Law firm innovation management is becoming a must, giving the increased frequency and importance of innovation. Wondering how other law firms are managing their innovation efforts? Are you interested in reading about the best-practices law firms of all sizes use?
Then download our white paper titled "Innovation Management in Law Firms".
About the white paper
The findings in this report are based on the input from 35 respondents and detailed insights of 22 firms. We are very grateful for the funding by the CIT/CRCF for this research.
We are also very grateful for the time of all respondents. Some gave us general information about their experience with innovation management in law firms. Three respondents gave us detailed input on the firm they had recently left, in addition to the firm at which they currently work. For three firms, we had multiple respondents within the same firm. The shortest interview lasted 30 minutes, while the longest interview was 120 minutes (over 2 sessions).
The median law firm size consisted of 463 lawyers. The volume of innovation projects initiated varied from 1 project/year to 400 projects/year. The average was 33 innovation projects/year and the median 8 projects/year.
While none of these firms were the same, no matter the size of the firm or the innovation management maturity level, a process is needed to bring ideas to practice. The white paper describes how law firms go about managing this process.
Law firm innovation management
To keep the costs under control and maximize returns, law firms must manage their pipeline of innovation projects. What model fits best depends on the volume of innovation projects and the firm's experience with innovation.
From the many success stories shared with us during our research, it was apparent that the more novel and pioneering innovation efforts were perceived as the most successful initiatives. Projects in which the firm was the first to bring a new solution or offering on the market stood out.
Unfortunately, such ideas did not appear to have a very high chance of making it through the vetting process. In nearly all firms, the vetting process had a built-in selection bias for copycat projects of limited size, i.e., safe bets with limited potential to make a significant impact.
The lack of tracking innovation projects from start to finish prevented law firms from measuring the effectiveness and efficiency of their innovation process. This led to a waste of the significant time and resources often spent on the portfolio of innovation activities.
As such, it is time to take innovation management more seriously and ensure that the investments made in innovation pay off. Download the report and read how law firms can advance their innovation management maturity.
