ATL's Innovation Interrogatory: Alex Macdonald Of McCarter & English
'I never refer to anything as a problem. We only have opportunities.'
Ed. note: This is the latest installment of The Innovation Interrogatories series, brought to you by Lake Whillans Capital Partners. This recurring feature will highlight insights and experiences around ongoing innovation efforts at law firms.
What is driving law firms to create the CINO position, or positions like it?
CINOs, et al. are the latest and natural iteration of roles born from the shifting law firm mindset of the last 20 years, propelled to new levels of awareness after the 2008 financial crisis, and evolved to succeed in our supercharged digital world. To me, the idea that these roles are “new” ignores the evolutionary history of our industry. In fact, a good number of the people filling these positions have led mission critical functions within their firms for some time, many even as practicing lawyers. The rise in influence within Biglaw is all part of an acute recognition that delivering value to clients in the modern practice means firms must enhance the efficiency of delivery models, often through technology — but not always. What was once called practice management, then called process improvement, and subsequently siloed into buckets such as litigation support, KM, legal project management and strategic pricing is all part of the same outgrowth of improving client service. In more recent years, the roles have included titles such as client value, legal operations, and, of course, innovation. In my opinion, these disciplines are all part of a progressive change in the way law firms have expanded the client team, all for the better, over decades. And, in today’s technology-centric world, if that client service team is not innovating with technology then you are clearly absent from the correct dialogue. Enter the CINO, CVO, or whatever aptly descriptive title is thought of next.
What objectives you are trying to meet? What is the biggest problem you are trying to solve?
My team has one mission — to identify and enhance as many areas as we can to improve our firm’s client service. Full stop. As to the second question, I never refer to anything as a problem. We only have opportunities. Admittedly, some opportunities are bigger or smaller than others, but we aspire to have a good mix of both on our roadmap because if we only swing for the fences we will probably miss more than we like. Execution really is the key to successful innovation. I happen to be a disciple of Franklin Covey’s philosophies on execution, so whether you call them “WIGs” or “Big Rocks,” I focus my team on a few key projects and try to tune out the “whirlwind” as much as possible. The current construct of my function has only been up and running at McCarter for a little under eight months, but we have honed in our “Wildly Important Goals,” and now the fun of executing begins!
Can you identify an under-hyped (or at least relatively overlooked) technology or trend that will eventually have a significant impact on the delivery of legal services?
Is this an invitation to advertise?!?! If it were, I would mention the growing list of impressive legal tech startups using AI and machine learning to help law firms better understand their time and billing data. Ask yourself this question: if you work in a law firm, fundamentally, what are you selling? I’ll tell you; you are selling time. It doesn’t matter if your firm bills by the hour or charges fixed fees, the amount of work you can produce for clients is only limited by the amount of time you have to perform the services requested. Whether any of us are comfortable saying it out loud, time is a law firm’s only inventory. But, unlike most businesses, we have very little understanding of our current inventory and even less about the insights that can be extracted for the benefit of our service delivery models, value pricing, and predictive case assessments — just to name a few. By and large, our time and billing databases are what data scientists would not hesitate to call “unstructured data.” Structuring our time inventory is not only under-hyped, in my experience, it is generally taboo to talk about in the first instance. But, for me, it is the critical underleveraged and vastly untapped asset that we need to mine.
Innovation and technology are often conflated. To what degree does the “innovation” imperative at law firms extend beyond technological solutions?
I am so glad you asked this question. Innovation by definition is simply a new method, idea, or product. We are in a supercharged digital world, so people often conflate the two concepts. It’s easy to do since most enhancements to our lives generally these days center around a new technology. That said, I believe it is important that law firms embrace the full spectrum of innovation. I can promise you this — if you got a sneak peak at my white board and the “Wildly Important Goals” I have for my team, you’d see far more than just technology innovations being reimagined.
Is litigation finance an innovation that you’ve considered? If no, why not? If yes, in what ways do you think it will help meet your innovation goals?
Have I considered it? The answer is yes. This might be too strong — it probably is — but not considering litigation funding could be considered nonfeasance. In the last five years, litigation finance is perhaps the leading non-technology innovation in Biglaw. Prior to the availability of funding, plaintiffs really had two choices — pay for the litigation or ask their lawyers to fund their case through a contingency fee arrangement. And, I don’t know if you’ve heard this yet, but hot off the presses, lawyers are risk averse! So, although not unheard of, finding a firm to take on a multi-year case, while risking non-payment for thousands of billable hours, hasn’t been exactly common in most practices. With ligation finance, a third-party financer infuses capital where a plaintiff does not want to, or simply cannot, fund a litigation, while fairly compensating the lawyers and realizing outsized returns for the funders relative to other investment markets. For many litigants, lawyers, and investors, this has been the proverbial win, win, win. Litigation finance is transforming certain practices and, most importantly, access to previously unreachable or unaffordable remedies for an increasing number of clients. If innovation is a new method, idea, or product, I think it’s fair to say I consider litigation finance innovative.
Alex Macdonald is McCarter’s Chief Client Value & Practice Management Officer, responsible for leading the firm’s client innovation, value, pricing, legal project management, and practice group management functions. Alex is an accomplished law firm executive and a lawyer with nearly two decades of experience in the legal industry.
