Law Department Services

Matter Lifecycle Management

Matter lifecycle management (MLM) is the best practice process by which in-house legal practitioners, acting alone or together with their outside counsel, effectively and efficiently project manage a legal matter from start to finish.  The MLM process can be explained through a framework recently adopted by the CLOC trade organization and for which Unbiased Consulting served as primary architect (see www.cloc.org).  This framework is an adaptation of legal project management (LPM) best practices used within many leading law firms today, which in itself is a derivation of the industry-standard project management best practices developed by the Project Management Institute (PMI) and described in their widely-accepted Project Management Body of Knowledge (or PMBOK).

The MLM process framework consists of intake, planning, execution, and review process groups (or “stages”).  Within each stage lies various inputs, tools, techniques, and outputs (ITTO) that comprise the artifacts needed to manage the matter.  It is has been proven by legal industry project management experts that adoption of the MLM process framework leads to improved lawyer time management, better collaboration among matter teams (both internal and external, decreased cost of matter administration, and increased probability of client satisfaction.

Unbiased Consulting is an expert in the MLM process. Our consultants, many of whom are certified project management professionals (PMPs), can help you develop an MLM process/program tuned to the unique needs of your legal department.  Our services often begin with helping you build a business case for matter lifecycle management, inclusive of ROI estimate, within your organization.  Our team can help you engineer and apply MLM best practices—i.e., the MLM process framework—in the following ways:

  • Validate/design appropriate workflows
  • Develop required artifacts/ITTOs
  • Select, implement and integrate supporting technology
  • Update and document applicable policies and procedures
  • Educate, train, and mentor legal practitioners on MLM process and best practices
  • Develop change management controls to build internal support
  • Identify success metrics and institute reporting mechanisms