure to enable any “find me” feature on the user’s mobile technology so there is a chance to recover any lost device. If it cannot be recovered, many devices now have a “remote wipe” feature that essentially wipes the device.
Keep it clean and simple. • Remove applications that are no longer in use.
• An easy security measure to take is to minimize. If users don’t need it—they shouldn’t bring it. Consider traveling with fewer devices, less
6. Where possible, make training participatory. Face to face training allows users to ask questions and participate. While video-based training can get be effective, it can get out of date quickly and often precludes good user feedback.
7. Ask for ideas. Encourage user feedback.
8. Make awareness relevant for the user. Security is not just a work issue for most people it is a personal one too. Issues that impact work systems can also affect a user’s personal devices. Show how work-related security issues may also impact user issues.
9. Keep it up to date. A security awareness program with out of date content is a waste of everyone’s time.
10. Measure it. If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. Keep track of metrics about your awareness program so improvements or deficiencies can be identified.
There are many specific things every mobile user should know. The following are some suggested best practices for mobile users:
Protect Yourself • Secure personal information—Not only can
the firm lose critical data, but users stand to lose personal information too. Social security numbers, passwords, bank accounts, and more can be put at risk. Users need to be just as cautious about their personal information and be thoughtful about where it gets used.
• Encrypt—Encrypt mobile data. Laptops, tablets and phones should all have their encryption features active. This makes it very difficult for data to be recovered by unauthorized users.
• Don’t respond to messages (text, voicemail, email, etc.) from unknown parties. Users should treat such messages and their content with much caution. Users should not open links to websites or attached files.
• Back it up—Routinely back up user mobile devices and their critical data, if possible have a second and different form of backup in case the first backup fails.
• Be cautious letting others borrow mobile devices. Users should keep their mobile devices out of the hands of others. When a device is out of their control, changes can quickly be made to the device without their knowledge.
• Choose to use geolocation. Many online services now offer geolocation services. This service tracks the user’s location and alerts them
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Sources“The Global State of Information Security Survey 2017.” PWC, 2017, http://www.pwc.com/us/en/cfodirect/issues/cyber-security/information-security-survey.html
Ira Winkler. “9 reasons why your security awareness program sucks,” CSO Online, June 3, 2016, http://www.csoonline.com/article/3075722/security-awareness/8-reasons-why-your-security-awareness-program-sucks.html
“2015 CyberThreat Defense Report.” CyberEdge Group, 2015, https://www.netiq.com/promo/security-management/2015-cyberthreat-defense-report.html
Joanna Grama and Valerie Vogel. “Combating Security Uncertainty with Information Security Awareness.” EDUCAUSEreview, Jan. 17, 2017, http://er.educause.edu/articles/2017/1/combating-security-uncertainty-with-information-security-awareness
“2016 Report on Security Awareness Programs.” SANS, 2016, https://securingthehuman.sans.org/resources/security-awareness-report
Robert McGarvey. “How to Keep Your Mobile Devices Secure.” Travel + Leisure, March 2014, http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/how-to-keep-your-mobile-devices-secure
capable technology, or even perhaps throw-away technology with no data storage capability.
• A new best practice is to sanitize mobile devices before and after a trip. Securely formatting and reinstalling ensures any technology is as secure as can be when starting a trip. Sanitizing devices after a trip ensures any security issues collected during the trip are gone.
Mundane, but important—These suggestions are basic, but important to remember:
• Use a screen saver with a password—everyone walks away from their computer, a screen saver password does not provide perfect security, but it is a basic solution to help keep away unwanted eyes when you forget to logoff.
• Log off the computer—logoff a mobile device when you are finished using it. This simple act is often forgotten.
• Set a strong password and where possible use two-factor authentication (this requires two separate ways to identify a user, like a password plus a question) or biometrics (fingerprint, facial recognition, etc.) to unlock mobile devices.
• Stay up to date—keep user mobile devices and apps up to date. Developers are routinely providing security updates that are critical.
• Use antivirus software—AV not only protects the user, but also any network the user attaches to (work, home, clients). To be useful, AV software needs to be routinely updated and local drives scanned.
Mobile users are at the forefront of today security issues. They are taking data outside the firm and keeping their devices secure is of paramount importance. The best defense is not just technology, it is the people interacting with technology and making decisions. It is the goal of any security awareness program to keep these mobile users not only safe, but educated.
