Littler Mendelson P.C. issued the following announcement on Aug. 12.
Littler, the world’s largest employment and labor law practice representing management, is pleased to announce the 10-year anniversary of its award-winning Littler CaseSmart® (LCS) platform.
In 2010, Littler disrupted the legal industry when it launched LCS as clients were increasingly seeking more efficient and value-driven services. Founded by shareholder Scott Forman, LCS reengineered the process of managing employment litigation by combining proprietary technology, alternative staffing and project management to control costs and increase fee predictability, while enhancing quality and consistency. LCS has proven to reduce legal spend by 10 to 50 percent and has collected substantial case data over the past decade that helps drive stronger business decisions and reduce risk. Initially created for administrative agency charges, LCS has expanded over the years to manage the full-range of employment litigation, including single-plaintiff, multi-plaintiff, class and collective actions, and mass arbitrations and related litigation.
“LCS was developed as a direct response to market demand. And in the past 10 years, the pressure facing in-house legal departments to increase operational efficiency, as well as to use AI and data analytics to improve outcomes and demonstrate their effectiveness, has only further intensified,” said Forman. “In addition to reducing defense costs and providing the budget predictability that is essential to our clients’ bottom lines, it has been particularly gratifying to provide employers with data-driven insights that help them identify potential problems before they escalate into larger issues, better manage their workplaces and guide litigation strategy.”
LCS provides greater value to clients through efficient workflow and project management, innovative staffing models, and data analytics and case management technology. In addition to its expansion to cover all areas of employment litigation, LCS has achieved several impressive milestones over the past decade, including:
More than 1,600 clients from a wide-range of industries and sizes are on the platform and nearly 30,000 matters have been handled through LCS.
The platform launched with 12 LCS Counsel and the team has grown to nearly 100. LCS Counsel focus on specific tasks within the legal process (research, discovery, brief writing, etc.), providing greater efficiency for clients along with an alternative career path for experienced attorneys looking for interesting and challenging work with more flexibility.
The creation of an operational team that functions like a corporate business unit, tracking financial performance and continuously enhancing the platform to meet client needs. A team of more than 30 operational specialists now work within LCS, a structure that has facilitated its continued revenue growth and profitability.
The collection of millions of data points that are the source of actionable insights for clients and attorneys. The LCS dashboard provides clients with a big-picture view of their employment matters in the aggregate, helping spot patterns of potential business risk and address issues before they evolve into expensive litigation. Clients also receive valuable benchmarking information – including how their matters compare to similar companies in settlement amount and transition-to-litigation rate – that helps guide legal strategy.
“Not only has LCS revolutionized our approach to managing employment litigation, it has served as a model within the firm for the dozens of service solutions that followed and for a legal industry grappling to evolve alongside technological advances and demands for alternative work arrangements,” said Tom Bender and Jeremy Roth, co-managing directors of Littler, in a joint statement. “LCS is also a key part of our broader data ecosystem, which leverages technology-based solutions and data analytics to help clients shape legal strategies, inform critical employment decisions and drive actionable business results.”
A founding member of Littler’s Innovation Advisory Council and a member of the firm’s Board of Directors, Scott Forman’s career is dedicated to helping drive Littler’s innovation strategy and to developing technology solutions and processes that re-engineer the delivery of legal services and enhance operational efficiency. Having firmly established LCS as an effective means of managing litigation, Forman’s latest innovation, Littler onDemand, applies the same combination of technology, staffing and project management to provide a data-driven solution for employment law advice and counsel.
LCS has received numerous awards for its innovative approach, including the Association of Corporate Counsel’s “ACC Value Champion” award, several top rankings in the Financial Times’ “North America Innovative Lawyers” Report, the College of Law Practice Management’s “InnovAction Award” and the International Legal Technology Association’s Distinguished Peer Award for “Project of the Year.” Forman is also regularly recognized as a leading innovator in the legal industry, including as a top data-driven lawyer by Law360, among the most innovative individuals by the Financial Times, a “Litigation Trailblazer” by the National Law Journal and on the “FastCase 50” list of top innovators. Harvard Law School published a case study featuring Forman and highlighting the impact of LCS on the firm and the legal industry.
Original source can be found here.