Adopting Legal Project Management At Gowlings – Case Study In Change Management

Until 2008, large law firms experienced ever-increasing demand and hourly rates. Success was easy - just avoid big blunders. That's not true today. Clients now have market power and want better value. Today, to keep and win business, firms must deliver value.

Legal project management (LPM) stands out as a great way to deliver value. It supports lower cost service delivery, better cost predictability, and clearer client communication. Many firms have LPM initiatives but making it work beyond a small group requires systematic change management.

Gowlings has committed to that work. It is a firm of 750 legal professionals with seven offices across Canada and three overseas offices. The firm has launched Gowlings Practical, "a program that brings a simple yet effective project management approach to the way we provide legal services". Many Gowlings partners today support LPM - gettting there, of course took hard work.

The Practical program started with partners Karyn Bradley, Office Managing Partner in Toronto, and Mark Tamminga, Leader, Innovation Initiatives since 2012. I've known Mark for years. We had lunch at ILTA in 2012 to discuss changes in the legal market. LPM was a big topic. He explained that once he finished some 2012 knowledge management projects, he and Karyn would turn to LPM in 2013. My LPM news was that in June, I had started working with Elevate Services, a legal services outsourcing company. My role was as a subject matter expert to develop Cael LPM(TM) software.

We agreed that LPM had to be simple or lawyers would never use it. Simple means an approach lawyers could use without much training or too much extra effort. That includes software that demands as few extra steps as possible. I told him that was the design philosophy behind Cael LPM - "just enough LPM".

One year later, Gowlings became a Cael LPM pilot customer. I participated in the Gowlings Practical kick-off on a consulting basis. We all understood that this was much more than just software deployment. The whole program revolved around gaining lawyer buy-in to the idea of LPM and commitment to actually doing it. A case study published in late 2013 has details (see LPO Handbook). Key highlights of the adoption plan include:

Senior management support, including participation in LPM workshop and regular communications by and to opinion leaders Simple documentation explaining how Gowlings Practical works Workshops with partners and associates Close coordination with...