There is no doubt that Conflicts of Interest is a crucial risk management concern for law firms. Ensuring appropriate parties are checked for conflicts, that the conflicts clearance process is audited and associated concerns (such as ethical walls) are evaluated and managed are all needed loss prevention aspects in a law firm.

That said, conflicts processes are only part of, not synonymous with, the holistic New Business Intake process.  In the old days, law firms bought a conflicts of interest package and then wrapped rudimentary New Business Intake procedures around the checking and clearing of conflicts.

Sadly, some firms are stuck in this old way of thinking - that somehow New Business Intake and conflicts processes are essentially equivalent - or at minimum that conflicts checking and clearing is the central concern of New Business Intake.  Neither is correct in 2013 - but as a result of this thinking, we see firms falling into the trap of making the same choices in 2013 that were made in the last 'era' (circa 1999-2002).  The difference today is - making these faulty assumptions costs firms MILLIONS of dollars (no exaggeration)....

The facts in 2013 and the future are as follows:

1. The needs (and value) of a properly implemented and evolvable New Business Intake process are substantially cross-functional and NOT centrally focused on conflicts.  In fact, financial and marketing considerations are far and away the most central themes of a transformed New Business Intake process.  These financial considerations also include multiple risk management considerations (LOSS PREVENTION), which necessarily include, but are by no means limited to, conflicts of interest.

2. New Business Intake is a process that will be forever evolving - primarily in areas that are not directly conflicts-related.  

3. New Business Intake is one of DOZENS of client/matter related processes.  Cross-functional considerations continue across these additonal related processes - and again, are not conflicts-central.

Unfortunately, the same vendors that persuaded firms to the old dead-end approaches are still at it - leading unsuspecting firms into the same rabbit holes they did before.  Why?  Well, because they have a new conflicts system to replace the old conflicts system, of course.  

But your firm doesn't have to fall into the same old traps.  New Business Intake and the other dozens of business processes that occur for your clients/matters are decidedly more about making money than checking conflicts.  And we haven't even started to talk about the other entities we need to manage (legal projects (matter delivery); employees; vendors; contracts...).

Recognizing that all business processes at your firm must be considered from a cross-functional perspective is the first step towards moving towards the required new sustainable business model for law firms.

Don't let the fact that a vendor has pulled support for your conflicts system because they want to sell you a new one cause you to make a decision with long-term detrimental financial consequences.  

There is a new and better way...

The old ways simply won't cut it - don't let your firm go down the same rabbit holes.  Elegrity helps law firms think and operate in accordance with the new world, not the old.  

Join Us for a Free Webinar to See the Future of Law Firms

On February 6, we will be re-running our very popular webinar as first presented at the Thomson Reuter's Law Firm Leaders Forum in November 2012.  Come and join us for this encore presentation and move your firm into the future, not the past.

Make sure the investments you make today are still paying you dividends 5 years from now!

In future blogs, I'll expose additional rabbit holes that you and your firm can avoid.

Last week, I had the pleasure of attending and presenting at the 17th Annual Law Firm Leaders Forum in San Francisco (hosted by Thomson Reuters).

The news for law firm leaders in 2012 and looking ahead to 2013 seems pretty dismal.  Both Citicorp and Wells Fargo have published reports showing a decrease in billable hours and realization for the majority of law firms in 2012.  They report things won't be much better in 2013.

If you've read the blogs and content pieces we've published over the last 18 months, then you won't be surprised - we've been advocating fundamental change in how law firms operate on multiple levels - operationally, in areas of marketing and business development, and of course in the way services are delivered, priced and managed. 

In our discussion at the breakfast briefing on Friday, Mr. Richard J. Mackessy, CFO of Steptoe & Johnson PLLC and I asserted that law firm survival today and tomorrow must be accomplished by evolving from the current ("old") business model to a new, sustainable model.  In other words, take a breath law firm leaders - no one is telling you to throw the baby out with the bath water here.  Not at all.  In fact, given the sensitivity of the law firm partnership structure and resulting culture, it would be suicide to think you are going to make revolutionary changes! 

Ok, so now that you are breathing a bit better, let's examine the top 3 threats to Law Firm Survival as I see them:

I actually believe that the last one (business entropy - simply put - wasted energy that is seeping out of existing processes thereby removing it from the 'energy pool' for productive work) is the key to addressing the first two.  If law firms can't find the organizational energy to put into reshaping (and rethinking) their business model in the immediate future, they are facing extinction. 

