As much as budgeting doesn't feel like lawyering, strategy does, and most lawyers love it.

It's critical that you develop (and articulate) your strategy for each engagement. As with all planning components, the work is cumulative. Each component of the planning stage is always based on all of the previous ones. Before 'Strategy' we need to have defined 'Outcomes', conducted an initial 'Investigation' and assessed 'Resources.' After 'Strategy,' we'll get into 'Tactics' then 'Process' and the final component will be to revisit 'Outcomes.'

So, every component is informed by everything which has come before, and we can see this clearly with strategy. The way to formulate a strategy is to review what we've learned about the project. This is precisely why we wanted to learn these things:

  • What are the client's anticipated goals and expectations?
  • What are the deadlines?
  • What resources will we need?
  • What's our budget?
  • What does the initial investigation look like?
  • What do we know about the opponent or counterpart?
  • What else is important?
  • What must go right?
  • What could cause it to go wrong?

Give all this data to a lawyer, or better still a team, and stand back as their natural talent as strategists pours out. In the trial world, we see an array of subtle, unsubtle and utterly ingenious strategies being devised by other lawyers to deploy on each other. We call these external strategies. The common theme, among all good external strategies, is that they are bespoke to the circumstances. One size does not fit all. A provocation strategy may work masterfully in some situations and backfire horribly in others.

The Lean Law Program will explain how strategy fits into the whole structure, and then helps you formulate a strategy, or even strategies

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