Not really. But the process that the legal industry is going through to define legal project management is exactly like the process the industry went through to come up with standards for electronic invoicing in 1997 and 1998, which yielded the Legal Electronic Data Exchange Standards, or LEDES for short.
In the mid-1990’s, companies like AIG, GM, DuPont and countless others were creating their own formats for law firms to submit their invoices electronically. It made sense because there were no standards. Then electronic invoicing vendors like Examen and TyMetrix started writing their own formats and proposing that companies adopt them so that there would be less formats in the market. The short term result was more formats.
The solution was to have the industry get together and agree on a unified standard that may not necessarily cover everyone’s complete wish list, but was enough for law firms, corporations and vendors to start communicating in a common language. Until that happened in 1998, electronic invoicing was only a trickle. After that, the flow of data became a flood.
Today, there is a lot of chatter about legal project management. There are lot of ideas about what it means and why the legal industry needs it. There are also a growing number of definitions of legal project management. I find that they are predominantly from the law firm perspective, though. Not wrong, but our perspective is very much from the buyer of legal services perspective, not the seller. In my view, until the industry finds a way to come together and agree on a definition, legal project management will make little headway.
How the industry gets together to do this is a bit more challenging. In the earlier example of electronic invoicing, PriceWaterhouseCoopers funded the initiative and really facilitated the outcome. They did this, presumably, because they wanted to be seen as thought leaders and to generate fees eventually based on the implementation of electronic invoicing and spend management. And I think they were successful. Who will step forth for legal project management is less obvious. It can’t really be a vendor like Onit. And it can’t really be a law firm. And it can’t really be a corporation. I think it will take a forward-thinking, thought-leading consultancy that understands that investment is necessary here and that it will yield benefits in the future. Any takers?
Finally, in the interest of moving the ball forward, here is my top-level take on what legal project management means for corporate legal departments. Feel free to comment….
In a post last month, I talked about the formation of the Onit Advisory Group (OAG) to help with the strategic development of our premium legal spend management module. Since then, we have received a great deal of feedback that many of you would like to participate but do not have enough time to commit to the group.
If you fall into this category, we have a solution that we think is mutually beneficial. Give us one hour of your time to discuss your opinions about billing policies and guidelines, electronic bill submission, invoice workflow, alternative free arrangements, etc. and we’ll donate $250 to the charity of your choice.
There is a small disclaimer though. We are seeking corporate legal attorneys or professionals from companies with revenue of at least $1.5 billion dollars. We are targeting this segment of the market because we feel there is great opportunity for a comprehensive legal spend management and project management tool. Your feedback will help us shape the product development, which is scheduled for launch in early fall.
Please email me at jill.black@onit.com if you can donate an hour of your time to help a charity of your choice. Your opinion matters. Thank you in advance for your participation.
As we prepare for our new website launch and begin work on our premium product tailored at the legal vertical, we continue to struggle with how we talk about what we do. Although we designed Onit specifically for lawyers, we quickly realized that Onit is a universal project management tool that any professional, or non-professional for that matter, could use.
At the highest level, a lawyer’s project management needs are not that dissimilar than most people’s needs. On the one hand, we have a great, general project management tool that we will continue to grow for all professionals. On the other hand, our business plan predicts that 100% of our revenue will come from the legal vertical in the next five years.
It is the classic “depth verse breadth” battle that most software companies encounter. So far, we have tried to straddle both: Onit is for everybody; Onit Premium will be for lawyers and people that work with lawyers. Now, we have to find a middle ground that clearly articulates Onit’s value proposition to both audiences.
Bad Behavior has blocked 65 access attempts in the last 7 days.