We are working together with our law firm customers to reinvigorate previously wasted energy (and, oh, let's not forget money) back into the organizational system so that the firm can recapitalize that energy and money as investments into their shifting business model.  This is incredibly exciting stuff!

How do we do it?  Through our Legal Process Management thought leadership and powerful technologies (Law Business Management System).  By first transforming how firms think about work, then transforming how firms do the work, we are accomplishing incredible reductions in business entropy. 

Law Firm Leaders - where is energy seeping out in your organization (wasted)?  What would  you do if you could get it that wasted energy back? You can and you MUST!

Elegrity and Steptoe & Johnson PLLC Co-Present at the 17th Annual Thomson Reuters Law Firm Leadership Forum in San Francisco, California

On Friday, November 16 from 8am-9am, I have the pleasure of co-presenting with Mr. Richard J. Mackessy, Chief Financial Officer of Steptoe & Johnson PLLC, on the preeminent subject of ensuring law firms have a sustainable business model.  The presentation will be given at the 17th Annual Thomson Reuters Law Firm Leadership forum being held November 15-November 16 at the St. Regis hotel in San Francisco.

Many times in the last several years in this blog, e-books, whitepapers and webinars, I have discussed the key threats law firms face in the new, ever-changed global economy. 

The good news is - law firms globally have more than come to terms with the impacts and need for change.  The bad news is - confusion abounds when it comes to when and how to apply the right LPM disciplines to achieve needed results.

The 'LPM' acronym alone is confusing - because it stands for many different things:

• Legal Process Management (the 'Legal' version of the universal Business Process Management discipline).
• Legal Project Management (the 'Legal' version of the universal project management discipline)
• Legal Practice Management - the management of legal services and product offerings through the application of Legal Process Management, Legal Project Management and other related disciplines.
• Legal Profitability Management - the management of overall law firm profitability through the application of Legal Process Management (law firm BPM), Legal Project Management, Risk Management, etc.

Friday, Mr. Mackessy and I will work hard to replace confusion with knowledge and empowerment for change by providing real-world examples of the practical applications of Legal Process Management and Legal Project Management.

If you miss our talk, I'll be sure to share key points in this blog and our upcoming webinars.  In fact, this may end up as a new free downloadable e-book if the feedback warrants.  In the meantime, you might want to download our ground-breaking 'Protecting Law Firm Profitability' e-book now.  If you missed it - you missed a lot. 

After nearly a decade of successfully delivering Business Process Transformation solutions to Fortune 100, Fortune 500 and law firms of every size, we at Elegrity have learned (and continue to learn) first-hand what it takes to achieve true success with BPM.

Most of the time, this law firm BPM blog focuses on discussions regarding how to apply the discipline of business process management to meet challenges to law firm profitability and loss prevention.  By now you know my opinion - these are hard-core business projects - technology simply serves as the facilitator of the business.  Well, simply - hmm.  Is it really that simple?  Not if you don't have the right technical toolkit, that's for sure.

On Thursday, August 30 at the ILTA 2012 conference, I'll be presenting a session "Mastering Business Process Transformation in Law Firms".  This blog provides a preview of some of the discussion we'll have around required technology during that session.

What Your BPM Technology Must Provide

BPM suites aren't enough.  Forms aren't enough - I don't care how cool or 'simple' they seem to be to build.  The fact is, as your law firm matures in its implementation of BPM, the workflow itself should start to become 'indetectable', or a natural part of the flow of work. That kind of transparency requires application functionality.  Stilted form-based workflow stagnates - every time - it is frankly unsustainable over the long-term.

Here's the truth from the real-world of what your firm's BPM platform of choice had better provide

