Data is Changing the Game for Legal Service Delivery with Greg Kaple

Pricing is the Starting Place for Everything with Melissa Prince and Dan Pope

Our Guests

Melissa Prince serves as Ballard Spahr’s Chief Client Value and Innovation Officer and sits on the firm's Management Committee and Expanded Board. Melissa focuses on listening to client needs and understanding how each client's business operates in order to make the connection between value and innovation. She oversees the firm's Client Value and Innovation program, which includes more than 20 business professionals focused on creating a customized experience for each client.

Melissa is a frequent speaker, presenter, and author on legal operations topics. She recently launched the Ballard360 Insider blog, which is focused on delivering insights and best practices in legal operations. Under Melissa's leadership, the firm was named to the Financial Times' Most Innovative Law Firms Business of Law, an innovation "Mover and Shaker" by BTI Consulting, and a finalist for the American Lawyer Industry Awards in the best law firm/client team and best business team categories. 

Before coming to Ballard Spahr, Melissa held similar roles at two Am Law 25 firms. She is an attorney who, before leaving private practice, managed complex commercial litigation matters. She is a Six Sigma Green Belt, Certified Legal Project Manager, ALPP and ALPM.

Dan Pope is the Director of Strategic Pricing & Profitability at Ballard Spahr and oversees a team of pricing professionals that focus on using state-of-the-art tools and technology to gather and analyze information and evaluate the variables that drive cost. 

The team partners with firm clients to develop accurate cost-projections, customize pricing and value-based fee arrangements, establish goals and expectations, and identify preferences for cost efficiency, predictability, transparency, and value. 

Dan also leads an ongoing initiative to review the firm’s top clients to ensure firm profitability benchmarks are met. The program focuses on current arrangements, staffing, 

•   KEY TAKEAWAYS
  • Innovation Philosophy: There is no innovation without adoption! When a new approach isn’t working, you need to be able to fail fast and rethink what you are doing. 
  • Competitive Intelligence: It's about giving clients something that they cannot find elsewhere. 
  • Regulating the Legal Industry: Change is coming and Law firms need to think more quickly and innovatively about how they are operating.

Pricing is About Driving Profitability with Andrew Jewel

Andrew Jewel is the Senior Director, Strategic Pricing & Business Solutions at Seyfarth Shaw. Andrew works closely with Firm Department Chairs, the Chief Marketing & Business Development Officer, and key members of the Finance team and leads the pricing and business side of Seyfarth’s Alternative Fee Arrangement (AFA) program.

Prior to entering the legal solutions industry, Andrew practiced law for nearly five years as a commercial litigation and antitrust associate at two AmLaw firms. He earned a JD, with honors, from The National Law Center at the George Washington University, where he was a member of the Journal of International Law & Economics, and a B.A. from Haverford College in Haverford, PA.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

•  Data & Risk Sharing Deliver  Successful AFAs.  Access to historical matter data and appropriate risk-sharing between law firms and clients are the building blocks for strong partnerships between law firms and their clients. 
• Beyond Revenue.  It’s more important to understand and measure the cost of delivery and profitability drivers of the work your firm is doing.
• Proactivity Matters Clients want firms that are efficient, know their business and deliver value without having to be reminded.

Data is Changing the Game for Legal Service Delivery with Greg Kaple

Gregory J. Kaple is the Senior Director, Legal Business Services, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan. Greg Kaple is a venturer and a strategist known for creating unique business models and solution delivery innovations for complex professional, technology, and services organizations. In his current role, Kaple is transforming the KFHP legal department’s service delivery model to provide affordable access to high-quality legal care.  Comprised of more than 80 attorneys, 170 total staff, and a combined annual budget of more than $150 million, the legal department is responsible for protecting KFHP’s $84 billion nonprofit business from risk in an age of unprecedented healthcare industry business and regulatory change. By focusing on core principles of transparency, collaboration, and infrastructure the department is reducing costs, enhancing the quality, and setting a new standard of value-oriented outcomes for KFPH’s members, community, and industry.

Kaple has lead strategy development for such companies as Time Warner, New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Squire Sanders, and WilmerHale. His business ventures have included founding a professional service firm, a media production company, a cloud services provider, and a chain of high-end men’s barber clubs.  He has been a member of several University programs with West Virginia University and Ohio University where he created a breakthrough class on Entrepreneurial Sales. Kaple has a Masters Degree of Science in Telecommunications Management from Stevens Institute of Technology and a Bachelors degree in Business Administration from Ohio University.

