achieve your goals: marrying the business of law … · achieve your goals: marrying the business...

ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS:MARRYING THE BUSINESS OF LAW WITHTHE PRACTICE OF LAW

July 2017

LAW DEPT:EXPECTATIONSHAVECHANGED

Legal can no longer operate as a blackbox risk management function.

Legal must now:

• Align practice areas to revenuegeneration

• Achieve aggressive cost reduction targets

• Be preventative about risk

• Track to businessstrategic objectives

THE NEW TOOLS

Law departments are retooling torespond to the shifting paradigm.

Combining operations with lawyers togenerate:• Data and analysis• Automation strategies• Knowledge banks• Process and workflow

Resourcing is a mix of in-house andoutsourcing to optimize fixed andvariable costs.

OBSTACLES TO CHANGE:

TOO BIG OR TOO SMALL?

Large Departments• Pro’s: May have more resources and dedicated

personnel• Con’s: Can develop silos or duplication of effort

Small Departments• Pro’s: May be closer to the Business and may be

able to leverage business expertise• Con’s: May have limited resources and may be

overwhelmed with the press of daily workloads

Strategizing Change1. Scope Project & Key Goals2. Set Timing3. Assign projects and keep people accountable4. Execute (make the time) and re-adjust the goals

if needed

TODAY’SFOCUS –THREECOMMONPROBLEM SETS

1. Law Department Metrics:Implement the processes and toolsnecessary to make data-driven legaldecisions

2. Contract Lifecycle Management:Gain control, improve compliance, andreduce leakage

3. Serial Litigation:Harness data to drive outcomes andreduce total cost of litigation

Demonstrate the law department’s value in termsthat the CEO/CFO can understand

Truly understand what our bottlenecks and costsdrivers are so that we can address them effectively

Show other portions of the business how they areimpacting legal processes and costs

Measure and improve our quality and service levels

Look as professional as the other functions whenpresenting to the board

LAW DEPT. METRICS:COMMON BUSINESSCHALLENGES

Question: We don’t have the data we need to:

LEGALMETRICEXAMPLES

LawDepartment

• Legal spend as % of revenue• Client satisfaction

Contracts

• Transaction cycle times• Legal cost per contract completed• Term adherence

Litigation

• % cases resolved within parameters• Average cost of case resolution• Cost of resolution as a % of exposure

RegulatoryCompliance

• # hotline interactions• Legal cost per transaction screened• Risk-weighted exposure

• Lawyers: Generate dataneeded to track metrics;tune legal strategiesbased upon indicatorsfrom metrics

• Operations: Metricdefinition, automation,process and workflow, &data analytics

LAWDEPARTMENTMETRICS --EXAMPLES

• Company needed metrics to (A) show value ofdepartment and (B) have the insightsnecessary to optimize its processes

• BC team devised solution for capturingmetrics associated with department’s impacton the business and expressed in financialterms familiar to CEO & CFO

• Law department needed metrics to showwhere bottlenecks in contracting processactually were

• BC team created a workflow thattimestamped every interaction during thecontracting process

• Bank needed metrics to determine howdifferent settlement strategies impacted totalcost of resolving cases

• BC team designed the metrics, tracked thedata, and optimized the strategy to reducecosts of resolution dramatically

CONTRACTLIFECYCLEMANAGEMENT

Management &Compliance

Negotiation& Terms

ContractGeneration

Common Challenges

CONTRACT LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS

Challenge Potential Solution Elements Roles

Contract Generation • Compliant contract templates• Approved terms library• Automated contract assembly• Click accept infrastructure/eSign

Lawyers: Contract drafting, client training, escalationhandling & quality control

Operations: Automation strategy, process andworkflow, & data analytics

Contract Negotiation • Streamlined contract templates• Negotiation playbooks• Automated routing, escalation, &

approval logging• WIP management tool

Lawyers: Contract drafting, risk assessment, playbookdevelopment, escalation handling & quality control

Operations: Automation strategy, process andworkflow, knowledge banks, & data analytics

Contract Storage &Management

• Contract repository• Reporting structure• Event-based alerts (e.g., notice that 30-

day price escalation window isopening)

Lawyers: Input into report structures and systemrequirements

Operations: Automation strategy, process andworkflow, knowledge banks, & data analyticsLiaise with Compliance

