The LPM Maturity Model Five steps to transform your law firm into a client-focused business
Dec 06, 2014
The LPM Maturity Model
Five steps to transform your law firm into a client-focused business
Keith Lipman, presidentProsperoware
Founded 2009
Legal process experts
Deep understanding of Sharepoint, WorkSite and other DMS
Offices: Philadelphia, Chicago and London
Who is Prosperoware?
We solve problems
WorkSite add-ons
SharePoint
Information governance
Electronic file (Matter Centricity)
Remote access for email and DMS
Legal Process Management and Pricing
U.S. CUSTOMERS
40% are Prosperoware
customers
U.S. CUSTOMERS
31% are Prosperoware customers
Total customers
130+
A sampling of our partners
MILANOur WorkSite add-ons improve administration and empower users
ZONEEnjoy secure email management on your mobile device with the Zone Mail app; Zone Remote Access brings the FileSite experience to your web browser
ASCERAEasily integrate your DMS with your SharePoint intranet and extranet
UMBRIATransform your firm into a client-focused business through Legal Process Management
Four product families, four focus areas
A Roadmap for LPM and Pricing Success
Where is your firm or practice area?
The LPM Maturity ModelFive steps to transform your firm into a client-focused business
Drivers of change:
• Price, client, competition• Pressure maturity drives
maturity
Maturity will be different based on practice
`
Step 1: Budget and Monitor at the Matter Level
Understand effort to cost
• Building a budget creates familiarity
• Addresses the problem that billing takes place a long time after work
• Budgeting avoids duplicative tasks
Step 1 – Building your budget
Opportunity or
matter
Top down – start with an
amountMonitor only – select a total dollar amount
per phase
Bottom up – start with
task or hours
• Lawyers typically quote in dollars
• Challenge is do not know many hours they get for the amount
• Need this data to know that they can deliver the work
• Building a template with resources makes this easy to determine
Start with top-down: amount budgets
Why is Step 1 budgeting important?
It raises awareness in your organization
• Builds familiarity with cost & effort
• Commonality of processes
• Use of personnel
• Measure it, manage it
Progress reports and KPIs
• At least weekly progress reports to measure against budget
• Minimum set of KPIs at matter level:
• Leverage (e.g. non-partner hours vs. partner hours)
• Realization ( achieved or target revenue ÷ hours at current rate)
• Matter profitability (e.g. cost per hour ÷ revenue per hour)
Step 2:Matter type and phase
development
Going deeper for monitoring and pricing
• First level of breaking down matter types and phases
• The most important step in LPM journey
Goals of Step 2
• More granular budgets and monitoring
• Leverage past experience for pricing future matters
• Two critical tasks:• Define the services the firm delivers• Define the discrete phases within each matter type• Matters can contain multiple services
Understand key metadata
Matter Types • Uber type of work
• Litigation, Transaction, Advisory, Regulatory
Area of law• Subject area• Employment, Finance, bankruptcy
Matter Sub-type• Specific work being performed
• Employment discrimination, M&A, Chapter 11
Breaking down to phases is critical
• ABA/UTMBS Codes are not rich enough
• Need break down the work so that you derive meaning
• Enables comparison of work and measure efficiency
• More effective monitoring
Step 3:Monitor and identify
your obvious inefficiencies
Paying attention pays off
Unmonitored, simple and complex issues can driveup the cost of a matter
• “Stupid stuff” or low-hanging fruit• More complex issues
• Consulting partner expansion of the scope
• Failure to assign tasks properly
Step 4:Identify common tasks
across matter types and build a budget using these tasks
• Define repetitive tasks across matter types and subtypes
• Answering a complaint• Taking a deposition
• Once steps in tasks are identified, quantify the amount of time each step should take
• Once you determine tasks & time, it is easy to build a budget from the bottom up
• Advanced task with significant payoff
Know your verbs
Step 5:Manage your matters
with checklists
Sweet spot of LPM process
• Build a plan. Deliver to plan.
• Phases and tasks are broken down
• Inefficiencies are gone and budget templates are built
• Use task templates to drive work process
• Level of detail allows continuous process improvement
• Multi-year process
• True competitive advantage
Tools to transform your firm into a client-focused business through Legal Process Management
Budget, Pricing, Experience, Analytics, and Monitoring
Links the budget of a matter to the cost of delivering the work
Questions?
Visit www.prosperoware.com/umbria
At ILTA 2014, visit us at booth 428
or Ryman Studio Q.