practice management

The Art and Craft of Building an Effective Business Case - Getting Started

Extensive and unexpected technology expenditures in the past year have motivated C-Level and Director level executives to reexamine and refine justifications for new products and projects. This podcast session will highlight practical tips for the effective creation of a business case.
Questions Glenn will ask Kate:
· Kate, you were pretty excited when we first spoke about this potential topic. Tell us a bit about yourself and your experience and how it relates to the art and craft of building effective business cases.
· “Business Case” is a term of art that can mean different things to different people and in different contexts so let’s start there. What is a “business case”… or more specifically, what is “an effective business case?”
· Based on your experience, where do you recommend people start? What topic or element should they focus on first?
· Once the business goals and objectives are clearly defined, what comes next? What are the other elements that we should think about including?
· This seems like a LOT of information to wade through. How do you balance that against the probability that the C-Level or senior decision maker may not have the time and energy to comb through all these details?
· You described the business case as an “investment in the future success of the project”. What did you mean by that? How does the business case come into play after you get the green light to move the project/purchase forward?
Moderator:@Glenn Hoxie - Senior Project Manager, Practice Innovation and Legal Solutions, Paul Hastings LLP
Speaker:@Kate Cain - Senior Director of Knowledge & Innovation Delivery, Fenwick & West LLP​Recorded on 12-20-2021
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What are Firms Doing for Retraining/Upskilling to Accelerate Digital Transformation?

As firms have adjusted to our new normal, and some necessary changes had to be made in the delivery of legal services, new possibilities that were once far off aspirations are now available. These new opportunities require new knowledge and skills to enable the workforce to do new or changing jobs to meet digital transformation opportunities. In this podcast session, we will discuss how firms have transformed their legal service models and how they have addressed upskilling and re-skilling to support these new models.
Questions Asked Today:
Tell us about yourself and what you do at CliffordChance (00:36)
What impact does digital transformation have on the roles traditionally seen in law firms? (1:16)
How does your role serves as dot connector for your firm? (3:11)
How has Amy seen the roles change and how she is creating change at Perkins (6:06)
How do you meet everyone along the spectrum? (13:01)
Provide an example of where you have seen success in upskilling or reskilling what was a traditional legal role into this new digital transformation world? (14:45) 
Moderator:@Amy Monaghan - Senior Practice Innovations Manager, Perkins Coie Speaker:@Conan Hines - Senior Legal Technology Advisor, Clifford Chance US LLP
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​Recorded on 11-22-2021

Beyond Zoom and Microsoft Teams: Have Virtual Hearings Altered the Fabric of Dispute Resolution?

The legal community responded to the impact of the pandemic and lockdown by innovating rapidly and adopting virtual hearings. The UK commercial courts were ahead of the curve and delayed only four cases during the national lockdown period.International arbitration matters continued to be heard around the world. The real innovation lies beyond just the use of video conferencing tools like Zoom and Microsoft.In this podcast, learn how virtual hearings have continued to evolve, improve, and gain traction throughout the world in 2021.Questions Marlene will ask the speakers:
What are the most significant changes to the hearing and trial process caused by online access? Good and bad. (Begins at 00:46 seconds)
There are certainly technical challenges with any online experience. What are some that are particular to online hearings and trials? (Begins at 4:54)
How about ethical issues? Approvals to host, rules of engagement? What do you have to consider and how do you ensure everyone is behaving appropriately? (Begins at 8:42) 
Does the non-legal prep work differ at all? If you are presenting at trial, It might be more like theatre in terms of delivery. But online is more like television. You have to worry about things like your background and lighting. I know people who take classes to learn about where to look at the camera and how to move. Things perhaps a broadcast journalist or social media influencer would learn (Begins at 12:56)
What is one funny experience you have had in an online hearing or trial? Any cat people? (Begins at 17:29) 
Moderator: @Marlene Gebauer - Director Of Knowledge Management, Locke Lord LLPSpeakers:​Judge Christopher Sprysenski - Circuit Judge, 18th Judicial Circuit, FloridaRichard Howell - Partner, Jackson Walker LLP@Jeremy Cooper - Senior Trial Consultant, Paul Hastings​Recorded on 11-09-2021

Collaborating with Co-Counsel: How Can You Optimize Collaboration Between Co-Counsel in a Litigation Context?

