Canadian Lawyer

w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m M A r C h 2 0 1 5 23 to make themselves and their practice groups more competitive and effective. And, says Furlong, a legal industry analyst and consultant with Edge International, everyone involved in a firm of any size — be it partner, associate, support staff — can play a role in making it more efficient. Thinking like a client can be invaluable. Looking from the outside in can help iden- tify efficiencies and process improvements that can reduce costs, and improve quality — or both. But, he adds, efficiency within law firms is not an end in itself. It's a means to an end — the greater effectiveness of operations, the higher productivity of law- yers and staff, and ultimately, greater value to clients. "Firms shouldn't be seeking out efficiency for efficiency's sake. They should be asking themselves: How can we do this more productively or effectively? How can we reduce waste or duplication or unnecessary workarounds? How can we do this better, more quickly, and with less cost to resources?" says Furlong. As practice management consultants at Montreal firm Gimbal Canada, David and Karen Skinner advise that any lawyer can begin by drafting one idea on how to make the practice run more efficiently, no matter how simple. In advising on Lean practices, they talk about mapping the firm's cur- rent state of affairs by including a group of people within the firm and taking into account how the business currently oper- ates, designing the future state of the target process, and then implementing a plan for the proposed improvements. The resulting best practices are then brought together and made accessible to anyone in the firm. "People tend to accept the way they're doing things as the way to do it and they adapt to the ineffective way of doing it," says David. So examining the process becomes necessary to identifying what needs to be re-adapted to become effi- cient. The idea is to streamline the process by reducing the time, energy, and resources spent on the business and administration and focus more on the practice of law. "If in-house counsel is finding and elim- inating their waste," he says pointing to the RBC example, "and being able to internal- ize this work, then outside counsel should really be doing these things." Furlong and the Skinners point to the billable hour as a breeding ground for inefficiency. The client pays for the time no matter how it is spent, not the outcome or service received. With an increased demand from clients for predictability, esti- mating the cost of those services requires an examination of the process involved. Karen says a good starting point is look- ing at those processes — what's involved in the regular work handled by the prac- tice and the larger transactions, such as discovery and due diligence reports — anything that is repetitive and routine. A civil litigator who works regularly with expert witnesses can create a standard way to prepare, manage, and maintain expert witnesses. It's taking the routine work and finding a way to capture the best practices. Pain points are also a good area to focus on, even those simple frustrations like eliminating that annoying pop-up box that appears every time you start up your computer. "If you reduce frustrations and focus on solving or resolving in getting at the root of those frustrations . . . you will be well on your way," says David. Because business issues are legal issues. So if you want to get ahead in business, get the degree that gets you there faster. ONE YEAR – PART - TIME – NO THESIS FOR L AWYERS AND NON - LAWYERS law.utoronto.ca/ExecutiveLLM GPLLM Global Professional Master of Laws [Get a Master of Laws] ntitled-1 1 2015-02-25 8:38 AM

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