Another sign that Legal Project Management is coming of age (or at least coming out of the wilderness): Dechert LLP is has begun a firmwide initiative to train every partner and associate in legal project management (LPM), eschewing specific process-improvement methodologies such as Six Sigma in favor of teaching the "concepts of project management and the tools to implement [them]." Gina Passarella writes about Dechert's LPM initiative in a recent article published in The Legal Intelligencer. It is the first in a series by that publication "examining how individual firms implement project/process management techniques to make lawyers more efficient."[1].
Dechert has retained Pamela H. Woldow, a principal with Altman Weil, Inc., a legal consultancy, "to train every partner and associate on how to more efficiently deliver legal services."[2] Woldrow has recently completed training the firm's partners and is now in the process of training its associates. Partner-level training involved groups of no more than 20 partners from varied practice areas being brought in for a single training session lasting from four to six hours. Further details of Altman Weil's project management training is available on their Web site, including a brochure describing a typical six-hour LPM workshop.
From what I can glean from the article and Altman Weil's Web site, the training places a heavy emphasis on client communication skills and teaching the process of decomposition, a planning technique of subdividing a project's scope and deliverables into smaller components that are defined in enough detail to allow for easier time and cost estimates and more granular monitoring and controlling.[3] Passarella reports that "[t]he training breaks down a matter from the earliest stages of assignment to the end, with an emphasis on a lot of up-front communication with the client about expectations and defining the scope of the project."[4]
While I doubt that the training the partners received involved in-depth instruction in developing formal work breakdown structures[5], mapping out and breaking down a legal matter is a useful discipline for understanding and optimizing legal work. Dechert is to be commended for encouraging and training its attorneys to do this--regardless of whether a formal WBS process is followed. Similarly, while attorneys tend to pride themselves on their communication skills, most could do a better job at understanding their clients' goals and expectations, and providing their clients with a realistic road map for their matter, including reasonable time and cost estimates. As one partner quoted in the article points out:
While attorneys can't predict what a judge or jury will do, they do know what it takes to get to the motion to dismiss or the motion for summary judgment stage, he said. Clients understand there is uncertainty in litigation, 'but we still need a plan with as much certainty as you can provide,' [Philadelphia-based partner Ben] Barnett said.[6]
The LPM training for associates is "less client-facing and business development-oriented than the partners' sessions" and "more granular and hands-on."[7] It is unclear whether associates are receiving the same number of hours of training as the partners and whether the trainer-attorney ratio is the same. Maintaining a low ratio is important for detailed, hands-on project-management training.
I found it interesting that the article doesn't mention paralegal and litigation support staff. It doesn't make much sense to me to roll out a firm-wide LPM initiative without involving the legal-support personnel, who often do much of the working up of a case.
How does Dechert plan to keep momentum and sustain their LPM efforts after the consultants are gone? It looks like the firm is taking the approach of hiring LPM talent rather than developing legal-project managers from existing talent. Dechert is discussing "whether they might want to bring people on board who are trained in project management and can oversee the firm's efforts." Nothing, however, is said about whether these discussions are focused on setting up a Legal Project Management Office (LPMO) or whether the project managers would be embedded in various existing departements, such as litigation support. I've posted before on the hire-or-train argument[8] and on the value of independent LPMOs.[9] It will be interesting to see what Dechert decides to do and how it works out for them.
Also interesting is that Dechert is going against the LPM tide by rejecting Six Sigma. Woldrow states that there is no need to apply Six Sigma techniques to legal project management, stating that "lawyers don't have the time or need for the rigidity of that type of process, but rather just need the general principles and understanding of how they can better deliver services."[10] In my mind, I see process-efficiency and quality improvement as separate endeavors from maturing an organization's project-management maturity. For me it is not a matter of whether LPM "needs" Six Sigma (or TQM, etc.) techniques, but is instead a matter of not mixing and confusing your objectives.
