Why incorporate planning into your LPM framework:

Planning is rarely straightforward, and the plan you start with will almost certainly evolve. Unlike a legal document, a project plan is a living tool, designed to adapt as circumstances change. I advocate for proportionate planning, focusing on the next 100 days, reviewing regularly, and updating iteratively. The time frame can be tailored to suit your legal matter.

However you approach it, effective planning is at the heart of successful legal matter delivery and should be a cornerstone of your Legal Project Management (LPM) methodology. By investing time in robust planning, law firms and clients can ensure seamless delivery, enhance efficiency, mitigate risks, and achieve superior outcomes.

“If you fail to prepare, then prepare to fail…” Benjamin Franklin

Commercials:

• The scope defines what you need to deliver, and the plan ensures you deliver within budget. Firstly, by calculating and identifying the key performance indicators (KPI’s) you need to work toward, such as expected monthly run rate, leverage, or average billing rate (ABR).
• Use these KPI’s, resource your matter team appropriately. Look beyond availability and decide what level of lawyer, or other roles, you’ll need for each stage of the plan to deliver the KPI’s. Consider whether lower-cost offices or roles can be deployed to help manage large volumes of work and drive further efficiencies.

Roadmap:

• Establish a clear roadmap based on the scope, outlining phases, timelines, and responsibilities for each work stream. This clarity helps both law firms and clients align their collective efforts with the matter objectives, ensuring that everyone is working towards the same goals.
• Visualise the road-map using a Gantt chart or Kanban board. This output is useful for internal teams to measure their own progress while seeing what remains.
• It enables you to visually report to clients on the progress of work streams and identify whether you have been instructed on new work streams that were not originally scoped.

Efficiency:

• Effective planning enables the identification of efficiency drivers for your matter, whether that is people or increasingly legal technology suited to the specific tasks or workstreams.
• Review the work streams to identify if there will be high-volume and repeat work. Consider engaging an ALSP, such as Cognia Law, to outsource some of that “flow” work, ensuring your lawyers are focused on providing the client with strategic legal advice, while also helping you to deliver within the expected budget.
• To maximise technology-based efficiencies on a matter, you must act quickly and thoroughly to understand the scope of work streams and evaluate in real time which #legaltechnology would meet the matter team’s use cases.
• If you’re unsure which technology solutions are best suited to your matter, consult your IT team or seek external advice from experts like LegalTechHub, who can provide market insights tailored to your use case.

Communication:

• ·A well-structured plan should facilitate clearer communication among team members, starting with a kick-off meeting to walk team members through the scope, and planned commercial KPI’s and road-map.
• Often, matters involve teams working across time zones and on multiple matters simultaneously, thereby creating a structured approach to communication that reduces the risk of misunderstandings or duplication of effort.
• ·Strategic and regular client updates are vital, not only for the legal substance, but also for clear reporting on progress, cost, and scope. This ensures we keep stakeholders fully informed and build a culture of transparency and trust throughout the matter life cycle.

These are just a few reasons to incorporate planning into your LPM methodology. Ultimately, thorough planning leads to improved outcomes and higher client satisfaction. By delivering matters on time, within scope and budget, and to a high standard, we can strengthen client relationships and provide their lawyers with a structured environment that allows them to focus on delivering expert legal advice.

Next-generation matter management starts here — contact us at Telescope.

By Aaran Scott, a global legal operations strategist and keynote speaker, drawing on 10+ years of partnering with leading law firms to transform matter management and deliver exceptional client value.