TOP THREE TAKEAWAYS

• Data is a Game Changer. Legal departments and their panel firms should work in partnership to improve the quality of their data to drive decision making. 
• Making it Easy. Communication tools like portals, reference guides, and focused training materials, help your panel firms to understand, digest, and comply with your Billing Guidelines. 
• Diversity is a Bigger Priority than Ever. A focus on diverse staffing, work allocation, utilizing the ABA diversity survey data enable, and a commitment to taking action. 

You Will Always Come to a Better Solution Together with Dwight Floyd

As the US Chief Pricing & Value Officer, Dwight Floyd and his team work with Eversheds Sutherland attorneys and clients to provide superior value by developing and implementing creative pricing and service delivery strategies.

Value is rarely increased through wholesale discounting or telling clients what they need but instead by targeting – actually asking – clients about their specific goals and what they want to achieve. Dwight works closely with attorneys and administrative staff to increase Eversheds Sutherland’s efficiency, effectiveness, transparency, and innovation in a dedicated pursuit of delivering its client’s goals.

Dwight is a former litigation partner and a biologist who brings a different approach to some common challenges in the legal world. As in our natural ecosystem, he recognizes that everything in the legal ecosystem is connected to everything else. His challenge and goal is discovering and revealing to attorneys and clients how those connections can benefit and sustain everyone involved while still conserving resources

Dwight is rated AV by Martindale-Hubbell and is an Accredited Legal Pricing Professional (ALPP) by the True Value Partnering Institute.

True Value Partnering Institute

Find out more about the ALLP accreditation and the True Value Partnering Institute, the premier educational network for legal pricing, project management, and innovation professionals. 

TOP THREE TAKEAWAYS

• Understand Expectations. It's the intangibles that make a successful pricing arrangement.
• Process Orientation. Technology can help package information in a way that is easily accessible to both the lawyers and clients.
• It's a Relationship Business. We will continue to see the growth of relationships between legal operations professionals in corporate departments and business professionals at law firms. 

Pricing is Integral to the Client Relationship with Linda Novosel & Sharon Scenna

Linda Novosel serves as Blank Rome’s Chief Innovation & Value Officer. In this role, Linda is responsible for driving the development of creative approaches to enhancing value and client service. Linda collaborates with Blank Rome’s attorneys and clients on designing customized service solutions that are cost-effective and efficient through a combination of people, process, and technology. In addition, Linda oversees strategic pricing and client value, practice innovation, data analytics, legal project management, and process improvement.

Linda has more than 30 years of experience in the legal industry and has held senior management positions at several other Am Law 100 firms where she was responsible for practice management, strategic pricing, legal project management, e-discovery, attorney and non-attorney staffing, contract attorney programs, and process improvement.

 A former practicing lawyer, Linda received her J.D., cum laude, from Widener University School of Law where she served as an editor of the Widener Journal of Public Law and was a member of the Moot Court Honor Society. She earned her B.A. in International Relations from Bucknell University.

Sharon Scenna serves as Director of Client Value at Blank Rome.  She collaborates with clients, attorneys, and firm leadership on value and innovation efforts that enhance relationships. Sharon develops pricing structures that address mutual needs and strategies to help clients manage their legal budgets. She advises on rate and compensation models, hourly rates, evaluating new business opportunities, and client retention plans. Sharon is a key member of the innovation team that leverages a combination of people, process, and technology to provide cost-effective and efficient solutions. 

Sharon has over 20 years of experience in the legal industry including serving as Director of Practice Management where she advised department heads and practice group leaders on business planning, revenue and expense management, paralegal and attorney staffing needs, and coordinated with various administrative departments. As Director of Business Development, Sharon oversaw the marketing and business development team, launched client team programs, and led the successful implementation of CRM.

Sharon earned an MBA from LaSalle University and a Bachelor of Science in Marketing from King’s College.

  TOP THREE TAKEAWAYS

• Innovation is better together. Innovation programs that encourage working in teams bring diverse ideas, creativity, and deliver better solutions.
• Help your clients shine. How can you help your legal department show they are not just a cost center but really providing an impact on the company’s bottom line?
• Leverage your data. Data is critically important to managing any pricing arrangement and providing transparency both internally and externally.