The article doesn't mention any specific project-management standards, such as PMI's PMBOK or PRINCE II, but based on Ms. Woldrow's comments, I assume that Altman Weil's training program draws upon general principles tailored for Dechert's environment rather than taking a standards-based approach. I think Altman Weil and Dechert are approaching this in the correct spirit. First, achieve basic project-management competence and an acceptance of applying project management to legal work. Next, look at maturing your organization's project-management maturity, which is an on-going, iterative process and one that likely requires full-time, in-house resources (preferably a dedicated LPMO) to best ensure the program's success.
During the maturation process, a standards-based approach can be introduced as appropriate. A standards-based approach can help a firm align its work with the expectations of clients who've implemented the same standards, makes LPM training and hiring easier, and it has marketing appeal (one reason for the popularity of law firm "Six Sigma" initiatives rather than "quality and efficiency improvement initiatives"). But if applied too aggressively, rigidly, and without properly understanding the organization's ecosystem, the entire effort may meet with greater resistance, less ROI than expected, and even ultimate failure--scrapped for the next square-peg fad to be vainly pounded into the round hole of your firm's inefficiencies.
Given that the training seems focused on introducing the firm's lawyers to general project-management principles learned in a single session, I'm confused by the article's statement that Dechert plans on "rolling out project management techniques on an individual basis with their clients."[11] It is unclear to me exactly what they plan on "rolling out." The article implies that this is currently a decentralized initiative. Will these efforts be overseen and coordinated? Will their success be measured? How?
I've sent a copy of this post to Ms. Wolden, as well as the Dechert partners quoted in this article for their comments. I would love to learn more about Dechert's firm-wide LPM initiative, in particular:
- Does Dechart have plans to provide LPM training to their legal-support staff?
- Does Altman Weil's training follow or draw upon any standard project-management models or standards, such as PMI's PMBOK, PRINCE II, the EDRM Project Management Framework, or others?
- Does Dechart plan to establish a LPMO, outside of a technology-in-practice or litigation-support department, to provide continued project-management support to firm stakeholders?
- Has the firm implemented any project management software to support their LPM efforts?
- How does Dechart (plan to) manage their project management knowledge and organizational process assets? Does the firm already have a knowledge management system in place that can be adopted for capturing and promulgating project-management knowledge?
- How does Dechart plan to monitor and measure the effectiveness of its LPM program?
Hopefully they will have some time to share with us any gleanings and lessons learned from their LPM initiative.
[1] Gina Passarella, Dechert Puts Its Attorneys Through Project Management Training, The Legal Intelligencer, Jan. 1, 2010, available at http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202447368069&Dechert_Puts_Its_Attorneys_Through_Project_Management_Training (last visited April 5, 2010).
[2] Id.
[3] Project Management Institute, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge 432 (4th Ed. 2008).
[4] Passarella, supra note 1.
[5] The term Work Breakdown Structure is often used loosely in "project management for lawyers" presentations and articles, sometimes to the consternation of professional project managers. E.g., Paul C. Easton, Margaret Dixon on Legal Project Management, Legal Project Management, Dec. 10, 2009, comments, http://legalprojectmanagement.info/2009/12/today-i-attended-via-web.html#comment-117 (last visited April 5, 2010).
[6] Passarella, supra, note 1.
[7] Id.
[8] Paul C. Easton, Matthew Lane of Fios Inc. recommends: Do NOT hire project managers, Legal Project Management, June 10, 2009, http://legalprojectmanagement.info/2009/06/fios-inc-recommends-do-not-hire-project-managers.html (last visited April 5, 2010).
[9] Paul C. Easton, Seyfarth Shaw Shows How Setting Up a LPMO Can Help Project-and-Process Improvement Efforts Succeed, Legal Project Management, Oct. 20, 2009, http://legalprojectmanagement.info/2009/10/a-peak-into-putting-legal-project-management-into-practice.html (last visited April 5, 2010).
[10] Passarella, supra, note 1.
[11] Id.
Become a Fan of LPM
