Power to the pipeline

Legal business now has no choice but to recognise that its work can be put into a pipeline. That’s our first P. Sure, some stuff pops up rudely unannounced when the proverbial hits the fan (no, those ones aren’t our Ps) − but that doesn’t mean law firms shouldn’t behave like other businesses and learn to analyse where work will come from, before managing it ever better as time goes by. They need to treat it like a product, insist on a fair price, see work for clients as a project and therefore embrace process to deliver it efficiently.

You also need the right people of course. Our main interviewee knows this well. Jason Haines, finance and operations director (and CIO) at Allen & Overy, has been at the forefront of his firm’s huge response to the need to work differently.

OVER THE HORIZON

Clients have many more options for accessing legal services. The challenge for tomorrow’s firm is to make its alternatives clear to them, says Allen & Overy’s Jason Haines

UNDERSTAND AND DELIVER

A legal service might be more than the sum of its parts − but it’s still a process. Law firms need to do the maths in the first place to protect their profit. Richard Brent puts some pieces together

CLEARER ADVANTAGE

Law firms finally have enough visibility of their own information to be able to open it up to their clients, says Aderant CEO Chris Giglio