Learn About Our Inaugural IILPM Award Winners

The IILPM Awards recognise law firms, legal departments, and alternative legal service providers that have used Legal Project Management (LPM) to transform legal service delivery and improve the experience of clients and legal professionals. 

Large and small organisations applied from around the world and were assessed by an international jury of LPM experts. Projects varied from adoption of new pricing models and intake processes, better management of complex legal practices, improved work allocation and talent management, to transformation of client experiences across entire regions, cost control, technology development and adoption, and more. 

Applicants reported wide-ranging benefits that are transforming the way they work internally and with their clients, increasing efficiency, and positively impacting revenue. The overall quality of the applications and the results achieved made selecting winners challenging. 

Best LPM Innovation Law Firm: Clifford Chance

Headquartered in London, Clifford Chance is a law firm with a global reach of 31 offices in 21 countries. Managing legal matters over such a wide geography is an enormous LPM challenge. Over the last 6 years, the LPM functions have grown from 1 to 50 LPM practitioners. 

The multi-regional challenges of serving the needs of clients and lawyers in implementing the Interbank Offered Rates (IBOR) requirements presented a significant opportunity. Using LPM to meet those challenges, the firm successfully reduced the costs of compliance by 60%. 

The firm also developed its proprietary Clarity technology, an LPM dashboard platform for clients and lawyers to better visualise and remain up to date on the real-time status of matters in LPM planning, execution, and closing. It is now being implemented incrementally across the firm. 

Through its Apprenticeship Program and Training Academy, the firm has increased the skills and retention of high quality LPM practitioners. The Clifford Chance culture of change promotes the legal innovation environment throughout the firm. 

Best LPM Innovative Alternative Legal Service Provider: Deloitte Legal Spain

Deloitte Legal Spain is part of an international legal team of over 2500 legal professionals across 80 countries. Deloitte Legal Spain combined its Legal Management Consulting and Legal Managed Services (LMC-LMS) to create a multidisciplinary group including lawyers, engineers, technology experts, PMOs, legal project practitioners, and legal process improvement professionals. 

In the last 12 months, the entire LMC-LMS team has undertaken LPM training that has allowed them to improve efficiency, transparency, agility, and quality both internally and for their clients. They now have better control and visibility over resources, budgets, and work allocation. The firm uses LPM methods to control costs, assign and manage resources, establish drivers, implement KPIs, and provide alternative billing structures. 

The team has expanded to over 35 people, increased its profitability, and completed 80% more projects than in the last fiscal year. They integrate process improvement, appropriate technology, ongoing team training, and managed services to maximise client value and minimise time and expense. They also deploy Artificial Intelligence to analyse the data and provide predictive recommendations for client actions where appropriate. 

Best LPM Innovative In-house Legal Departments:  Iberdrola and Telefónica

Headquartered in Bilbao, Spain, Iberdrola is a global energy leader, the leading wind power producer, and one of the largest electricity companies in the world. It is committed to clean energy, and caring for the environment and people.

Through its consistent application of LPM principles, Iberdrola’s Legal Services has optimised the allocation of its resources and the processes it uses to deliver its services.

As a direct result, Legal Services is better able to identify and mitigate risks to the business and its operations, and has achieved significant and measurable operational and economic efficiencies. The economic efficiencies have allowed the team to self-finance investments in new technology tools that have further improved its service delivery model.

LPM is helping Legal Services modernise its role. It is now being recognized for its leadership in innovation, efficiency, and digital transformation. The LPM’s framework has helped change the culture of Legal Services and align it with the strategic objectives and growing needs of the entire Iberdrola Group.

Based in Madrid, Spain, and operating in 12 countries, Telefónica is a telecommunications and technology company with a mission “to make the world more human by connecting lives.” With more than 350 attorneys serving the needs of more than 110,000 employees and Telefónica’s diverse client-base, the General Counsel Office (CGO) is focused on making legal actions more human by applying human-centred design principles.

Adopting and systematically applying LPM’s tools and methodologies across all aspects of its work has allowed the legal department to successfully shift its internal culture to one of empowerment and leadership. This shift  has significantly affected how the team is perceived by the rest of the organisation.

LPM’s framework has helped the legal team focus on value and deliver projects on budget and on time, if not ahead of time. As a result, the GCO has earned the reputation as an essential partner whose services are aligned with the strategic interests of business units and stakeholders it serves.

OUR ROUND-TABLE EVENT EXPERTS

A big thank you to the experts who spoke at the Awards Ceremony event in sharing their industry updates on Legal Project Management maturity:

  1. Borja García Ruiz (Iberdrola – Spain);
  2. David Rueff (Baker Donaldson – USA);
  3. Caitlin (Cat) Moon (Vanderbilt Law School – USA); and
  4. Antony Smith (Legal PM Ltd – UK).

This was moderated by Karen Skinner (Gimbal – Canada).

ECO-DESIGNED AWARDS

Consistent to the IILPM’s desire to protect the planet and to actively promote and demonstrate responsible corporate social behaviour, our eco-designed award trophies are made by SustainAwards from recycles materials, and using a process having low environmental impact.

They are manufactured in Barcelona, Spain. 

 

Thank you to the IILPM Awards Team:  Anna Marra (Awards Chair), Karen Skinner (MC and Technology Host), Larry Bridgesmith, Ignaz Fuesgen, Todd Hutchison, Antony Smith and David Skinner.