Digital Transformation

Introduction to our team

The nature of a lawyers job has changed dramatically in the last 10-15 years. There’s still a place for drafting documents, arguing in court and completing legal agreements. However, these are balanced against a broader set of challenges, such as strategic client partnerships and mass transaction services.

3 years ago, Pinsent Masons started their continuous improvement journey and our Lean Six Sigma team have championed this programme. Within the firm, the Lean Six Sigma team have traditionally had three functions:

1. Work on internal initiatives (e.g. improve service delivery of a product);
2. Create and implement a Continuous Improvement framework; and
3. Provide Lean Six Sigma consultancy to external clients.

Recently, the team were tasked with digitising the delivery of the White and Yellow Belt training programmes, in a project that spanned the first two of these areas of operation.

What was our aim?

Lean Six Sigma provides qualifications based on a belt system similar to martial arts (with Master Black Belt) being the highest level. The White Belt programme is the first tier of Lean Six Sigma qualification, and the Yellow is the one that follows this. Both broadly focus on learning to apply a data driven approach to make processes more efficient.

The aim of digitising the training courses was to make them more accessible for fee earners across the firm. Prior to this, there was no formal continuous improvement programme, rather fee-earners would source assistance from our team on an ad-hoc basis. This was extremely time and resource intensive, but above that, it was extremely reliant on the expertise and availability of the individual members of the Lean Six Sigma team.

What have we done to improve the training?

Prior to the digital transformation work, the Lean Six Sigma team had to refer to a 100 plus page PowerPoint document to provide resource-based training to fee earners. Now, the team have moved to a self-paced interactive learning program which can be accessed digitally.

The comparison between the two versions is stark and although the content has moved through several iterations, it is now much more standardised. This enables a consistent level of training to be given to fee earners in relation to White Belt and Yellow Belt qualifications.

Why does this matter and what have we achieved?

The team identified that the service previously being providing could be improved because it wasn’t accessible enough for fee all earners. The reliance on content being delivered by a member of staff based in the UK posed logistical challenges in a global firm.

By bringing our White Belt and Yellow Belt training courses online we were able to offer the service to fee earners in our Asia-Pacific offices without a member of the team having to work outside of their usual hours. To date over 20% of our all Pinsent Masons staff have undertaken some form of Continuous Improvement Training.

This training (amongst other continuous improvement work) has had real financial benefit for the wider firm. To date, over £750,000.00 has been saved in improvement opportunities autonomously implemented by trained staff.

Other law firms have been slow to adopt Lean Six Sigma principles. Although this meant that there was no precedent for us to follow, it also results in us gaining an advantage over our competitors by applying this methodology to the provision of our services.

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