Law Practice Today

Hamsters are energetic creatures, as anyone who has watched one running in its exercise wheel will attest. In fact, hamsters may be unsurpassed for amount of effort expended in inverse proportion to results achieved. They run hard and never get anywhere, just the same as many lawyers who expend a tremendous amount of effort to do a task that would have been much easier if they had asked for help.

For example, consider what happens at many firms when individual lawyers get new matters. Their first step is often to look in the file cabinet and pull out the paperwork of the last deal or pleading that they worked on and use that as a starting point. If the start isn’t a good one, the alternatives are to rummage back in the file cabinet for something more relevant, to go to a generic form book or other reference guide such as from Matthew Bender, or to haphazardly check with a colleague or two and ask if they can help. The result is wasted time, wasted effort, and more expense for the client.

 

Systematic Effort

Such a haphazard and inefficient approach is at odds with today’s competitive demands for the systematic organization of the firm’s entire work product, prepared for all of its clients, so that the collective research and advice of all lawyers are available to each lawyer. Clients no longer want their lawyer to reinvent the wheel. Once the research is done and the facts established, no client wants to pay for others in the firm to re-create it. Systematic management of a law firm’s work product should be essential, meaning that every brief, pleading, contract and form prepared for each specific matter should follow a life cycle that encompasses five stages:

• Creation, by the individual lawyer
• Distribution, to other lawyers working on the same matter
• Maintenance, of the physical or electronic file that contains the work product during the time that the matter is active
• Retention, by deciding the value of each record in a file and whether it should be kept
• Preservation, in a shared electronic database so that the record can be searched and retrieved.

One of the more glamorous terms applied to this concept is knowledge management (KM). The old KM concept was to look in your file cabinet and pull out the paperwork of your last deal or pleading.   Computerized KM systems make the information available faster and more completely.  But the process only works when the information is classified and categorized consistently and from the start, by all lawyers in a firm. The justification is a simple one – avoid the hamster mentality of running hard without getting anywhere by making all useful information the common stock in trade of the firm.

 

High Tech Drawbacks

Too often KM is thought of as purely a high tech endeavor that combines the work product of all lawyers into a single unified database. Best practices require every firm, whether one lawyer or one thousand, to create a standard classification system for each lawyer’s work. The heart of the process is to identify precedent documents that can be used in future matters and ensure that they are both identified and easily accessible.

If the technology is not integrated systematically from the start, the result will be a haphazard, after-the-fact effort that dooms KM efforts to failure. Moreover, the KM process only works when the information is classified and categorized consistently and frequently. Many lawyers believe that this is not billable time, particularly after a transaction or case is completed, and so they either do not do it or do it incompletely. No matter how sophisticated the database, knowledge management only works when all knowledge is shared in a way that all lawyers can access it. Failure to invest the time need to update the knowledge management database weakens it; and holdouts diminish the value for colleagues and clients alike.

 

Precedent Document Solution

A more practical, lower tech process is for a firm to build a library of what can be termed precedent documents. These can be compiled by practice area or department. Precedent documents are those which provide a starting point for matters in the future because they produced successful results previously and reflect a solid grasp of the law.

How should you decide which documents to select? One way is for the entire practice area, or small group from the practice area, to select documents to be reviewed. Choose a lawyer (an eager associate is typically a good choice) to review one document and make recommendations for change. At a meeting of the larger group, the document can be further modified and/or approved. Use the “Supreme Court process,” as younger lawyers speak first so that they aren’t intimidated by the opinions of more senior ones. Then, go to another document until all documents used by the practice area are reviewed.

After identification, precedent documents must be shared and used systematically and fully. Once precedent documents are approved, lawyers in a given practice will have a unique, customized, approved starting point. For example, precedent documents for a lease can be developed that have landlord, tenant and leasing agent perspectives. They can be adapted for individual circumstances as needed, but the basics will be there.

 

Precedent Document Advantages

There are several advantages to developing standard precedent documents, rather than simply creating an electronic pool that all lawyers can draw from at will. The first is educational. Each team’s associate who leads the analysis process gets tremendous, in-depth knowledge in both the law and the firm’s business. In fact, if done under appropriate partner supervision, the process may be entitled to CLE recognition. Just as important, associates who develop the documents will become better internal and external marketers, through greater familiarity with the lawyers on their team and greater knowledge of the firm’s practice, creating collegiality and firm culture that is as valuable as the process itself.

A second, more direct marketing advantage is that consistent precedent documents will go a long way toward establishing a firm “brand” in the minds of clients. When documents take a consistent approach and have a consistent look and feel, clients can more quickly identify them on their desk and understand the approach that’s being taken. Marketers call this a unique selling proposition.

It makes the firm different, offering something that competitors don’t or can’t. Precedent documents that are unique to the firm result in greater efficiency, better communication and faster turnaround that reinforce client perceptions that you care.

This client service message is the third and real benefit of precedent documents, as well as the whole knowledge management concept. It means faster turnaround from engagement to completion.  It adds value and provides solutions to clients.  The worth of the effort, not its cost in billable time, is the key to making it meaningful to both lawyer and client.  The lawyer time spent in developing a body of precedent documents will pay big returns that enhance firm-wide collaboration, marketplace identity and client satisfaction. Replacing the hamster mentality with a truly professional approach will benefit everyone.