1. Moving Toward a Matter Profiling Standard
May 1, 2018
Adam Stock, Co-Chair, SALI Matter Standards Committee

2. Learning outcomes
Understand the importance of a matter profile standard
Recognize how to apply it to your law firm
Clarify how the stand will streamline legal industry operations

3. Organization

6. SALI Alliance is an independent organization backed by the following associations:

7. Outputs of our process Code set and specification
Reference implementation
REST API

8. Market drivers

9. The economics of Big Law is driving it to be more efficient=
Quality
Speed
Cost
Efficiency

10. Big Law firms growth has been flat while overall demand for legal services has grown
Demand for Large Law Firm Services has been Flat
Thomson Reuters, Peer Monitor, 2016

11. Buyers have many more choices for legal services
Other
Law Firms
Alternative Legal
Service
Providers
In-house
Technology-
assisted…

12. tactics

13. There are many levers to deliver better value
Process improvement
Project management
Knowledge management
Value-based fees
Allocating work
Technology
 All depend upon sharing common data
ACC Value Challenge & LegalShift website, 2017

14. Law firm data capture & management need major improvement
High
Fielded data
Data Capture/Management
Financial data
Documents
Tacit Knowledge
Unstructured Documents
ACC Knowledge Management Report, 2013
Low
Low
Value of Data to Improve Efficiency
High

15. How we’ll tie this information together...
Documents / Work Product
Client Matter Number
Marketing Documents
Research
Pricing Proposals
Financial Data
1. Everything needs to be tagged with client-matter numbers

16. How we’ll tie this information together...
Documents / Work Product
Parties + their demographics
Client Matter Number
Marketing Documents
Type of Legal Service (Practice)
Research
2. Collect data and tag each matter with key information
Practice-Specific Data*
Pricing Proposals
* Litigation: claims, venue, judge, experts, outcome, jurisdiction, etc.
Transactions: asset types, value, location, etc.
Regulatory: location, agencies, issues, outcome, etc.
Financial Data
1. Everything needs to be tagged with client-matter numbers

17. First steps

18. Marketing / Experience Management Project Management / Efficiency
We need a common vocabulary across legal operations to improve our processes and efficiency
Value / Pricing
Marketing / Experience Management
Project Management / Efficiency

19. Matter Standards Mission: building “SKUs” for legal services

20. Matter Standards Mission: building “SKUs” for legal services
Labor & Employment Wage & Hour Class Action
LEM-EMP
D-CCD(CLA)
USA-NY-NY
MN7372
Area of Law/
Practice
Labor & Employment
Product /
Process
Dispute/ Civil Court Proceeding (Class Action)
Jurisdiction of Matter
New York, NY
Party Industries /
Markets
High Technology/ Software
For illustrative purposes only. Standard is not complete.

21. Typical scenarios for law firms / departments
Marketing
What experience does your law firm/ department have in providing these services?
Matter Staffing
Which time-keepers have the expertise we need?
Pricing
What are the budgets and potential pricing options / costs for the requested services?
Project Management
Is the matter appropriately staffed?
Is the matter on budget?

22. Our agile process is meant to insure a practical solution
Proposal
Comment
Testing
Agreement

23. Coding standard

24. Organizational goals for legal matter codes
Open free and available to all stakeholders
Industry-driven managed by an independent non-profit industry organization
Hierarchical will have multiple layers of specificity and structure
Extensible defined way to extend codes to meet the proprietary needs of stakeholders
Practical will come with associated sample implementations of user interfaces, encodings and APIs

25. We are taking a “use case-driven” approach
We are taking a “use case-driven” approach. Can our system help answer these questions?
Determine law firm/department experience from a request for services.
"What experience does our law firm/department have with handling ____ matters?“
"What has been our success rate in handling _____ matters?
Determine law firm/department staffing for a specific matter.
"Which of our attorneys has the most experience with ___ types of matters?“
Managing best practices, model forms and work product. "What model document and knowledge base to we have that relates to ____ area of law?"

26. Structure: we have identified axes that we are addressing by using new and existing codes
Service
Area of Law
Participants
Entity
=== Attributes
Location/Jurisdiction
Industry
Area of Law
Service
Participants
Entity

27. A simplified example 1. Practice / Area of Law
2. Process / Service / Product
Code: Employment
Sub-code: Wage & Hour
Code: Litigation
Sub-code: Trial court
Modifiers: Class Action
3. Parties Industry / Market
4. Jurisdiction
Sector: High Technology
Subsector: Software
SIC code: Packaged software
Jurisdiction: New York, NY

28. A simplified example Develop new codes
1. Practice / Area of Law
2. Process / Service / Product
Code: Employment
Sub-code: Wage & Hour
Code: Litigation
Sub-code: Trial court
Modifiers: Class Action
3. Parties Industry / Market
4. Jurisdiction
Sector: High Technology
Subsector: Software
SIC code: Packaged software
Jurisdiction: New York, NY
Develop new codes
Use/modify existing coding systems

29. Some more detailed examples

30. Sample matters

31. Sample matters

32. Support successive refinement with minimal changes to code
Called “Progressive elaboration” in the project management domain

33. Support successive refinement with minimal changes to code
Open
Info at matter opening
Refine
Refinement info is usually known 1+ months after open
Refinement can happen multiple times
Close
Info known when matter is closed
 Solution: Additive coding structure

34. Workflow for opening new clients and matters at law firms
Attorney
Initiates new “Matter Record”
Matter Opening/ Conflicts
Creates matter record
Informatics
Annotates matter
information
New
Matters
Continues to annotate
as matters reach
key milestones
Current
New

35. Solution: Additive coding
Known at matter opening
Known after matter opening
Service: Dispute
Service: Dispute  Civil Court Proceeding

36. Maintain constancy by using neutral descriptors
No matter which party is describing the matter, it should be coded consistently
Client / Adverse Party  Plaintiff / Defendant
Lessor / Lessee
Licensor / Licensee
Lender / Borrower

37. Solution: Neutral descriptors
Before
After
Service: Transaction  License Type: Software XXX Parties: Client: YYY Adverse Party: ZZZ
Service: Transaction  License Type: Software XXX Parties: Licensor: ZZZ Licensee: YYY

38. Next steps

39. Become a member and participate in defining the standard