Contact:
Ivette Delgado, Senior Public Relations Associate
(212) 218-5273, idelgado@seyfarth.com
CHICAGO (November 29, 2011) — Leading law firm Seyfarth Shaw LLP is pleased to formally introduce SeyfarthLean Consulting (“SLC”), a stand-alone subsidiary company engaged in providing efficiency models to the internal processes and projects of in-house legal departments and other business units in an organization through the use of SeyfarthLean (Seyfarth’s customized integration of Lean and Six Sigma) methodology and tools.
SeyfarthLean was born out of Seyfarth Shaw’s conclusion in the middle of the last decade that clients were concerned by the inherently inefficient nature of the hourly fee business model adopted by most law firms. Seyfarth concluded that this problem required shifting the legal service delivery model (and thus the business model) toward an approach that places a higher premium on efficiency and better fulfillment of the client's expectations.
SLC expands on the firm’s existing work for clients and uses this methodology to provide innovative solutions to in-house legal departments and other business units of a company. SLC provides clients with “Voice of the Client” interviews, sophisticated process mapping, root cause analysis, project management, data analysis and technologies to improve workflow and quality control and has already handled major projects, including litigation management optimization, contracts administration, real estate leasing and acquisition management and complex large-scale transactions with multiple parties and workflows to improve efficiency and quality for its clients, while at the same time reducing expenses and/or adding revenue to the bottom line of the client.
The CEO of SeyfarthLean Consulting is Atlanta partner Robert Reynolds. Reynolds has led any number of engagements for Fortune 500 clients focused on process design, project management and other optimization solutions. In his role with SeyfarthLean Consulting he is focused on the implementation of SeyfarthLean solutions in corporate law departments, HR, procurement and other enterprise functions.
“The more we have worked with our clients utilizing SeyfarthLean for the delivery of legal services, the more we have realized that we can use the methodology to assist clients in optimizing the overall legal and operational workflow within their departments and in their relationships with their internal clients, as well as with outside providers of legal services,” Reynolds said.
Working alongside Reynolds is Chief Strategic Innovations Officer Carla Goldstein. Goldstein began her career as a corporate attorney and then moved into law firm management. She created Seyfarth’s Project Management Office and worked with Labor & Employment Chair Lisa Damon to drive SeyfarthLean from its inception to its firm-wide integration. Goldstein has a JD and an MBA, and is a certified project manager and Lean Six Sigma Green Belt. Goldstein has been involved in providing Fortune 500 companies with many innovative solutions, both in connection with the delivery of legal services as well as the client’s internal processes.
Goldstein has discovered that, “When working with our clients on joint process mapping sessions and other aspects of a SeyfarthLean project, the clients began to realize that there were areas within their own departments that they wanted to analyze for improved efficiencies. As SeyfarthLean was customized for the legal industry, it has been a solution that fits well with our clients’ internal processes.”
Representative consulting assignments have included the review and assessment of a large-scale asbestos litigation management structure, a multi-billion dollar cross-border M&A integration initiative with a two-year timeline, an evolution of the business model for a large non-profit that was nominated for the ABA’s Corporate Pro Bono Project of the Year, the review and streamlining of a large-scale real estate management system for a national restaurant development company, a litigation management optimization project for a national insurance company, creation of the full life cycle of selecting, engaging, managing and evaluating outside counsel for a global defense contractor and other optimization projects of similar size and scale. In addition to the efficiency studies, SLC has allowed clients to share resources and costs for large-volume complex to non-complex transactions such as IT procurement, logistics, research and development and confidentiality agreements. SLC manages the workflow and quality assurance for the full stream of a client’s matters.
Seyfarth Shaw has over 750 attorneys located in 10 offices throughout the United States, including: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Sacramento, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., as well as internationally in London. Seyfarth Shaw provides a broad range of legal services in the areas of labor and employment, employee benefits, litigation, corporate and real estate. The firm’s clients include over 300 of the Fortune 500 companies, and our practice reflects virtually every industry and segment of the economy. For more information, please visit www.seyfarth.com.