1. Scalability.  Not just multiple processes - multiple collections of processes (or cradle to grave lifecycle management as Elegrity calls it). Thousands of users (don't be fooled - good BPM doesn't bound itself by your firm's boundaries or number of timekeepers).  This scalability must be provided while at the same time being lightweight - both on the back-end and the front-end (client side). 
2. Sophistication, but Highly Configurable.  You can't be limited by the capabilities of the form builder or workflow engine - you need the ability to get out of those boxes.  To extend, add-on or supplement. Relationships between data and processes themselves must be managed.  Single process thinking is a dead-end.
3. Modularity.  Re-use, re-use, re-use.  I can not over-emphasize the criticality of modularity in every aspect of every process implementation.  User interfaces (NOT FORMS), system interfaces, data, business rules, etc.  EVERYTHING.  If your platform fails you here - you are headed for stagnation.  Your firm won't be able to continue its transformation not just from a time and money standpoint - but from an organizational change management standpoint.  See my previous blog on the criticality of 'Consistent Change'.  This level of modularity requires intelligent abstraction of all aspects of the solution.
4. Security.  Last, but not least by a long shot, you need an extensible, configurable and law-firm aware security framework that can be applied cross-process, cross-lifecycle, cross-application.  It pains me to see this aspect get either butchered or consume more time and effort from IT teams than they ever could have known.  Don't underestimate this.

One of These Things Doesn't Look Like the Others...

I suppose the neglect of the technology aspect of law firm business process improvement in this blog is my fault. Its not that I don't think about it, believe me!  I and our team spend all day thinking and working on it, as a matter of fact - constantly looking for ways to improve our Law Business Management System platform.  

That said, we have what is probably an unfair advantage - we built our LBMS platform from the ground up to embed our years of substantial real-world and practical experience of delivering sophisticated business process management to thousands of users world-wide - and at the same time embedded our legal industry business understanding directly into the platform. As a result, our platform isn't like any other (remember that phrase - "One of these things is not like the others?") - well, that's LBMS.  You can read more about LBMS on our product pages and in the following free whitepaper about its uniqueness.

The New Hire process is one targeted for automation and improvement by all organizations - not just law firms (although the law firm new hire process does differ from other organizations).  In fact, this process optimization is probably most often initially driven by the IT department.  The amount of hours spent by IT in determining and then effecting account setups across multiple business systems, coordinating equipment procurement, phone setup, etc. is dramatically reduced when this process is optimized.

Unfortunately, many firms miss out on the full value of New Hire process optimization because they fail to see the cross-functional considerations of this process, and just as importantly, the relationship of the New Hire process to upstream and downstream employee-related processes.  

Here's How NOT To Do It

The worst example I've ever seen of this myopic thinking was when an IT department decided it was going to introduce process optimization of the new hire process, and neglected to even engage the HR department until the point of implementation!  Needless to say, things went downhill quickly from there - or actually, not quickly - a year later the implementation was still flailing. 

The lesson?  It is ok to implement optimization of a fragment of a process, but it is NEVER ok to do that without understanding the relationship of that fragment to the entire process or other processes.  And to literally ignore the key owners of a process (in this case, the HR department) is a mistake you won't recover from without paying a dear price of time, effort and cost. 

Getting Real Value from New Hire

I don't know about you, but if I'm going to be heading out on a long driving trip that I want to break up across several days, I look at the whole route and once I understand that, I figure out how I want to break it up - what portion I'll drive Day 1, then Day 2, etc.  Also, I'll make sure that wherever I stop on each of those days gives me a place to sleep, eat, etc. 

Luckily, one of the keys to good process management uses the same simple thought process!  Let's apply it to the Law Firm New Hire process.

Figuring Out Who Cares

Don't make the mistake of looking at the New Hire process in a siloed fashion like the IT department in our sample above.  And also don't assume that the answer to this question is obvious - if you do that, then you aren't going to achieve the kind of transformation good law firm BPM brings.  Think in new ways. 

For example, it seems obvious - HR and IT - they both care.  Oh, and of course, there is the hiring manager - they care.  But who else might care?  For that, we need to break it down a bit.  What position is being hired? That might make a difference - if it's a new secretary, paralegal, or attorney may impact many aspects of the process, and also who gets involved.  Attorney recruiting or professional services teams will have interest in this new hire process, but also in what information gets vetted and kept for ongoing downstream processes (we'll get to that in a minute).

Define The Starting and End Points

Seems simple doesn't it? Well, it is, but it still needs to be defined. Depending on who you speak with there could be many definitions of the 'start' of the New Hire process - so you'd better ask!

Does it start when IT gets the email that a new person is coming on-board?  Does it start when the offer is made or when it is accepted by the potential employee? 

Does it end when the employee shows up for Day 1 and has a place to sit with a phone and a computer, or does it end after employee orientation is over, or when the 3-month probationary period ends?

