Lawyers have happily spent the past centuries dispensing legal opinions. The client has a problem, and the lawyer opines. That's what we do. But then along came data, about which the statistician Edwards Deming said "without data, you're just another person with an opinion," a view that is shared by clients. They use data and analytics in their own businesses, and they expect you to do likewise to support them. There is an abundance of valuable data available to law firms, but many lawyers and firm management aren't fully aware of what data they already have, far less how to apply it, and less still what other types of data is out there and available. But this doesn't need to be a blind spot.

Results from the 2020 Legal Analytics Study by ALM Intelligence and LexisNexis showed 70% of law departments and law firms had access to legal analytics, a huge jump from only 38% in 2017. That study also revealed that 91% of respondents felt that data analytics are valuable to their practice. 73% of those responding to the survey said that they use data to gain insights on opposing counsel, parties and judges.

At the pre-COVID Legalweek conference in February 2020, one of the sessions was a roundtable discussing legal data analytics and the evolving practice of law. During the session, Peter Geovanes, who leads data strategy, analytics and artificial intelligence for Winston & Strawn, provided an example of what he calls augmented analytics. His law firm collects data for every lawsuit filed in the United States and uses several analytics tools for its clients to analyze that data. As he explained: "It looks for outliers or trends across industries. Knowing that information can change the whole dynamic of a law firm-GC relationship, where you can be proactive as a law firm and tell your GC how to get in front of an issue." 

On the GC side, Mark Smolik, Chief Legal Officer at DHL, said he expects his law firms to be data-savvy because he must justify his decisions and spends to his CEO. He wants his law firms to be proactive, innovative, and use analytics to identify trends and risks, and to advise him on what steps can be taken to mitigate those risks and reduce costs. (For more insights from the roundtable, see, Legal Analytics and the Evolving Practice of Law on Law.com.)

Some firms now hire data scientists to gather and aggregate data, but you can still compete without taking that step. Start with few questions that will guide you in implementing data analytics:

  1. What data are you tracking? Start with your people and time.
    1. Who in the firm has represented which clients in which types of matter?
    2. How much time does a particular type of case take, both for lawyers and support personnel?This type of data can be trickier than it seems. As the old computer saying goes, "garbage in, garbage out," so if attorneys aren't inputting billing information accurately your data will be incomplete, which can lead to inaccurate results.
  2. How are you analyzing that data? A law firm's systems must be able talk to each other to provide useful data analytics. Make sure that the systems for:
    1. time;
    2. billing;
    3. customer resource management (CRM); and
    4. financial reporting systems

all interact with each other. There are plenty of software packages that will coordinate this data and provide it at a glance if your current client management system (CMS) doesn't.

  1.     How are you applying the results? Results from data analyses can be used to:
    1. maximize revenue;
    2. minimize costs;
    3. reward attorneys; and
    4. recognize clients that are generating the most revenue.

Of course, this is just the start, but it's a good start. In all this, bear in mind that data exists for the same reason you do, to solve client problems. The trick is to harness it to your own skills and instincts, which no machine can ever replace.