Legal Services Management 3.0 - The Core Curriculum Pilot
I was recently reminded that in 2007, when ACC was still creating a vision of what we’d try to do with the ACC Value Challenge, the emerging Steering Committee leaders all agreed that if we could simply make the word “value” a dominant concept, regardless of whether folks associated their value conversation with the ACC Value Challenge, we’d have succeeded in some part. I’m happy to report that by that standard, we’re doing well.
Perhaps too well.
Value has become a word that is so popular in the legal service conversation today that it is ubiquitous with quality, efficiency, productivity, innovation, and results. And lots of talk. By any standard, we’ve succeeded in moving folks to talk the value talk. But for many, that’s still all they’re prepared to do. Talk.
So I’ve made it my mission in 2010 to roll out the next steps: how to help folks walk the value walk. Everybody embraces value theory and enjoys reading or hearing about value success practices implemented by others; and for many, it’s easy to discount the applicability of some of the most touted success stories by saying: “that’s fine for DuPont and Pfizer and Cisco and others: but not for my lower leverage, bread-and-butter, work-a-day legal stuff.”
Don’t cop-out on value. What that says to me is that folks are afraid to admit that they don’t have experience or comfort or skill in actually implementing “value-based” changes in our own practices. We need to re-build our toolkit and develop the confidence that we can get value done, regardless of department size or legal matter or subject expertise. We need to figure out what value means to us (not to Pfizer and DuPont), and how we get there from here, since it’s Summertime and the talkin’ is easy but the livin’ ain’t free.
So ACC is pleased to raise the curtain tonight onLegal Services Management 3.0 – the Core Curriculum. This pilot initiative has been in the works for months, and is being delivered for the first time in Washington, DC on July 13-14 to about 50 top-level in-house legal managers; if you’re not one of the lucky few who got a seat for the pilot program, no worries – you’re going to see it repeated and re-tooled or customized in the coming months into a series of executive/business education offerings for managing lawyers in departments and firms across the spectrum.
In ACC’s LSM 3.0 we’re not telling participants what others did so they can nod their heads and murmur appreciation; we’re teaching registrants how to apply these concepts in their law departments, large and small, in every industry and in every kind of legal work done. Our registrants want to learn HOW to save money, drive efficiencies, create better and stronger relationships with firms and vendors supporting their work, and improve results for their clients.
What are we offering/what are registrants becoming expert in?
-Fee and staffing structures that drive value;
-Metrics and evaluation strategies to assure that improvement is quantifiable and sustainable;
-Knowledge management concepts that avoid “re-inventing the wheel”;
-Process management, including concepts such as lean six sigma in legal services;
-Mining technology and data to drive better results;
-Project management to assure that complex matters deploying diverse teams succeed; and
-Change strategies and incentives, since the hardest part of all is getting lawyers to try something new.
This two day session, taught by an all-star faculty including in-house counsel, outside firm leaders, and consultants/vendors offers a rare opportunity to sample the broad set of skills that lawyers are going to need to develop to succeed in the next decade and beyond. We hope you’ll watch our homepage for snippets of the video from the sessions (we’re taping them) and information on the resources and upcoming classes that might benefit you and your client that will be available to you online.
Time to stop talking about value and just get it done. Time to become value-able.
