Many law firms and in-house legal departments, notably in the US market, seeking to respond positively to rising client calls for alternative fee arrangements and pricing transparency, have looked to apply Legal Project Management (LPM) tools to the matters they run.

LPM has the potential to unify large tracts of the market around better managed matters. By itself it is becoming a powerful force for both efficiency and quality improvement within those organisations adopting it seriously. However, if combined and fully aligned with Legal Process Improvement - the continuous review and redesign of the way lawyers work - the potential becomes exponentially bigger. LPM could prove to be a 'phase one' gateway or bridge - moving lawyers from the traditional, established approach to managing and pricing legal work using an efficiency and process focused approach.

As the market shifts further in the direction of fixed, capped, value-based and other forms of alternative fee arrangements, the requirement to redesign the way legal services are delivered, from the ground up, for efficiency will grow. Right now, many adopters of LPM, even those rightly lauded as pioneers, have little desire or intention at this point to become "process focused". The exhaustive effort many of them have put into building consensus amongst their lawyer community to begin LPM has not been made only to throw it away on an rapid lurch in the direction of a process organisation.

By following with a carefully managed LPI initiative, staying true to the philosophy and communication standards adopted in the LPM phase, a genuinely transformative result can be realised. Creating an over-arching programme combining LPM and LPI is not going to happen overnight. However, there are a number of smaller scale ways in which an existing LPM initiative inside an organisation can develop into process improvement:

1. Estimating and Pricing: The emphasis on planned and transparent pricing in the LPM programme prompts firms to ask "now we understand the economics of this work, how are we going to make it viable without alienating the client?"
2. Matter Management Information: The implementation of LPM will identify 'hotspots' where some types of matters or parts/phases of matters are consistently unprofitable or inefficient: these form a natural focus of attention for process improvement.
3. Engaging the client: The engagement of clients in LPM programmes can develop into more sustained partnering; both parties can benefit from the exploration of true 'end-to-end' process efficiencies.
4. Work breakdown structures: Benchmarking likely duration of activities and building a breakdown structure is core to LPM. This is an ideal introduction to process mapping and then process improvement.
5. Standardised debriefing: Undertaking formal project/matter evaluation, including client feedback, will seed future process improvement projects.

 Contact the author, Chris Bull 

Culture matters. Even as they address financial and operational performance factors, these days firm leaders must take a hard look at human performance factors - the various forces that shape their lawyers' level of trust and commitment, willingness to collaborate, and ability to cope with sweeping change. Culture is joined with morale at the hip, and morale correlates directly with productivity and profitability.

Assessing Your Firm's Culture

The mantra for effective firm management these days is "If it can't be measured, it can't be managed." This means that firms committed to developing and managing productive cultures must first establish a rational and rigorous picture of what their cultures look like now.

A comprehensive cultural assessment can be an invaluable firm leadership tool, providing a very precise picture of the "people dynamics" of an entire firm and/or any of its internal subcultures. Because generic standardized organizational cultural assessment instruments were not designed to grasp the unique dynamics and incentives of law firm life, we developed the Edge Cultural Assessment, a user-friendly online assessment instrument, to take a deep look at four distinct law firm cultural building blocks:

• Strategic Focus: The degree to which the firm creates and communicates a clear identity, both to its own members and those outside the firm.
• Governance: The manner in which the firm relates to and manages its people, and the way that its lawyers and staff respond to management.
• Values: The belief systems that represent the collective aspirations of the members of the firm and also shape their group behavioral norms and individual attitudes.
• Collegiality: The way people in a law firm relate to each other interpersonally, socially, and functionally.

These four broad areas are divided into 30 distinct scales,* each measuring a particular cultural dimension or performance factor. Our assessment summary report integrates these scales into a coherent overall picture of a firm's unique cultural strengths, challenges, and operational face. This provides a concrete foundation both for aligning the firm's various internal stakeholders and for supporting its strategic positioning in the marketplace.

Firms of differing sizes and stripes have successfully used the Edge Cultural Assessment as a practical, multi-purpose planning and decision-making tool for pursuing at least 10 distinct strategic objectives:

1. Helping new leadership to shape strategic priorities and identify potential minefields.
2. Evaluating the "cultural fit" component in any potential merger or acquisition.
3. Similarly, assessing the "fit" between the firm and potential lateral partners or hires, as well as facilitating their integration after they have joined the firm.
4. Fashioning approaches to compensation desirable and acceptable to all stakeholders.
5. Gauging the firm's readiness for change and the likelihood that its members will buy into new initiatives, directions or structures.
6. Identifying factors that either build or erode morale, loyalty, commitment, retention/attrition and collective sense of identity, particularly during periods of uncertainty or change.
7. Recognizing hotspots of discord or subcultures whose values deviate from those of the firm as a whole.
8. Developing succession, professional development or incentive programs that will support retention, commitment and morale.
9. "Branding" the firm's unique strengths and characteristics to clients.
10. Comparing the firm's dynamics, relationships, operations, norms and values with those of its competitors.

* For more information about these 30 sub-scales, as well as administration and feedback of the Edge Cultural Assessment, contact the author, Douglas B. Richardson.