Discovery Resources

Legal Project Management’s Impact on Defensibility

Quality control and risk management are major components of fundamental project management in any industry. Within the legal industry, these areas relate directly to defensibility by providing consistency, auditability and tracking, and risk mitigation. As quality goes up, risk goes down, and defensibility of the process and the results go up. Most are aware of the “triple constraint” of fundamental project management – scope, schedule, and budget. In legal project management, I believe that an increased focus on these three additional components is just as valuable. Case teams utilizing dedicated project managers to manage their efforts can realize an increased level of defensibility by applying and adhering to all fundamental project management principles, but recognizing the impact on defensibility is key.

Educated and experienced project managers are versed in risk management, including planning for the identification, communication and mitigation of risks that should come up throughout a project. That is not to say that the project manager will be the individual identifying the risk or making the decision regarding how to avoid the risk or handle it. Instead, the project manager will create formal plans to guide the team as risks are discovered by the case team. This formalized process creates a step-by-step workflow that specifies to whom the risks should be communicated and how those risks should be dealt with. This process also provides consistency throughout the project, and because risks are identified and reacted to through process improvement, the quality increases. The consistency also provides a much more thorough mechanism for logging the risks, avoiding them whenever possible and communicating the final results. When case teams need to defend the process used, having this consistency and the resulting reports adds an additional layer of strength.

It’s no revelation that quality is an important factor of any project in any industry. Poor quality in the legal industry can result in sanctions, admonishment from the bench and a tarnished reputation for the corporate client or the counsel representing them. Also, it’s no secret that every litigation or investigation is unique and made up of characteristics not found in other matters. Specific to the e-discovery process, preserved and collected data types, data culling parameters, review strategies and production formats all differ from case to case. Utilizing a one-process-fits-all approach doesn’t work within our industry. Counsel will create tailored legal strategies based on the specific case facts and claims, and vendors should follow suit by developing custom approaches utilizing tested technology to provide quality results. Developing these tailored solutions must include proper quality planning. Project managers will create a formal quality plan detailing all aspects of a quality control program, including the development and execution of those inspections which have been created specifically to address unique case attributes. This formal approach results not only in increased quality of data productions and other deliverables and processes, but also the audit mechanism necessary to later defend the results.

Whenever I have the opportunity, I try to emphasize the importance of what is often the most ignored stage of projects – the closing stage. Once a project completes, perhaps through settlement or case ruling, it is easy (and common) to want to quickly move on to the next project (or vacation). In doing so, it is common to not adequately capture and organize final documentation, results, lessons learned, etc. If you view a project manager’s value as ending with the termination of the individual project they are managing, you are making a mistake. In every matter, regardless of final outcome, there are issues and responses that could be useful in subsequent matters if the information is captured effectively and in a manner that is accessible in the future. Failure to do so results in a need to constantly reinvent the wheel with each new matter and to struggle with the same or similar issues that may have been dealt with in previous matters. Project managers develop and refine processes and workflows to ensure successful outcomes. At times, following strict control mechanisms, a project manager will make changes based on lessons learned throughout a matter, including issue discovery and resolution, resource availability and expertise. These changes directly impact the quality of the final deliverables as well as cost and process efficiencies. Failure to carry these lessons from matter to matter limits the value of project management and for those organizations that support internal project management. The support needs to continue throughout the closing stage to maximize future efficiencies.

Legal project management can certainly add an additional level of defensibility to a matter through proper quality and risk management. These are concepts that are fundamental to professional project managers, and while the need is recognized by other legal industry professionals, the proper application of planning and processes designed to manage quality and risk are often not executed properly. A project manager’s value does not, however, end with planning and execution, but also includes effectively capturing and documenting risk resolution and quality practices to use in the future. Doing so not only adds value to current matters, but continues to add value in future litigation and investigations.

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