Published Works | Cinco Días | 26 June 2017

Managed change

The Spanish economic journal Cinco Dias has published  an article written by Christine Siler, Legal Project Manager for CE, about Legal Project Management within the legal sector. In this article Christine analyzes what are law firms doing to meet the changing demands of clients and how Hogan Lovells is using Legal Project Management (LPM) to deliver our services to our clients more efficiently.

So, the question is: what are law firms doing in today's increasingly challenging market to meet the changing demands of their clients?

It is widely agreed that the legal landscape has changed dramatically post 2008. Legal budgets are being heavily scrutinised, clients are looking for more options in the solutions that law firms offer to them, and, of course, technology is being heralded as a great disruptor in legal work– just like it is in other industries.   

Those changes have lead law firms like ours to look very closely at how we engage with our clients to understand what they value - not just what they pay for, but what they want and need from their legal service providers to create strong and lasting relationships – and then how we need to change to ensure that we consistently provide that value. 

 

A key question that we at Hogan Lovells have asked ourselves is how do we deliver our services to our clients more efficiently? And how do we improve the quality of those services at the same time?

We've decided to take a pragmatic approach. The first step for us is to focus on efficiency. 

And we are using Legal Project Management (LPM) as the foundation for helping us achieve that efficiency. 

LPM can be defined, very simplistically, as scoping, planning, monitoring and reviewing. Every matter. And using that information to manage the expectations of our clients and our teams. Every day.

There are a number of areas where lawyers can focus their efforts to ensure that we meet the expectations of our clients – expectations regarding pricing, timing of deliverables, scope of work, financial monitoring, and always with a clear focus on the risks to the client's business. 

When everyone knows the whole picture, you're more likely to achieve the best result for your clients in the most efficient way. 

As our teams engage with our clients in the most efficient way, we know we will be able to consistently deliver the level of quality that our clients expect from us.

Because we focus on communicating clearly – informing, listening and responding – we're able to understand our clients better, and improve our service. 

Using LPM as the bedrock of our legal service delivery – it can bring together people, process and technology to leverage all resources in the most efficient way including our business service professionals. 

Linking the support functions of a law firm together to work with lawyers is another key objective. And it allows us to draw upon the vast knowledge we have across all teams (Pricing, Knowledge Management, Finance, Technology, Resource Management, Marketing & BD) in a coordinated way enabling our lawyers and partners to focus on providing market-leading legal advice with a world-class operational team behind them. 

There are a number of challenges in the legal marketplace in Europe and around the world. Change is the new constant. Managing those changes so you can innovate, lead and grow is not always easy. But it is always worth it.

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