Overcoming the Barriers to Organizational Change

When I joined Sedgwick, Detert, Moran & Arnold two and a half years ago, one of the first projects I was charged with was evaluating the firm's records management and conflicts systems. I concluded that a more efficient IT solution to automate and unify the records, conflicts, docketing and new business intake (NBI) systems would be required for process optimization. Inevitably, this initiative would lead to a change in how the firm did things, which would mean a substantial cultural shift for the firm as it evolved into greater sophistication in these key areas.

Sedgwick is an international trial and litigation law firm, made up of almost 400 attorneys with offices in the United States and Europe. Previously, the firm's practice support processes were manual, quite labor-intensive and time consuming. Since the new business intake and conflicts processes were largely manual, it could take days to open a new matter. Consequently, it was necessary to upgrade the processes to help the lawyers get the information they needed more rapidly to decrease risks and fulfill the firm's growth requirements.

What the firm required was:

• a sophisticated and systematic approach that would meld disparate processes, people and technology; and
• to create an automated, unified solution that would benefit the firm as a whole.

After much research and evaluation, we decided that the LegalKEY' suite from Open Text would help us achieve our goal of an unified offering that would better support our business practices and risk management.

Taking a Unified Approach

In order to meet my objective of process optimization, there were several areas that needed to be addressed. From a records management standpoint, my key goal was to adopt an enterprise-wide perspective, as opposed to an office-by-office, or department-by-department perspective, of records management. The unification of traditionally disparate departments is not an unusual goal for small to mid-sized firms as they expand into large firms and find that there are many, many layers of redundant data entry by these disparate departments. This inefficient records entry process led to departmental overlap and duplicated efforts that posed a significant impact on the firm's bottom line in terms of the utilization of resources and an increased probability of error. These are not trivial issues.

So, my goal was to provide a single environment where data would be entered once, and as close to the source ' the attorneys and secretaries ' as possible. Once the data is entered, it could then be made available to be repurposed across the enterprise by the various departments that need the information.

In order to satisfy the goal of taking in new business quickly, we required an automated new business intake system that would easily adapt to our existing business procedures and manage the complete matter intake process ' from conflicts checking, to calendaring of critical dates, to the management of both physical and electronic work products and records.

Finally, we required a conflicts checking system that had native integration with the records utility and NBI application and provided features for seamless research against both custom and third-party databases to help the conflicts analysts
do their jobs better. We sought more inclusive and thorough conflict searching capabilities to be able to produce more comprehensible and detailed conflicts reports and increase the quality of our risk management ' not only the reporting, but also the review process.

Changing the Way We Work

When introducing new systems and processes into an organization, the three greatest hurdles are: failure to achieve employee acceptance, cultural barriers and lack of leadership commitment. Each of these hurdles needs to be addressed, with involvement from as many levels within the organization as possible, in order to identify what resources and training will be necessary to overcome them.

Before the planning began, we brought together the principal resources throughout the firm and achieved consensus on the direction that had to be taken. This first step is vital if you want to be successful in adopting the new systems and processes.

We also paid special attention to the cultural change issues that were going to impact the firm. A transformation in workplace practices of this magnitude requires an open exchange of views and ideas. If you can, develop a committee within the firm to facilitate that process. The committee should include the attorneys and partners and other end users, including the records staff, the conflicts staff, and at least one representative from each core group should be a part of the change movement.

Next month, Involving IT.

Steven Burchell, PsyD., is the Director of Client Management at Sedgwick, Detert, Moran & Arnold LLP in San Francisco. As a post-doctoral student of Organizational Development (Marshall Goldsmith School of Management), his focus is directed at finding a best fit between human resources and information management. For the last 20 years, Burchell has helped large international firms with process optimization, statutory compliance and risk management issues.

In order to stay ahead of the competition in today's economic environment, a law firm needs to be flexible and agile in adapting to change, whether through a corporate restructuring, adopting new technologies or processes, or introducing new products or services. Let's face it, for a firm to grow and be successful, change is inevitable. It's just part of doing business today.

To optimize organizational learning and be successful with these types of change initiatives, knowledge management processes need to be integrated into the culture of a law firm right from the beginning. If knowledge management is the 'brains' of a firm, culture is its personality.