Understanding the Optimization Focus

Now you need to determine what you are going to optimize and transform.  Are you going to do everything from start to finish, or are you going to phase the optimization - focusing on high value 'fragments' of the process over a period of time?  This conversation and ultimate decision is based on timeframe, investment (effort and associated cost) and return-on-investment. 

This is SCOPING and has been identified by Gartner as 1 of the 7 Key Criteria of BPM Success. 

Get this right, and you are going to be well on your way - get it wrong and it could get dicey.

We help customers and prospects break out of this place quickly - in hours, not weeks or months.  See past blog articles, downloads and free scoping workshops for more information on Elegrity's scoping advice and consulting.  Here are just a few:

Blog: Look Ahead Not Down At Your Feet for Safety

Blog: Scoping for Success

Don't Forget The Employee!

Last but not least, be sure you understand the key subject of the New Hire process - the employee! Why do I bring this up?  Because I would say that 99.99% of the time law firms don't think about this - not really. 

What I mean is - we need to think about the entire lifecycle of this employee over the long-term.  Let's start by realizing that the New Hire isn't even the first business process about this employee - there were all kinds of activities surrounding this employee that are parts of other, related processes that have already occurred.  Recruiting, background investigations and reference checks, conflicts (if this is a Lateral Hire), etc.  AND, there are hopefully going to be a lot of other processes that will be about the employee for their tenure at the firm (and beyond). Miss these relationships, and you could be wasting amazing opportunities for long-term return on your efforts on New Hire.

Maximize Value

Law Firm BPM is critical to the ability of today's firms to achieve long-term profitability.  Every effort can achieve maximum value return when done thoughtfully and with a long-term outlook.  I hope the information is this blog helps your law firm achieve maximum value from your efforts surrounding New Hire and related processes.  Get the following FREE whitepaper for application of these same concepts to New Business Intake.

Progress Comes After It Starts Hurting

Recently I had ankle surgery, and I was dreading the pain I know physical therapy will bring - but then that familiar phrase 'No Pain, No Gain' popped into my head.  

I remember the first time I really understood what that phrase meant- 8 years old, at the end of a grueling gymnastics class and holding my legs above the ground for a seemingly interminable amount of time as my dance teacher seemed to march around the room enjoying our pain. Then she said something that stuck - she said that if you only do something until you get tired, or it hurts a bit, then you never really make any progress.  It's the work you put in after the weariness sets in where you get the forward-progress.  No pain, no gain.  Got it (granted, I still don't like it).

Good Law Firm BPM Hurts Too - But It Gets Better

All this reminiscing collided with my current world - in which I spend a lot of time helping our customers get through the dreaded pain of introducing the sometimes fundamental changes that go along with good business process transformation.  I empathize with operational teams who struggle to hold the line on the now-codified, no longer 'skirtable' policies that are embedded into the natural flow of work in whatever process they have just transformed (e.g., New Business Intake; Lateral Hire; New Employee Onboarding; etc.).  And when the pain gets really bad, very often the natural reaction is to 'undo' the implemented requirements that they diligently detailed and we diligently implemented.  

The benefit I have is that we have done this over and over again - and, also, that the screaming isn't directly in my ear - to be fair.  But consistent experience shows that there are 45-60 days of organizational 'angst' that occurs when you introduce a sizable process transformation into the firm.  And if this is the first one your firm has experienced, then it's a bit tougher than every subsequent one you will do.  So almost all of the changes to requirements that get brought up during the 45-60 days of 'angst' are reactionary in nature - usually the result of the vocal disclaimers of literally a handful of individuals in a sea of hundreds. 

No Different than Amending the Constitution...

My rule is this (since we are talking about law firms anyway) - the requirements that you detailed and were implemented are like the Constitution.  They were thought through and reviewed over and over and with great diligence and keen focus.  And just like the Constitution - they can be modified.  But those 'Amendments' should go through equal, or greater, diligence and thought as the original Constitution.  Otherwise, you might end up implementing a bunch of Prohibition-like Amendments and experience a 'backwards slide' that could have been avoided.  

So to all of you courageous process transformation teams who are working hard to help your firm move forward boldly into the world of the new legal industry - hold steadfast and ask yourselves this...is the need for that back-out change you're considering going to naturally disappear after 45-60 days when the organization 'settles into' the new way of operating, or is the change really going to benefit the firm?  95% of the time, if you can just hold on, you won't need to change a thing. 

No pain, no gain.  Boy I hate that phrase - especially because it's so often true - and it certainly is true for good process transformation.  

