In this fierce landscape, clients are demanding added value from their user experience; lawyers are also expected to have an entrepreneurial mindset as well as digital know-how to give expert advice.

What is Lean Six Sigma, and how does it benefit clients?

The evolution of the lawyer’s role manifested in driving the need for more efficient client service delivery, and the process improvement approach of Lean Six Sigma (LSS) is starting to be applied in the legal sector.

Some of Australia’s most successful companies have used Lean Six Sigma (think Telstra and BHP-Billiton), but perhaps surprisingly, law firms have been slower to adopt the LSS methodology.

Lean Six Sigma is a fusing of two disciplines that seek to improve performance. In short, Lean aims to remove waste from a process, whilst Six Sigma aims to minimise variation and defects. Applying both methodologies aims to result in an efficient, consistent, and value-added service for clients.

But realising the benefit on an individual level is not enough to evoke firmwide attitude change and improvement. Achieving buy-in in an industry that isn’t used to applying similar process improvement approaches can be challenging. So how can you convince your law firm to apply LSS?

How can you ensure buy-in from the firm? 

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Process improvement can be difficult without senior support. The partnership model at some firms can stifle innovation, where partners’ individualism and autonomous roles aren’t harnessed to inspire change management. 

Embracing early adopters, and ensuring that early success is highlighted and celebrated, can help to influence the wider firm. This, in turn, will lead to more meaningful deployment on a broader range of initiatives.

Buy-in from associates and junior lawyers, as well as your other professionals, will require engagement from the outset. They must be integral and “feel” connected to the process improvement. When change is thrust upon us, without the necessary engagement or understanding as to why it is taking place, there is a strong possibility that the opportunity will be missed.

Training on what LSS is and how it can align with a law firm’s business functions is an obvious first step. This should be followed up by smaller team/departmental sessions where employees are encouraged to share bottlenecks, as well as other inefficiencies impacting client service, and collaborate with an LSS specialist to form solutions. Value-stream mapping will help employees see what value and non-added steps are undertaken to provide client services. And regular check-ins and feedback sessions following changes can continue to measure performance gaps.

Training and certifying leaders or key individuals in LSS will result in integration into daily practice and allow a culture of continuous improvement to flourish. Trained individuals will be able to identify and instigate low-level areas of process improvement, such as immediate solutions where the positive return is obvious. Through osmosis, the broader team should be emboldened to make similar changes.

LSS has the potential to transform a law firm’s client service and create a point of difference. Integrating LSS through effective buy-in, by creating positive proof points and feedback loops, will increase the likelihood of a firm realising the long-term benefits.

Adam Marsland is the head of Lean Six Sigma at Pinsent Masons Vario.