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Law firms pursue innovation as a way to differentiate themselves in the market. However, not all firms succeed. Here are some lessons from firms that use intelligent innovation to stay ahead of the market as well as some of the common features seen in innovative organizations.
shared lessons that will help your firm start or accelerate its intelligent innovation efforts.
To begin with, it is useful to confront what may be the most worrying innovation scenario for law firms: that other firms are making external investments in new technology that will give those firms an enormous competitive advantage. This prospect can be daunting because not all firms are in the position to make significant financial investments in legal technology startups. If your firm prefers not to participate through investment, is all lost? That is a question I asked Lucy Dillon, Chief Knowledge Officer at Reed Smith LLP. She noted that while financial investment is one possible route, her firm prefers to “be more hands-on in helping [startups] develop, helping them shape their product.” Legal tech startups sometimes come to market with a “bespoke solution that solves a very specific practice-related problem.” However, that one solution may be insufficient to allow that startup to scale its business. This is where close collaboration with a law firm can be mutually beneficial: the startup finds more use cases for its technology and the law firm has an early chance to vet the technology and keep its finger “on the pulse” of technology changes.
In the event your firm is willing to make an investment in a tech startup, Meredith Williams, Chief Knowledge Management Officer at Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, PC, recommends you right-size
In the face of flat demand for legal services, law firms are searching for ways to differentiate themselves in the market. One obvious route to differentiation is innovation. Consequently, we have seen many law firms announcing innovation initiatives in recent months. Skeptics among us may wonder, exactly how substantive are these announcements?
Are they truly viable? Are they mere publicity stunts? But these questions actually miss the point. It does not matter if several firms are unable to realize their innovation ambitions as long as your firm’s main competitors are innovating successfully. As the old joke goes, you do not have to outrun an angry bear—you just have to outrun the other people between you and that angry bear.
This article gathers advice designed to maximize your chances of outrunning your competitors through intelligent innovation: innovation that is ambitious, disciplined, and grounded in firm culture. I spoke to knowledge management (KM) leaders of several innovative firms to learn how their departments approach innovation. In each case, they generously
Intelligent Innovation
By V. Mary Abraham, Cofounder, Broadli, Inc., New York, NY
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Intelligent Innovation
that investment to the practice or client you are seeking to serve: “If you are looking to jump on the tech bandwagon, but haven’t done a pragmatic analysis of the impact of that investment on firm revenue or profit, then you will be in trouble.” This financial analysis led Baker Donelson to turn down investment in artificial intelligence (AI) technology for one of their smaller practices in favor of AI for their much bigger healthcare practice. This allowed them to make an appropriately sized investment and gives them the potential of an even bigger return.
If making investments in tech startups is the outside-in approach to innovation, the alternative is the inside-out innovation effort that begins with people inside the firm and then reaches clients. Dillon and her colleagues have recently launched a new innovation initiative at Reed Smith that starts inside. They have two foci for their efforts:
1. What they do internally—how they make sure they are creative and inventive in the ways they deliver services to clients
2. What they do externally—how they work differently with clients
They have bolstered these efforts with robust communication internally and externally. The internal communication involves transparent reporting of progress. It builds support for, and confidence in innovation efforts, thereby increasing the number of people willing to participate. The external communication fundamentally changes the dynamic with clients. For Dillon, the key was “getting the message out to clients that we were open to working differently with clients.”
These are great outcomes but they do not happen overnight. So where do you begin? Every KM leader I interviewed concurred with Dillon: “Focus first on problem-solving, then show how what you are doing is innovative.” This approach is in stark contrast to the way some are tempted to tackle innovation: find an interesting technology and then see if there is some way you can use it in your firm. That interesting technology is the proverbial “shiny object,” highly distracting but not always appropriate for the culture and context of your firm. Scott Rechtschaffen, Shareholder & Chief Knowledge Officer at Littler Mendelson PC, provides very clear advice in this regard: “Before you jump for the shiny object, do you have a credible use case for that innovation? Focus first on the problems worth solving rather than the technology.”