Sure, the title sounds like a hoax - but I'm not kidding.

In our work with law firm prospects and customers, we see return-on-investment numbers of $500K (and often more) coming right back into our customer's hands within a few months!

We know this to be true, because we diligently calculate Return-On-Investment in collaboration with our clients and prospects as part of our standard scoping process for New Business Intake projects and then we deliver on every New Business Intake process improvement and transformation we scoped in timeframes that are 50% FASTER THAN OUR COMPETITORS.  As a result of our expertise, our customers achieve incredible ROI timeframes (meaning they get that expected return of hundreds of thousands of dollars 50% faster than their peers, and 100% faster than their peers that are still sitting stagnant!).

How Do You Get The $500k?

Of course, the specific value of your firm's New Business Intake process has to be based on your firm's current state and defined 'transformed state', but $500k is a fair middle ground.  So let's just use that for now.

The actual value of your firm's New Business Intake transformation must be calculated for your specific situation, but you find the value across the following key areas:

1. Loss Prevention

Every time you embed risk management or compliance-related policies, procedures or oversight into your New Business Intake process you *should* be achieving loss prevention.  If that's not true, then why do you have the policy to begin with, right?  Your executive team can definitely ascribe value to this type of loss prevention, so this is low-hanging fruit for inclusion in your ROI.

2. Time-Value-Of-Money

If you get paid within 15 days of delivering a product or service you actually make more money (in a sense) than if you get paid within 90 days of delivering a product or service.  This is known as 'Time-Value-of-Money'. 

Transform your NBI in ways that lead directly to acceleration of cash flow and/or collections, and you've just achieved real monetary increases.  Just ask your CFO - they'll tell you!

3. Value of Bandwidth Increases

Efficiencies better be achieved by your New Business Intake process transformation - or don't do it!  These efficiencies ultimately result in increased bandwidth for various types of resources throughout your firm (attorneys; marketing teams; risk management teams; secretaries; paralegals; department chairs; etc.). 

These bandwidth increases have REAL DOLLAR VALUE - this means these resources are released for leverage on other HIGH VALUE ACTIVITIES.  This return comes back in increased revenue, additional loss prevention and enhanced overall profitability.

There are so many more areas that a well-done New Business Intake transformation provides, but hopefully this short synopsis peaks your interest.

So the question is - if your firm is sitting on its hands 'living with' the old New Business Intake - are your executives aware they are losing $500K or more from the bottom line?   Maybe we should tell them, what do you think?

Elegrity offers unprecedented no-commitment process transformation workshops to qualifying Law Firms internationally - which result in amongst other things, a validated Return-On-Investment calculation specific to your firm.  Download our flyer below or call today to see how we might help your firm win $500k!

In my previous blog, I discussed at a high level why organizations (corporations and law firms alike) who have implemented ERP systems require Business Process Management (BPM) to achieve success.  Note - this isn't a 'might need' scenario - it's a 'must-have'.  It just varies in terms of when the realization strikes the firm.  In fact, in some cases, law firms utilize BPM in lieu of ERP. 

Ok, so wait.  ERP Alone = Not Good; ERP + BPM = Success; BPM Alone = Success.  What gives?  Do you need ERP or not? 

The question of 'whether to ERP or not' doesn't have anything to do with Business Process Management.  That's because ERP systems are not BPM Systems (more about the ones that say they are later).  They are application and data management systems.  ERP provides functionality surrounding the management of information regarding various 'things' - like suppliers, employees, clients and matters.

BPM systems, on the other hand, are WORK, ACTIVITY AND DATA GOVERNANCE systems.  BPM provides functionality required to organize and coordinate the involvement of people and information (business systems including ERP) in the business processes that make-up your firm.  These processes may be departmental, but most often they are cross-department, cross-geography and sometimes cross-organizational.

Why is BPM So Important?

Does every organization need BPM?  In my book - most do.  Why?  Because every organization requires more efficiency, better loss prevention and greater agility than ever before.  There's no margin for ineffectiveness being filled by 'more' of anything - more people, more money.  There's no room for unexpected and uncontrolled losses to degrade law firm profitability.  There's not time to spend months or years making strategic or risk management adjustments to the running of the business.  We don't live in that world.  We live in a world of exponential acceleration, constant paradigm shifts and 'with less, do more'.  Anyone out there not living in that world?  Remember the days of the 10-year strategic plans?  Ha!  Now that gives me a good laugh.

