Quality standards prevent mistakes. As a standalone sentiment it seems like a no-brainier. Lawyers strive for quality: how often have you seen lawyer marketing with claims like “We provide our clients with the highest quality legal work,” or “We do quality work at an outstanding value”? Of course we strive for quality. It’s why people hire professionals like us, and it’s what we’re trained to do (especially when it is drilled into us by our superiors). Why, then, do lawyers keep messing up? ... (Keep reading)
The Agile Attorney Blog
Unless you’re a lone wolf, your project is going to have hand-offs. Sorry, did I say “project?” I forgot for a moment that this is a legal blog. I meant “matter.” Or “case.” Or whatever else you call that “individual or collaborative enterprise that is carefully planned and designed to achieve a particular aim.”1 For consistency with the rest of the business world, let’s call it a project. ... (Keep reading)
I'm a big fan of flat fees. They do a much better job (than hourly billing) at aligning the interests of the client and her legal team. And, when done correctly, they can simultaneously improve profitability of the work and allow the legal team to scale-up to serve more clients (at that improved profitability).One of the dumbest less informed comments I hear from lawyers when I talk about flat fees is "We've flat fee'd a few matters, but we got killed on one of them so I'm suspicious of using them again."Here's why that attitude is a problem:You shouldn't "flat fee" a matter, you should develop a legal product and ... (Keep reading)
Building NewLaw is working to change the practice of law by creating a new legal industry standard. I joined them on their podcast brining my experience trying to implement change in law firms. We discuss the successes as well as the failures I have had in those attempts.You can listen to the episode on Building NewLaw's Podcast Page, or at any of the links below:Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsSpotify ... (Keep reading)
For anyone who has been following the Agile movement, it is no surprise that Agile has grown far beyond its roots in software development to encompass business processes of all sorts. McKinsey consulting has a step-by-step guide for Agile Marketing. Leading Agile trainer Steve Denning talks about Agile for Human Resources in Forbes. And a growing segment of respondents to the annual State of Agile survey come from outside of technology teams. More recently, Harvard Business Review featured Enterprise Agile as its cover story, ... (Keep reading)
Larry, Dave and I had a great conversation on their Lean Law Firm Podcast. It's a quick listen, so check it out on The Lean Law Firm's Podcast Page or at any of the links below: Spotify Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts ... (Keep reading)
Technology is pulling lawyers and law practices into the modern age but how can you, as a lawyer and business owner, use technology to improve you practice management while remaining compliant with the ethics rules? Along with using technology, how can you apply project management concepts to improve your business? I joined Megan Zavieh on her podcast to discuss. What We Discuss in This Episode: Why lawyers seek to derive intrinsic value from their practices What the correlation is between the first five rules of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct and project management? What project management is and how it’s applied in a law firm setting The lean ... (Keep reading)
It’s been awhile since I made a blog post out of a Twitter thread, but this seemed like as good a topic as any. (Oddly enough, the last one also had to do with the concept of waste). I recently re-published an old post on “The Seven Wastes of Lawyers” which I readily admit is the most click-baity post I’ve ever done. Who doesn’t like to think of lawyers as incredibly wasteful? In the four years since I originally wrote it, however, my thinking has evolved a bit, and I still plan a more detailed post on that. In the mean time, I had an interesting exchange with Peter Connor, ... (Keep reading)
Before I dig too far into the importance of setting goals, and setting them the right way, let’s get this out of the way: The Goal of any business system, process, or workflow is to derive Profit for the business by delivering Value to the customer. This is undeniably true. Now Profit, as I explained in one of my earliest posts, isn’t just about money. But in the broadest sense, you need to be deriving some Profit from your practice or else there’s no point in having one. (This notion of “The Goal” is taken from a book by that name by seminal Lean thinker Eli Goldratt, father of the ... (Keep reading)
Greetings from ABA Techshow 2018, where today I learned that Larry Port and Dave Maxfield have just published the book that I’ve been thinking about writing for years. It’s title: The Lean Law Firm. Honestly, the similarities between what they’ve produced and the outline I generated are uncanny, right down to the idea of using bicycle manufacturing as the parable for teaching lawyers how to build a Lean practice. I have to admit, my heart sank a little when I saw it. It’s not like I didn’t know it was a possibility—Larry and I had a great conversation about Lean for Lawyers a couple of years ago and he told ... (Keep reading)
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