In the first two articles of this series (here and here), I’ve riffed on the metaphor of Hemingway and The Sun Also Rises
“How did you go bankrupt?”
“Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”
If change is coming to the world of the business of Legal, it will happen Heminway-style: Gradually, then suddenly.
As I noted yesterday, the firms that succeed in either staving off the change or negotiating it effectively will be a) client-focused and b) efficient. Yesterday, I talked about efficiency. But what does client-focused really mean?
As Inigo Montoya says, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
Here’s some things it doesn’t mean:
- Serving the client without thinking of the practice. The client needs you to be there for the long term.
- Doing whatever the client asks. (Or even, doing whatever the client asks as long as it’s legal.) Rather, do what is needed to address the client’s business problem within the context of the vision and “Done.” If the client is asking you to do something outside the scope of the project, discuss it openly. That’s how you avoid doing work that the client will resent paying for.
- Taking whatever approach the client requests. If the client is asking you to take an approach you think is suboptimal or worse, discuss it with the client.
What it does mean is engaging in a partnership with the client — ideally for the long term, but at a minimum with respect to the project currently on your plate. Consider:
- Understand the client’s business problem. That means you need to understand something of the client’s business, too.
- Figure out who all the client stakeholders are, especially hidden stakeholders. Large corporations abound with hidden stakeholders. Ignore them, and you’re in for an operation-was-a-success-but-the-patient-died experience.
- Determine what’s at stake from the client perspective. Win the lawsuit… or get it settled with minimal press impact? $5,000 issue? Don’t spend $8,000 solving it. Remember, your clients have business problems, but they rarely have legal problems unless you’re trying to keep them out of jail.1
- Understand the Conditions of Satisfaction. What will make the client delighted with your work, the critical success factors? What needs to be delivered? To whom? When? How will you communicate with the client? What is the client expecting to pay?
Legal Project Management isn’t (just) about schedules and tasks and budgets. It’s about client relationships and communication and leadership. It’s about effectiveness and efficiency in all their forms.
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One last thought on this series: How do you learn Legal Project Management? Gradually, then suddenly. Okay, that’s stretching the metaphor a bit, but that’s really how people put what they’ve learned into practice. They try one or two aspects of LPM, negotiating them slowly at first. One day they realize they’re doing the work seamlessly, that it’s simply become an ingrained part of how they work more efficiently. Soon they’re adding another piece, and then another. Gradually. Then suddenly.
Or, as Hemingway says in The Old Man and the Sea,
I’ll do something. There are plenty of things I can do.
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1Paul Easton has pointed out in the past that an immigration matter, for example, might be more of a legal problem than a business problem. Perhaps that’s true; I could argue either side of that case. By and large, though, most of the problems your clients set before you will be business problems that they seek to address through the medium of the law. Did Exxon have a legal problem when the Exxon Valdez ran up on the rocks? Of course, but they had a much larger business problem.