In this podcast, the speaker will discuss how to best leverage technology to facilitate collaboration and task tracking, design workflows that systematize regular, on-going tasks; and facilitate effective communications/working towards common goals for a shared client.Moderator:@Shawn McClurg -  Litigation Support Manager, Miles & Stockbridge P.C.Speaker:@Jessica Hasen - Senior Counsel, Perkins Coie LLP
​Recorded on 10-28-2021

Future of Work Practices: How to Maximize Online Collaboration and Virtual Working

The pandemic has brought about an opportunity for individuals to reflect on their lives, and most, in fact 77% of the legal professionals want to retain elements of this new virtual, remote working - to varying degrees. And critically, 22% said they are likely to leave if their employers didn’t accommodate the new way they want to work.In this podcast, we will briefly discuss differing perspectives on remote working, the benefits and drawbacks to individuals, firms and clients to remote working, the impact on collaboration and differences by subgroup, working patterns, before and during COVID-19 and desired post-pandemic and which roles should remote working be available to, plus with or without restrictions.We will also understand where you fit in and how you can maximize your own and your teams’ productivity as we progress into a new world of work with mixtures of both distributed and in person teams. Moderator: @Harriet Joubert-Vaklyes - Process Innovation Senior Specialist, Shearman & Sterling LLP
Speakers:@Kristin Rhodes - Senior Practice Manager, Paul Hastings LLP@Natalie Runyon -  Director, Enterprise Content, Talent, Inclusion & Culture, Market Insights, Thomson Reuters
Recorded on 10-26-2021​​​​​

How to Deal With ROI Conversations When Vetting Legal Technology

In this podcast, the speakers will discuss how to best quantify the ROI of legal technology has on the bottom line of matters, tips in vetting legal technology, etc.Moderator:@Holly Hanna - KM Firm Solutions Manager, Perkins CoieSpeakers:@Ginevra Saylor - National Director, Innovation and Knowledge Programs, Gowling WLG (Canada) LLP@Giles Thompson - Head of Growth, Avvoka​Recorded on 10-22-2021

The Modern Ethical Minefield - Leveraging Technology to Manage Conflicts at the International Law Firm

The continued growth of law firms, and the increasing transience of their attorneys, have created many new risks for firms to account for regarding conflicts of interest management.   Increasingly, large international Firms have transitioned to a centralized approach for conflicts clearance, utilizing non fee-earning professionals for this function. 
Despite this, challenges remain - particularly stemming from increasingly restrictive conflicts language within Outside Counsel Guidelines as well as recent US case law.  In this podcast session, the speaker will focus on discussing the unique conflicts challenges faced by US firms with international presence and various approaches to these challenges; how technology and centralization are the key to meeting these challenges; and whether changes to the conflicts rules are needed in order to "modernize" and account for the breadth of today's international law firm and technological advances.Moderator:@Tracey Pardo - IS Process Improvement Analyst, Cooley LLP
​Speaker:@Mark Agin - Senior Manager of Global New Business Intake and Information Management, Shearman & Sterling LLPRecorded on 07-23-2021

Taking Collaboration to the Next Step With Hackathons

Hackathons are a great way to gather folks from different departments to formulate new ideas that the entire firm can take advantage of. We recently held a very successful one at McGuireWoods which resulted in items added to the project pipeline for 2021.Moderator:Natalie Baumgardner - Business Development Coordinator, McGuireWoods LLP
Speakers:@Rachel Cohee - Manager, Business Intelligence & Analytics, McGuireWoods LLP@Eric Jenvey - Data Science Manager, McGuireWoods LLP
Recorded on 07-16-2021​​​​​
 

Fresh Voices of LegalTech - Interview #13

There are a lot of different roles within legal technology. KM, content management, marketing, applications development, etc. How do we get young employees excited about their potential paths and make sure they have a path towards a long-term career in legal tech?Moderator:@Holly Hanna - KM Firm Solutions Manager, Perkins Coie
Speaker:@Allison Duncan - KM Practice Innovation Manager, Reed Smith
​Recorded on 07-15-2021

Fresh Voices of LegalTech - Interview #12

There are a lot of different roles within legal technology. KM, content management, marketing, applications development, etc. How do we get young employees excited about their potential paths and make sure they have a path towards a long-term career in legal tech?Moderator:@Holly Hanna - KM Firm Solutions Manager, Perkins Coie
Speaker:@Melanie Segraves - Knowledge Management Solutions Analyst, Womble Bond Dickinson U.S.
Recorded on 07-15-2021

Fresh Voices of LegalTech - Interview #11

There are a lot of different roles within legal technology. KM, content management, marketing, applications development, etc. How do we get young employees excited about their potential paths and make sure they have a path towards a long-term career in legal tech?Moderator:@Holly Hanna - KM Firm Solutions Manager, Perkins Coie
Speaker:@Erin Welsh - Practice Innovations Analyst, Perkins Coie
​Recorded on 07-16-2021