When is ERP Important?

So - what about ERP (or 'baby-ERP' finance systems for law firms)?  Who needs those?  The answer to that question is more nuanced and dependent on specific functional requirements.  The reason its dependent on specific functional requirements is because these systems are FUNCTIONALLY-based.  That's what they do - manage data around FUNCTIONS and FUNCTIONAL areas (HR; Finance; Supply Chain).  So, if you find that you have financial or accounting needs that require specific data management assistance - then perhaps a finance or accounting module from an ERP system will do the trick.  If you find you need better organization of information relating to employees, then maybe an HRIS or HR module of an ERP system is required. 

Remember this - good data management and data governance relies on good PROCESS MANAGEMENT.  BPM ensures that the MEANING AND CONTEXT of the data is clear to end-users (because BPM is friendly - so you can ask for information with understandable questions or phrases - you don't just throw an ERP field at the user and expect them to know what it means!).  BPM automatically involves the right resources in review of the entered information BEFORE it makes it into the ERP system.  BPM systems automate the push and pull of relevant information from ERP systems to ensure accuracy and efficacy of the information as a natural part of every day work.

Coming Next...Don't Get Fooled - Know What Real Success Looks Like

Coming next...beware of ERP / Law Firm Finance System vendors who tell you they have the solution you need for 'BPM'.  They know they need BPM to be successful - but don't get fooled by their attempts to fill their hole themselves.  Also, I'll share some real-world success stories of law firms and corporations getting the most bang for their buck with BPM with and without ERP.

In the past several years, some law firms have implemented ERP systems for some or all of their financial and HR functions.  Others have begun embracing what I call 'Baby-ERP' systems which are the latest releases of some of the law-firm specific finance systems that are inching their way towards the beginning realm of ERP. 

A very common question I get asked is "Why do we need BPM [Elegrity's Law Business Management System (LBMS)] when we have X, Y or Z ERP or 'baby-ERP' or are planning to get it?"  It's a great question - and it inspired this blog (thanks to customers and prospects alike for the wonderful collaborations and blog fodder!). 

Not a New Question  

Let's start with the fact that, although fairly new for law firms, this question is not new in the larger business context.  Global corporations (non-law firms) almost always have ERP deeply embedded in their organization.  Inevitably, we get engaged by these corporations when the need for enterprise Business Process Management (BPM) is recognized (and the fact that the ERP system cannot deliver it).  Some of these corporations recognize the need for BPM early, saving themselves more money over the long term than I can calculate.  Others recognize it only after years of pain and extraordinary cost. 

 I hope to help our law firm customers and prospects learn from the corporate world so you can save yourselves the experience of the pain of getting the role of ERP wrong in your firm.

Key Reasons BPM is Required with ERP  

Here are the key reasons I and other experts believe BPM is required even if, or perhaps especially when, organizations have ERP:

• ERP is focused on management of data held within the ERP system in various, but siloed, functional areas.  ERP systems may offer ‘embedded’ or functional workflows, but they provide no or very poor enterprise workflow that is considerate of cross-functional needs or the needs or uses of non-ERP business systems!  BPM supports both functional and enterprise process transformation scenarios.
• BPM is far more agile than ERP systems, where BPM requires on average 3-6 months to implement, ERP takes 20-24 months (minimum). Change management (key to agility) follows a similar pattern, with BPM empowering enterprises to implement change 85% faster - now that's what you call agility!
• ERP needs BPM to help realize its full value.  BPM helps ERP by allowing it to stay functionally focused while providing for the cross-functional, cross-system and cross-boundary needs of organizations.

I concur with all of the above - but I will add one more that I believe is crucial:  END-USER ADOPTION.  

Working with an ERP system is somewhat akin to flying a 747 -what if you sat down in front of the pilot's console on your next flight on a 747?  Do you think you could get going right away?  HARDLY.  It takes years to learn how to work all those controls.  The same can be said for ERP systems.  That's why you leave using the ERP system to the back-end core operational teams, and implement nice and friendly BPM in front of them for the end-users.  In this way, you achieve incredibly fast adoption rates.  ERP alone?  Well - get ready of hundreds of hours of costly training, with questionable results.

Stay tuned for future blogs in which I will explore ways ERP vendors and IT departments attempt to overcome ERP's lack of business process management capabilities - and the dangers of misplaced investments of both time and money.

