The most recent episode of ELM Solutions’ Legal Leaders Exchange podcast series is focused on matter intake and triage. In it, Nathan Cemenska, Director of Legal Operations and Industry Insights at Wolters Kluwer ELM Solutions, hosts a conversation with Tiffani Hamilton-Huynh, Legal Operations Manager at DHL Supply Chain, and Stacy Lettie, Director of Legal Operations at Adtalem Global Education, about the benefits of a well-designed matter intake and triage process.
Why focus on matter intake and triage?
Legal teams are busy people. In order to spend time focusing on issues of process or work practice, they need a compelling reason to do so. At many companies, work still gets done despite a lack of consistency around matter intake. However, this can lead to issues such as a lack of visibility into matters, duplication of work, and delays responding to clients. When clients aren’t sure of the status of their matters or when a GC can’t easily sum up the most critical current projects, it leaves the department open to criticism from clients and senior leaders alike.
Solid matter intake and triage also ensure good data collection that can help support high-quality decision-making. For example, it can provide the information legal departments need to ensure that they have the right staffing mix, report to senior leadership on productivity, and assess the department’s needs. Complete matter data tracked in a reliable system from matter opening also provides the basis for successful continuity of work if an attorney leaves the company or is reassigned to another matter.
Ramping up a process
Applying a new process or technology across the board from day one is not generally feasible or recommended. It is wise to develop a process and apply it first to some subset of matters. The project leaders can begin by talking to the legal team about where the bulk of matters is coming from or which areas are most in need of intervention. Even without formal tracking, their experience should provide an impression that can inform the choice of starting point.
Selecting a subset of practice areas or geographic locations, for example, is a good way to start. This allows for testing and iterating to hone the process based on user reactions, ease of execution, and any other relevant factors. Taking this approach will provide a more considered and better-tested process by the time it is rolled out to the full team
Protection against economic challenges
One of the important benefits of consistent matter intake and triage is information that can help the legal department weather difficult economic times. Company leadership may look to the legal department to make cuts when they are concerned about a worsening economic forecast. And even though legal staff may already feel overwhelmed or concerned about their ability to keep up with incoming work, senior leaders generally need a more quantitative argument to consider keeping headcount up.
The data collected by a matter intake system can provide that quantitative reasoning. If the legal ops team can demonstrate how many projects they closed, the number of hours worked for various internal clients, the variety of practice areas served, and compare those data points to the amount spent, they may be able to prove that lowering headcount could cost more in the long term.
To listen to the conversation in full, including more on how a strong matter intake and triage process delivers value, visit the podcast page: Legal Leaders Exchange: Understanding legal intake and triage. If you are a podcast app user, be sure to follow our Legal Leaders Exchange show on your favorite app (Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, Amazon / Audible.com, iHeart Radio) to make sure that you don’t miss any of our informative episodes.
