Litigation Management

What Leaders Want

Results from the National
Litigation Management Study

Study participants in the recent litigation management study conducted by Revere Advisory and commissioned by the Council on Litigation Management identified several metrics that they rely upon as primary indicators of litigation management effectiveness. Those fall generally into the five following categories:

Inventory Counting of matters,
Speed of resolution
Both outcome and
expense
Quality As rated by stake-
holders, insureds,
internal staff
Predictability Anticipated versus
realized (budget,
Time
Cost

measurement and metrics, offering up some thoughts on how we can work together to determine which metrics are the ones that matter most. Excerpts from that roundtable are included in the box to the right.

The litigation management industry is abuzz with talk about metric-driven organizations, alternative fee arrangements and creative law firm pricing, but are law firms and their clients looking at the right metrics? What has changed, what hasn’t? How do firms and clients share information with each other for mutual gain? These are some of the fundamental questions the industry needs to ask in order to arrive at the kinds of metrics that help build trusted partnerships between clients and their outside counsel. What is the one thing that all roundtable participants agreed upon? If the goal is a successful long-term relationship between law firms and clients, having some transparency around the metrics by which success is measured is a good way to establish the necessary trust and communication.

Dan Ruderman is responsible for consulting alliances and the insurance sector at the LexisNexis CounselLink business unit.

36 | LitigationManagement | summer 2011

Haskin: What metrics does your company use to judge your department? If your CEO walks through the door, what is the number one metric he will want to know?