When introducing new technologies or processes, managing the challenge of change requires a clear vision, ongoing two-way communication with the affected stakeholders and an understanding of people's levels of influence and commitment to the change. A law firm's culture can impede the adoption of new processes. When employees are accustomed to performing tasks in a certain way, you are bound to come up against some resistance if the new processes translate into a loss of their routines and comfort levels. Therefore, it is imperative that you get the appropriate people involved early in the planning to make sure they understand the new systems and processes ' and how the changes will affect them and the firm.

When I joined Sedgwick, Detert, Moran & Arnold two and a half years ago, one of the first projects I was charged with was evaluating the firm's records management and conflicts systems. I concluded that a more efficient IT solution to automate and unify the records, conflicts, docketing and new business intake (NBI) systems would be required for process optimization. Inevitably, this initiative would lead to a change in how the firm did things, which would mean a substantial cultural shift for the firm as it evolved into greater sophistication in these key areas.

Sedgwick is an international trial and litigation law firm, made up of almost 400 attorneys with offices in the United States and Europe. Previously, the firm's practice support processes were manual, quite labor-intensive and time consuming. Since the new business intake and conflicts processes were largely manual, it could take days to open a new matter. Consequently, it was necessary to upgrade the processes to help the lawyers get the information they needed more rapidly to decrease risks and fulfill the firm's growth requirements.

What the firm required was:

• a sophisticated and systematic approach that would meld disparate processes, people and technology; and
• to create an automated, unified solution that would benefit the firm as a whole.

After much research and evaluation, we decided that the LegalKEY' suite from Open Text would help us achieve our goal of an unified offering that would better support our business practices and risk management.

Taking a Unified Approach

In order to meet my objective of process optimization, there were several areas that needed to be addressed. From a records management standpoint, my key goal was to adopt an enterprise-wide perspective, as opposed to an office-by-office, or department-by-department perspective, of records management. The unification of traditionally disparate departments is not an unusual goal for small to mid-sized firms as they expand into large firms and find that there are many, many layers of redundant data entry by these disparate departments. This inefficient records entry process led to departmental overlap and duplicated efforts that posed a significant impact on the firm's bottom line in terms of the utilization of resources and an increased probability of error. These are not trivial issues.

So, my goal was to provide a single environment where data would be entered once, and as close to the source ' the attorneys and secretaries ' as possible. Once the data is entered, it could then be made available to be repurposed across the enterprise by the various departments that need the information.

In order to satisfy the goal of taking in new business quickly, we required an automated new business intake system that would easily adapt to our existing business procedures and manage the complete matter intake process ' from conflicts checking, to calendaring of critical dates, to the management of both physical and electronic work products and records.

Finally, we required a conflicts checking system that had native integration with the records utility and NBI application and provided features for seamless research against both custom and third-party databases to help the conflicts analysts
do their jobs better. We sought more inclusive and thorough conflict searching capabilities to be able to produce more comprehensible and detailed conflicts reports and increase the quality of our risk management ' not only the reporting, but also the review process.

Changing the Way We Work

When introducing new systems and processes into an organization, the three greatest hurdles are: failure to achieve employee acceptance, cultural barriers and lack of leadership commitment. Each of these hurdles needs to be addressed, with involvement from as many levels within the organization as possible, in order to identify what resources and training will be necessary to overcome them.

Before the planning began, we brought together the principal resources throughout the firm and achieved consensus on the direction that had to be taken. This first step is vital if you want to be successful in adopting the new systems and processes.

We also paid special attention to the cultural change issues that were going to impact the firm. A transformation in workplace practices of this magnitude requires an open exchange of views and ideas. If you can, develop a committee within the firm to facilitate that process. The committee should include the attorneys and partners and other end users, including the records staff, the conflicts staff, and at least one representative from each core group should be a part of the change movement.

Next month, Involving IT.

Steven Burchell, PsyD., is the Director of Client Management at Sedgwick, Detert, Moran & Arnold LLP in San Francisco. As a post-doctoral student of Organizational Development (Marshall Goldsmith School of Management), his focus is directed at finding a best fit between human resources and information management. For the last 20 years, Burchell has helped large international firms with process optimization, statutory compliance and risk management issues.