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It's not surprising that law firms have begun to embrace end-to-end docketing and calendaring tools to drive efficiency, mitigate risk, and improve their overall litigation workflow management. But lately I've begun to wonder if firms are using these tools to their fullest potential.

The end-to-end litigation workflow is extremely detailed and complex. Firm employees must research court rules that vary considerably from one jurisdiction to another. They must calculate deadlines; research and fill out court forms; file documents (both in traditional formats and via eFiling); receive eFiling receipts and process them internally; download court documents and correctly file them in the firm's document management system (DMS); and monitor daily pleading notifications. That's a lot of detail with a lot of room for error, and basic tools like spreadsheets and productivity software simply aren't up to the task.

While some may not consider it the sexy part of litigation management, the effective automation and centralization of these tasks across a firm's multiple departments and locations can go a long way toward eliminating process bottlenecks and breakdowns, minimizing or eliminating errors, completing tasks much more quickly, and dramatically reducing the risk of rejected filings and missed deadlines. Sexy or not, implementation of these technology-enabled workflow enhancements, and the resulting standardization of processes across the entire firm, can translate into huge wins.

But why stop there? It may seem natural for firms seeking new or better docketing and calendaring tools to focus exclusively on benefits related directly to the docketing workflow. But that would be a big mistake.

When you automate docketing processes, the tools you use are working in the background continuously, collecting and consolidating an extremely valuable body of data. This includes dates, court rules, and jurisdictions, but also data about judges, attorneys, firms and parties, as well as expert witnesses, subjects of litigation, and legal issues. Over time, all of that data has the potential to provide your organization with an impressive range of facts-based intelligence that can transform the way you make key business decisions, perform due diligence, identify potential conflicts of interest, evaluate firm and attorney performance, and approach business development and marketing efforts. Docketing and calendaring data can even inform more effective litigation strategy. These are benefits even the most jaded legal professional can get excited about.

So what can your firm learn from centralized docketing data? Here are some examples I've observed first-hand from working with dozens of clients over the years:

Get insight into geographical, case type, and practice area trends. One firm mining docketing data noticed a recent spike in bankruptcy cases in one of their regional offices. That informed an early decision about where to invest in additional resources before the office became overwhelmed. Another firm ran a report indicating filings related to contract disputes by its financial clients were steadily increasing across all of its U.S. offices, which helped them make more accurate projections for long-term planning and budgeting purposes.

Improve conflicts analysis. Jobs in the legal profession are increasingly transient, and this puts pressure on conflicts checking departments to get current, accurate information. Some firms have discovered robust docketing technology can help them make significant improvements to their conflicts checking, particularly if they integrate docketing data with their business intake system. When new parties are added to a case, docketing technology can automatically generate an alert to the conflicts department.

Gather key information ahead of mergers and acquisitions. When law firms engage in M&A discussions, performing thorough and appropriate due diligence in a compressed time frame can be extremely challenging. One large firm tells me that mining docketing data is an increasingly important part of their due diligence process because it can generate solid metrics for both firms on factors like the distribution of case types, the number of cases opened and closed per month, the number of cases that ultimately go to trial, the average duration of litigation by practice area, and the potential conflicts that might arise as a result of a deal.

Track firmwide litigation metrics: Want to know how long your legal teams are spending preparing for trial? Run a report in your docketing systems to determine the average number of days from pre-trial to trial. Then break it down by regional office or legal jurisdiction, or compare these metrics across case types to do a better job of planning and budgeting for upcoming litigation.

Conduct performance analysis: Which legal teams and attorneys are consistently producing the most favorable results in specific legal contexts across multiple offices? Which are underperforming? Your docketing data can help you answer these questions by shedding tremendous light on your firm's use of time and resources. Combine that information with billing and financial data and you have the essential elements of a meaningful cost/benefit ratio.

Improve business development and marketing efforts: Preparing for a pitch meeting? You can use your centralized docketing system to generate hard data indicating exactly how many times your firm has been on the winning side of specific case types and/or in front of certain judges. This is high-impact, persuasive information. Clients want to see specific and demonstrable expertise, not just general legal expertise. Docketing data can also help marketing departments make decisions about which of the firm's strengths to highlight and where to devote resources by providing a snapshot of the activities and performance in specific practice areas and revealing current filing trends.

Develop better alternative fee arrangements and pricing models: AFAs and APMs can be decisive when firms are competing to win or retain big clients, but many firms struggle to structure these agreements effectively to ensure they generate sufficient, sustainable profitability. Some firms are now using their docketing system to perform more precise analysis of litigation costs and develop better custom pricing models. For starters, docketing data can accurately project how long certain types of cases are likely to take from start to finish and the number of hours your legal teams typically spend on them.

Identify expert witnesses for specific case types. Searching the firm's DMS is probably the default procedure when looking for expert witnesses, but some firms have discovered that they can routinely find additional and sometimes different information about expert witnesses in their docketing data.

While it is still the exception rather than the rule among most firms, some organizations have begun to realize their docketing and calendaring system actually contains more complete and sometimes more relevant information that can complement what they have found in their DMS. The use cases I've outlined here are providing firms with real, measurable value today—and they extend well beyond the more obvious efficiency gains and risk mitigation benefits that typically motivate organizations to evaluate docketing technology.

As data-driven lawyering and law firm management becomes even more pervasive across the industry, we can expect to see firms using docketing data in even more creative ways—perhaps by integrating that data with data from DMSs, time capture and billing systems, accounts receivable systems, budgeting software, and more. It may seem mundane at first glance, but the data generated by your docketing and calendaring technology has stories to tell and insights to share. It's time to tap into that data and see what you can learn and how it can help set your firm apart from all the others who haven't yet discovered the hidden trends and actionable insights in their docketing data.

Erez Bustan is the president and chief executive officer at American LegalNet, Inc.