But where do you find the problems worth solving? Andrea Alliston, Partner, Knowledge Management at Stikeman Elliott LLP, says it is critical to keep your ear to the ground to be aware of what is going on and what is bubbling just under the surface. Rechtschaffen advises would-be innovators to “find the need.” Sometimes this means looking for patterns. For example, when they saw a pattern of repeated requests for assistance, Littler launched a Knowledge Desk staffed by library assistants in the firm’s service center. They can be called for anything: pulling a case, locating a 50-state survey, learning how to order new business cards, etc. KM attorneys provide additional support by contacting subject matter experts as necessary. The Knowledge Desk handled 80,000 requests last year. In another instance, Rechtschaffen surveyed clients to identify areas of improvement and later followed up with selected individual interviews. This led to some radical changes in the content, format, and functionality of their well-known employment law resource, The Employer. These clearly are cases of finding and meeting specific firm and client needs.
Once you have identified a problem worth solving, how do you identify the right solution? According to Williams, “Some of the best innovative ideas come from people in the firm.” This is especially true for lawyers and staff who interact with clients and really understand what clients want. At Baker Donelson, the firm involves associates in innovation challenges. This allows them to contribute their ideas in a manner that gives those ideas as much weight as those from any other person in the firm—including shareholders.
Sometimes the solution to a problem seems obvious. However, Dillon echoed the old advice: Make haste slowly. In her experience, the first solution you identify may not be the best one. Therefore, she recommends that the innovation team write down each proposed solution and then “unpick it.” In knitting parlance, unpicking means taking something apart or undoing the knitting, so you can reuse the yarn in better ways. This forces the team to push harder and go deeper. Only after this further ideation and analysis is the best solution likely to emerge.
The ability to identify the best ideas is critical for a successful innovation program. Scott Reid, Director of Knowledge Management and Practice Innovation at Bryan Cave LLP, has had “innovation” in his title at two different firms and has had the benefit of working in three highly innovative organizations. On the strength of this experience Reid says, “As an innovation director, I don’t feel like I need to have the new ideas. I need to be able to recognize a good idea when I see it. I
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Intelligent Innovation
need to see its value and be able to explain its value to the firm.” So how do you train yourself to recognize good ideas? Reid believes that you need to do your “10,000 hours” of deliberate practice, as described by Malcolm Gladwell. This practice might involve trying new innovation methodology, staying abreast of cutting-edge technology, tracking changes in the legal industry, and learning more about your firm. All these inputs, he said, “help you get on the path so you are ready to do what needs to be done when the opportunity arises.”
Alliston concurs with this. When it comes to innovation, she believes you have to “seize the day” and act on it quickly because “these good ideas don’t come around very often.” But Alliston warns that you must balance that orientation towards action with a very clear-eyed understanding of whether the idea is likely to work “in your firm’s context and culture.”
Testing an innovation idea against firm context and culture is best done in a systematic way. Both Alliston and Rechtschaffen recommend that a firm have an agreed framework to help assess potential projects on critical factors that matter most to the firm such as:
• The extent to which the proposed innovation project supports the strategy of the firm
• The project’s ROI
• The project’s impact on clients and law-firm personnel
For Williams, a key part of vetting a proposed innovation project involves having the “right conversation” with firm management regarding the numbers: to what extent does this innovation project improve revenue or profit margin? She believes that if you cannot demonstrate a credible positive impact on revenue or profit margin, the firm should not proceed with the project.
Once you have won the necessary management support to begin your innovation project, what happens next? As Williams observes, “You can have the best idea in the world, but that is insufficient if you don’t have the processes to bring those ideas to fruition.” And then you need follow-through. In Williams’ experience, “not having the right resources to make it happen can kill you.” She suggests considering outsourcing some of the work if you do not have the necessary internal resources. This can be a particularly useful tactic when you need resources (such as additional software development support) that are not dependent on firm-specific expertise.
If the support you need requires legal subject matter experts, you can run into resistance from lawyers who
would prefer to allocate their time to billable projects. Baker Donelson addresses this challenge by using their internal Venture Fund to pay firm personnel who invest their time in R&D. Williams reports that this Venture Fund supports 90 to 100 projects each year. Some of these projects are large-scale while others are small. In 2016, they had 116 subject matter experts contributing their innovative ideas with the support of the Venture Fund. This helped ensure they always had the right people around the table, thereby allowing for more complete problem analysis and solution spotting. It also helps isolate the instances where new technology really is necessary to ensure successful innovation.
