THE LAWYERS WEEKLY
May 14, 2010 | 9
Legal project management’s
new billing paradigm
MICHAEL RAPPAPORT
Prominent law firms — including
Eversheds LLP in the U.K., Seyfarth
Shaw LLP in the U.S. and McCarthy
Tétrault LLP in Canada — have
recently embraced project management
with the fervor of converts to a new
religion. Project management makes
many bold promises to adherents — it
will improve quality, meet deadlines,
reduce errors, increase efficiency and
control costs. But will project management also usher in a new era in legal
services, as law firms shift away from
the billable hour to fixed fees?
As a formal discipline, project management was pioneered by U.S. construction and manufacturing companies
in the 1950s, and quickly spread to other
sectors. Yet the legal sector, with a few
notable exceptions such as document
review services, resisted the gospel of
project management — until the global
recession hit in 2008.
In the post-recession-ravaged legal
landscape— which drove corporate clients to slash legal budgets and large law
firms to lay off staff, associates and even
partners— a few trailblazing large law
firms have suddenly embraced project
management with zeal.
For the masses that are still skeptical
or struggling with how to adapt the
arcane principles of project management to the practice of law, the arrival of
Steven Levy’s new book will be a godsend. Legal Project Management: Con-
FLYCAT / DREAMS TIME.COM
trol Costs, Meet Schedules, Manage
Risks, and Maintain Sanity is destined
to become the bible of project management for law firms, and a frequently
consulted book by lawyers of all stripes.
Levy is a legal project management
guru who hails from Seattle. He honed
his expertise as the head of the legal
technology department of Microsoft
and the principal of Lexician, a con-
sultancy to major law firms.
How to deliver legal services after the recession
As law firms get busier compared to the difficult economic
environment of 2009, it is tempting to think that it will soon be
business as usual — more work
than lawyers can handle, increasing hourly rates and escalating
incomes. Think again. One of the
major changes that has resulted
from the great recession of 2008-
2009 is that business has learned
to cut costs and still deliver the
goods. That is going to have a big
impact on law firms and their
business models.
BERNARD
PINSKY
About ten years ago, the CEO
of a well known Vancouver-based
company, an experienced Amer-
ican businessman, told me that
the major difference between U.S.
and Canadian businesses was that
in the U.S., companies constantly
work to squeeze out costs, which
was not happening in Canada.
This resulted in U.S. productivity
continually increasing at a faster
rate than in Canada. But in the
aftermath of last year’s recession,
Canada’s cost squeezing day has
come.
