CC recruits efficiency 'black belts' for firmwide push to streamline work
Clifford Chance (CC) has rolled out an ambitious firmwide initiative to improve lawyers' efficiency alongside a drive to more effectively allocate its fee earners' workloads. The magic circle firm has recruited three external coaches, known as 'black belts' in efficiency, to lead training workshops to help the firm's lawyers identify inefficiencies in the way they work, mimicking cost-cutting initiatives developed for the manufacturing industry. The training, which forms part of CC's existing 'Continuous Improvement' programme, has been adapted from 'lean' and 'six sigma' techniques used in the manufacturing sector, with the initiative stemming from a meeting CC managing partner David Childs had with logistics and manufacturing company Unipart.
July 18, 2013 at 07:00 PM
2 minute read
Firm hires efficiency 'black belts' to lead new training programme
Clifford Chance (CC) has rolled out an ambitious firmwide initiative to improve lawyers' efficiency alongside a drive to more effectively allocate its fee earners' workloads.
The magic circle firm has recruited three external coaches, known as 'black belts' in efficiency, to lead training workshops to help the firm's lawyers identify inefficiencies in the way they work, mimicking cost-cutting initiatives developed for the manufacturing industry.
The training, which forms part of CC's existing 'Continuous Improvement' programme, has been adapted from 'lean' and 'Six Sigma' techniques used in the manufacturing sector, with the initiative stemming from a meeting CC managing partner David Childs had with logistics and manufacturing company Unipart.
Frankfurt finance partner Bettina Steinhauer helped tailor the programme for CC, with a pilot last year seeing 250 lawyers trained up. The scheme has now been rolled out firmwide, with CC aiming to train an additional 400 lawyers by spring 2014, with all its lawyers using techniques in the long term.
The firm is also trialling the use of resource managers in some of its London practices, who will take over the allocation of associates to ensure that the firm is making the best use of its fee earners. This could result in more legal support work being referred to the firm's New Delhi support function, which it is hoping to grow from around 60 legally qualified staff to around 80.
The firm says it has identified more than 80 projects that could be done more efficiently to date, including speeding up document review for litigation, electronically bundling documents and producing loan agreements in a more cost-efficient fashion.
CC's global COO Amanda Burton (pictured) said: "We have made a significant investment in the Continuous Improvement resource. Even so, our team of experts cannot work with every lawyer on every matter; the course empowers our lawyers to use a subset of Continuous Improvement tools to analyse their processes and design more effective approaches themselves."
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