It is hard to believe that months have passed since I last updated this blog!
Our team has been so focused on innovating Conflict of Interest processes and approaches, along with many other law firm processes, that we forget sometimes to come back and talk about it.
Specifically surrounding Conflicts of Interest, it’s amazing to me how stagnant this area has been for so long – and how much arduous, labor-intensive processes firm have been forced to accept as a result.
As firms cut-over to our Conflicts system, or begin the evaluation process, I’m amazed by the variety of initial responses, and then how the responses evolve as the innovations become clearer how what we are doing is truly innovative – and in some cases, ground-breaking.
Initially, there is trepidation, because what we did NOT do is put a pretty face on old approaches. That just didn’t make sense. What we did is stepped back, evaluated ROOT CAUSE issues of inefficiency and inaccuracies and then concertedly implemented innovations to address the root cause, not just symptoms. The result? A very different approach, with very different capabilities – and that can sometimes be hard for folks to ‘translate’ at first. But once we walk through and map ‘today to tomorrow’ – the eyes start to widen, and the excitement sets in – that there is the possibility of actually focusing on high-value activities (like analysis and clearance), rather than manual labor activities bogging down teams and attorneys today.
Now we have migrated firms from each of the previous market-share holders for conflicts, and so have had the chance to experience their dismay at the incredible efficiencies our Conflicts System provides – each for slightly different reasons based on where they have been ‘living’ before.
Here are just a couple of sample comments from key conflicts team members:
“LBMS Conflicts of Interest saved me 60% of my time!”
“When [our conflicts system fell out of support] we were unhappy to face the need to change. Now, after using LBMS we wonder how we ever lived without the features that are embedded.”
“The other day we missed a key hit using our old conflicts system. LBMS found it right out of the box with no additional effort from the team.”
So, please forgive my blogging tardiness – I promise - it’s for all the right reasons.