Law Firm PM Watch: McDermott Will & Emery's Deal Dashboard

In part 8 of his series on legal project management on his Legal Business Development blog, Jim Hassett reminds us that there is nothing new under the sun and highlights McDermott Will & Emery's Deal Dashboard as evidence that legal project management has been taking place under the radar well before it became a buzzword in the last year or so.^[1] McDermott describes the Deal Dashboard in a brochure available from the firm's Web site:

McDermott is using basic project management tools to reengineer the way it does deals to streamline the M&A process, reducing inefficiencies and costs. We have implemented the Deal Dashboard, a web-based collaboration and accountability workspace, to manage deals and to better communicate with our clients. The Dashboard enables counsel to corral all of the moving pieces of a deal, so that everyone involved knows what needs to be done, by when, by whom and at what cost.^[2]

Hassett, who received a demonstration, discusses how McDermott attorneys use the tool to sit down with their clients and plan their legal projects, how they track tasks and issues, and how they create and track a budget for each phase. He also states that McDermott is looking to deploy the Dashboard in other areas, including litigation. Hassett observes that while such a system is \"old hat in any other business. In the law business, this is a breakthrough.  But maybe not for long.  As these words are written, large firms are exploring a wide variety of tools that are springing up to meet the need to increase efficiency.  Because clients are demanding it.\"

I'm not entirely clear whether Deal Dashboard has been productized or whether it is a home-baked system for use only by McDermott and its clients, similar to home-grown systems that other firms, such as McCarthy Tétrault, have developed for their own use. While it is good to see large firms taking the initiative to develop such systems, it is a little surprising that they have to. There is a nice niche here for the software developer who can develop a solid project management tool that is lawyer friendly. 

Traditional case and matter management developers don't seem to be up to the task and the new generation of cloud-based matter-management services are mostly working on replicating the functionality of traditional, desktop products (for lists of legal project/case/matter management applications see here). The only solid project-management systems for law firms and legal departments that I see on the market focus on litigation support, e-discovery in particular (e.g., Caselawg, Exterro, iFramework; for others see here and here). 

If your firm or legal department has embraced project management, what tools do you use to manage your legal project (other than e-discovery projects/phases)?