CASE STUDY:RED ROBIN

The Client• Publicly traded, fast casual

restaurant with 400+ locations

• New GC who needed to develop credibility with business andboard

The Problem• Contracts taking too long and costing too much to complete

• High risk and no risk contracts being treated in same fashion

The BC Solution• Categorize contracts by risk level

• Streamline process to make no/low risk contracts self-servicewhile focusing legal resources on high risk agreements

• Develop playbooks with “good,better, best” fallbacks toaccelerate negotiations

• Store contracts in modernrepository to facilitatemanagement

RED ROBIN’SCONTRACTINGPROCESS CONT’D

The Team• Cross-functional team of attorneys, paralegal, MBAs,

software developer and project manager

• Red Robin provided attorneys and businesspersonnel

• Bryan Cave provided attorneys and paralegals

• BCXponent provided MBAs, software developers andproject manager

Results• >90% of contracts now completed within target

timeframes

• 100% of high-risk contracts handled in compliantmanner & within agreed risk tolerances

• Law department’s reputation enhanced withincompany

“The system made iteasy for the business

to do the right thing. Ithas created a newdialogue between

legal and thebusiness.”

- Michael KaplanGC, Red RobinInternational

Case/Task Assessment• Cases and/or tasks treated

generically regardless ofcomplexity/risk

• Data not reviewed regularly todetermine what can

Optimizing Assignments• Cases/tasks not assigned to

most efficient resource• Assignments unclear creating

risk of things falling throughcracks

Data• We don’t have the data we

need• We can’t see our data in ways

that are useful• We don’t act on the data we

have

Communications• Firms keep reinventing the

wheel• I can’t get the information I

need• We keep getting sued for things

that should be preventable

SERIALLITIGATION

Challenge Potential Solution Elements Roles

Assessment • Checklist for classifying cases/tasks• Closed-loop processes for evaluating

data and acting on it• Case intake and management system

Lawyer: Risk assessment, classification schema


Assignment • Dedicated teams with optimized mixof paralegal, associates & partners

• Case management system• Workflow• Closed loop process for evaluating

data and acting on it

Lawyer: Optimized legal teams


Data • Work product banks• Case management system• Supporting processes & workflows• Metrics & analytics

Lawyer: Legal work product; metrics input


Communications • Communication strategy• Knowledge banks• Case management system• Closed loop processes

Lawyer: Input into communication strategy; contentfor knowledge banks


CASE STUDY:LARGE FINANCIALINSTITUTION

The Client• National Financial Institution facing flood of litigation stemming

from financial crisis

The Problem• Urgent need to reduce costs dramatically• Diverse portfolio required different solutions for low-risk and

high-risk cases

The BC Solution• Set up single system for managing all cases and collecting

data• Run every new case through front-end assessment to

determine its nature and complexity– Defined set of criteria used to evaluate cases– Evaluation done by combination of humans and machines– Evaluation repeated periodically to confirm that initial assessment

still on point

• Route cases to optimal mix of resources based on nature ofcase

• Store all data in system and analyze it to– Further refine classification and assignment system– Improve litigation strategies– Improve settlement strategies

CASE STUDY:LARGE FINANCIALINSTITUTION CONT’D

The Team• Cross-functional team of attorneys, paralegal, MBAs,

software developer and project manager

• Institution provided legal operations support; projectmanagement goals, litigators managing portfolios ofcases

• Bryan Cave provided attorneys and paralegals

• BCXponent provided MBAs, software developer andproject manager

Results• Client’s litigation costs reduced by 2/3

• Outcomes at least constant if not improved

• Generated numerous best practices around knowledgemanagement, staffing models, settlement strategies,etc. that now get leveraged broadly

• Identified and managed emerging legal theories andadopted common strategies for repeat claims types andcounsel

COMMON THEMES

Change is Hard (but it’s worth it):

Need to carve out time to focus

Invest in process

Invest in content

Capture and analyze data

Be entrepreneurial – take risks and fail quickly

Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good

QUESTIONS?

Katie DeBordChief Innovation Officer

303 866 [email protected]

Chris EmersonChief Practice Economics Officer


Doug ThompsonManaging Partner, Los Angeles


achieve your goals: marrying the business of law … · achieve your goals: marrying the business...

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