As we watch another AMLAW 100 firm on a spiral-down trajectory, Law Firm Management and partners in other law firms look to quickly glean lessons - hoping to avoid the same type of demise.

When I see the tell-tale partner diaspora begin in the news, three things enter my mind:

1. The Root Cause - Degraded Law Firm Profitability
2. The Likelihood of Survival - Slim to None
3. The Timeframe for Extinction - Brief (Months, Not Years) 

Law Firm Management teams are looking for proactive profitability management solutions so that their firms avoid similar fates.  Many feel they just can't get their arms around it.  The reason for that is - the problem is dynamic, multi-dimensional and nuanced. 

Firms that aggressively move to take advantage of the dynamicity of the market for legal products and services will experience new growth.  Those that react retrospectively, tactically and with unidimensional approaches are likely to suffer the similar fate of extinction with increasing rapidity.

Legal Project Management - 101

Firms seem to be somewhat comfortable beginning to adopt one strategy for profitability protection - Legal Project Management.  By applying basic project management tenets, some firms are achieving higher profitability and increased customer satisfaction.  By employing project management best practices, firms can regain visibility and a new level of control over matter execution, with direct line impacts on profitability when done effectively.

Of course, there is no real news here - other industries have understood the need and value of project management for decades (like the technology industry, for example).  Once law firm customers began demanding accurate cost estimates and budgets, project management was an obvious requirement.

Why Law Firms Can't Survive without BPM

So Legal Project Management helps in some ways, but what doesn't it address?  So much - but let's focus on what I think are the top three:

1. Efficiency Gains By Changing the 'How':  Project management coordinates what work gets done, by whom, with some adjustments in terms of overall approach and timing.  The work itself might still continue on as before, just with better planning and coordinated execution.  Those are some elements of process optimization - but nowhere near what is required.  Law firms must fundamentally shift HOW work is done.  This requires a holistic approach to optimizing work delivery processes, and the effective utilization of supporting business systems or applications.  This is business process optimization, not project management.  BPM provides the optimization of use of both human and technology resources.  The result?  More with Less = Same or Increased Revenue with Less Staff or Overhead = Higher Profitability.  Faster Delivery = Accelerated Cash Flow.
2. Commoditization:  Law firm management must stay ahead of the curve in recognizing legal services that are destined for commodization (practice areas or customer types). 
1. Once recognized, process optimization techniques must be applied that empower law firm management and marketing teams to accelerate near-term revenue generation opportunities to capture as much of 'what is left' of the service offering while the commoditization process is occurring in the market.  The result?  Awareness + Focus = Exploited Revenue Opportunities = Working Capital to Fund Your Transformation
2. At the same time, while the practice area is in 'glide down' with full exploitation of remaining revenue opportunities, law firm management must use the working capital provided to accomplish required transformation.  This is done through the application of process optimization techniques.  The objective is to determine whether the firm can win at the commoditization game. 
1. If the answer is YES, the practice must be transformed to the newly defined process optimized delivery model, with the law firm marketing department out in front with the appropriate market penetration campaigns.  The result?  Exploit Commoditization = New Market Opportunities and Stable or Enhanced Revenue Generation and Profitability
2. If the answer is NO (the firm can't win at the commoditization game) then operational processes should be implemented to provide visibility and control over pursuit of new opportunities in this area - and redirection of these efforts to identified practice areas that might be able to releverage similar delivery approaches, skills and expertise.  The result?  Dump After Commoditized = Protected Profitability by Applying Resources to Higher Profit-producing work before degradation of profitability can occur
3. Market Differentiation: Legal product and services customers are self-educating and have new options (outsourcing; insourcing; online services).  These savvy buyers are looking for law firms who bring new perspectives, better ways of doing things, predictable high-value service offerings and innovative thinkers.  And to capture their business - law firm marketing techniques must transform with BPM techniques.  The results?  Deeper Customer Penetration + Increased Market Share = Increased Revenue + Increased Financial Risk Mitigation = Protected and Higher Profitability

If you discern anything from the above limited discussion, I hope it is this: the strategies I am discussing are evolutionary, not static.  Business Process Management is by definition meant to be applied to areas of dynamicity, and this is why law firms can't survive without it.   

Dowload our free whitepaper to learn more about why BPM is required to transform law firm operations and delivery models to ensure protected law firm profitability.