Once you get to the technology phase, Reid advises that you understand the proposed tool well enough to know what problem it solves, what value it provides, and what resources it will require. When thinking about resources consider both the internal and external needs. Rechtschaffen recounts the story of an innovative online training company his firm created in the 1990s. One of this company’s key assets was the ability to provide training via streaming video. However, there was a technological barrier: most potential customers lacked the ability to handle streaming video at that time. Eventually, technology caught up with the firm’s ambitions and now that training company is extremely successful.
Having the right team, funding, and technology in place is critical, but do not overlook the vital importance of communication support for your innovation efforts. As an innovation project progresses, be careful to communicate that progress widely. Reid recommends giving firm leadership “summarized in-progress reports that end with an offer to provide a more detailed briefing.” in his view, this “executive-level communication is an opportunity to develop powerful project teammates who can offer advice and carry our messages to wider audiences. So ask them to do it.”
Similarly, communicate regularly with the lawyers affected by innovation project. In Reid’s experience, “lawyers hate surprises but they love being in the know. And, they love the opportunity to give advice (it’s their job), so ask for it.” Further, don’t stop communicating after rollout. Be sure to “report successes (naming the heroes involved) and report updates and new versions.” Finally, Reid advises: “Never miss an opportunity to thank someone. Few things are so powerful. We are intrinsically motivated.” In short, “communicate with your larger audience from start to finish, and then communicate some more.”
With some innovation successes under your belt, consider consolidating your innovation learning and
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support by building an innovation coalition within your firm. Obvious participants are both innovators and beneficiaries of your firm’s innovation efforts. Even if they do not have the bandwidth to get involved in specific innovation projects, rainmakers can be vital members of this innovation coalition. Rechtschaffen has found that some of the biggest supporters of his firm’s innovation efforts are its rainmakers “because innovation can help them connect with and keep new clients.” This is a critical way in which intelligent innovation can improve the top line.
Along with this innovation coalition will come opportunities to build and expand an innovation culture within your firm. Reid has observed some common features of the three innovative organizations in which he has worked:
• Their leadership’s vision includes the need for innovation
• They provide strategic guidance and resources
• They give latitude so you can be creative in your problem solving
• Their attorneys embrace the potential of innovation and are willing to try new things
• The organizational culture genuinely promotes and rewards teamwork
Finally, as you pursue intelligent innovation, look for ways to keep innovation front and center at your firm. This does not mean scaremongering. In Alliston’s experience, you cannot “scare people into innovation.” For Alliston, the better approach is a positive one: “I think you will be more successful with your initiatives if you make innovation about excelling rather than survival.”
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In the distant past, many attorneys were perfectly content to bill time and may have been able to grow their practices by simply doing good work. Meanwhile, a lot of attorneys bristled at the thought of having to actually ‘sell’ their services. But those days are gone.
Law Firm Business Development Forecast: Looking Brighter
Making RainUntil recently, the outlook for law firm business development has been hazy at best. In the distant past, many attorneys were perfectly content to bill time and may have been able to grow their practices by simply doing good work. Meanwhile, a lot of attorneys bristled at the thought of having to actually ‘sell’ their services. In fact, the concept of
sales was practically taboo in a law firm. As Rob Kahn, CMO of Fenwick & West said, “We couldn’t even call it by its real name. It was ‘business development.’” But those days are gone.
Today’s ForecastAttorneys today face a drastically different situation, due to a confluence of events. For almost a decade, demand for legal services has been flat—and that doesn’t appear to be changing anytime soon. It’s a buyer’s market, and firms are facing more competition, not only from other law firms, but from alternative service providers, accounting firms, artificial intelligence tools, and even corporate legal departments as companies continue to take more work in-house. As a result, the pressure to budget effectively, be more
efficient and predict revenue trends has never been more intense.
Additionally, clients are becoming more demanding of the firms they ultimately select. The buyers of legal services are in the driver’s seat, and they are increasingly requiring budget predictions, rate reductions and alternative fee arrangements. So to be profitable, firms have had to become more efficient and attorneys have had to learn new skills such as project and matter management.
Partly SunnyWhile there has been a fundamental shift in the competitive landscape for legal services, there have been some bright spots. As competition has increased, firms have finally been forced to focus on the one non-billable activity that makes all the other billable activities possible: sales.
A few years ago, a few firms began to focus on selling to gain a competitive advantage. But today sales has become an essential component of law firm financial success. Kahn noted that in his 20-year history in the legal industry, he has never seen “sales” talked about so openly and earnestly as it is today. A recent survey co-sponsored by Bloomberg Law and the Legal Marketing Association confirms this, with 94 percent of respondents noting that law firms have been increasing their focus on marketing and business development. “We are moving from a few
By Chris Fritsch, Founder, ClientsFirst Consulting, Atlanta, GA
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Law Firm Business Development Forecast: Looking Brighter
outlier firms to an increasing number of law firms of all sizes looking at sales professionals, sales training and sales targets,” Kahn said.
Poor VisibilityWhile attorneys have been struggling to fully embrace sales and/or implement a sales culture in their firms, until recently, there was no way to accurately measure and enhance sales results. Much of the software designed for law firms didn’t include the enhanced capabilities for sales tracking. More importantly, in many firms there was no way, or perhaps no desire, to foster attorney accountability for sales results. But as competition has increased, more firms are looking to technology to enhance both results and accountability.
Pipelines One type of technology that firms are turning to for sales support is their Client Relationship Management (CRM) system. The dramatic growth of the CRM industry attests to the importance of this software to long-term business development success. Respected research organization Gartner recently determined that the annual worldwide CRM software market totaled more than $26.3 billion and has been growing at more than 12 percent per year. In 2017, it is predicted to be a $36B Market, leading all enterprise software categories in projected growth.
While CRM is clearly an essential component for business growth, the most important element of CRM for facilitating sales is the pipeline. Pipelines allow a firm to track and report on sales efforts including related contacts, activities, and opportunities. Because of these critical abilities, pipelines have been a core component of the major CRM systems used by most organizations for years. Yet many of the CRM systems designed for law firms lacked this type of advanced sales management functionality, possibly because, until recently, law firms had not asked for it.
In the past, most law firms were content to utilize their CRM systems simply as tools for contact management, e-mail marketing and event management. But recently, there has been a flurry of interest among firms seeking to deploy CRM to enhance business development. In response, most of the major law firm CRM providers have been adding some enhanced pipeline functionality. Additionally, some new CRM systems have entered the market with pipelines as core offerings.
People & ProcessAs with any technology, however, a pipeline is only as good as the processes a firm puts in place and the people who use it. Unless it is regularly utilized and
frequently updated, its effectiveness as a sales tool will be reduced. This is not to say that all attorneys should be expected to input data into the system. In a law firm, where time is money—literally, having attorneys, who bill hundreds or more than $1,000 an hour, entering data may not be the best use of their time. “A certain percentage will use the system and another percentage will just be consumers of information,” says Kahn. Alternatively, pipeline data may be entered and updated by marketing or business development staff allowing the attorneys to focus on their clients and their work.
PredictionsWhile a pipeline can be an excellent tool for keeping up with a firm’s current sales efforts, what is potentially more valuable is the ability to predict what may happen in the future. Almost all other businesses have been focused on pipeline forecasting for years because they understand the value of being able to accurately predict new business and revenue. Going forward, as law firms are compelled to better budget and manage matters more effectively, they will also need a way to predict the flow of new matters. Additionally, forecasting new work will be essential to the critical business decisions firms need to make around hiring, staffing, planning, and budgeting.
A pipeline forecast can inform the firm not only about the number and value of potential new opportunities, but also about the timing and likelihood of successfully closing them. Pipeline analytics can help to identify which opportunities are progressing and which ones may have become stalled or inactive. Pipeline activities can be created and assigned to individuals to encourage follow up and to keep the sales process moving. Pipeline reports can be used to create a healthy spirit of sales competition and, most importantly, to hold attorneys accountable for results. These are some of the primary reasons that firms like Kahn’s have invested in pipeline technology to support sales efforts.
Extended OutlookKahn predicts that the trend toward building sales cultures in law firms will continue and, as a result, he expects to see an increasing investment in sales tools and technologies by firms. Additionally, he thinks that firm leaders will soon come to request and rely on pipeline data to drive business decisions. More importantly, utilizing sales pipeline technology may motivate individual lawyers to become more disciplined about developing business and growing their relationships, which will be essential to help firms succeed in the future.
