Strategic Plan Update — Q2 2019

Goal #1 — Define Identity

Define a clear, compelling organizational identity that reflects who/what the association represents and that effectively focuses its programs, services and activities.

 
• Defining Our Identity:

The Board of Directors announced in April the creation of an updated ALA Mission Statement. The realigned mission statement better reflects our values, our identity and the benefits our membership enjoys. Hear directly from President April L. Campbell, JD, about this change and others in her final episode of The 150. The revamped mission statement is:

ALA is the premier professional association connecting leaders and managers within the legal industry. We provide extensive professional development, collaborative peer communities, strategic operational solutions, and business partner connections empowering our members to lead the business of law.

• Enhanced Member Experience:
  In the near future, ALA will be introducing a new model for membership called Organizational Membership Pricing — developed and presented to the Board by the Membership Development Committee. The Board believes this will be an easier and more efficient way to manage your membership within your legal organization AND will allow ALA to reach more legal management professionals, creating a deeper and stronger network of resources and connections for each of you.

  As with any major initiative, to ensure a successful full-scale rollout, a phased approach will be used to implement the Organizational Membership. This approach will allow ALA to work closely with members to build the online experience they want. ALA will work directly with a subset of firms to apply the new structure to its members during the 2020 renewal period. We will use feedback and beta testing to fine tune the process and plan to implement Organizational Membership association-wide for the 2021 dues renewal period.

  With the continued help of the Membership Development Committee, the Board is polishing a concept to better deliver content, products and services through an experience that is aligned with where you are in your career and your role within your firm. Like Organizational Membership, this concept will be developed throughout 2020, with a fuller rollout in 2021.

• Member Recruitment Marketing:
  Member recruitment campaigns continue, using targeted advertising delivered to users based on online browsing preferences.

Goal #2 — Increase Member and Business Partner Value

Develop relevant, actionable, timely, responsive resources to increase value of ALA to members, business partners and other legal management professionals.

• Event Planning Plus — Speaker Services:

  If you are looking for help with speakers for your firm’s retreat or for other professional development initiatives, ALA can help. We’ve invited 50 new speakers to be part of the 2019 Event Planning Plus (EPP) Speaker Services program. So far, 17 speakers have registered to become part of the program and three speakers have been hired through EPP for 2019.

  Contact us at [email protected] and a seasoned planner will reach out to help you create a memorable experience.

• Summit Series Webcast:

  The most recent Summit Series webcast published in March. In this second series of webcasts, ALA presents a series of interviews with James Price, Founder and Managing Director of Experience Matters, and Nina Evans, Associate Head of the School of Information Technology and Mathematical Science (ITMS) at the University of South Australia (UniSA). The interviews focus on discussions with other legal management professionals on the drivers for good information asset management. Each one-hour webcast includes two interviews covering topics such as risk mitigation, business performance and ethics.

  Click here for the latest on the ALA Summit Series Webcasts.

• Newsletters:

  The second phase in the revised email communication strategy has launched! The new strategy, and resulting templates, create standard content topics for each day, so audiences will learn to expect specific information (education, or events, or leadership, etc.) on set days during the week. Each day of the week delivers focused content:

  1. Monday — BOLD Bites
  2. Tuesday — E-Learning
  3. Wednesday — Events
  4. Thursday — Membership News
  5. Friday — Thought Leadership

• Job Description Toolkit:

  ALA has designed a format for a toolkit to assist legal management professionals and their employer organizations in the writing of job descriptions using the UPBMS Taxonomy classifications/codes. A PDF version is currently available (free to members) in the ALA e-store. There will be multiple stages of this project, leading to the final goal of an online tool to generate job descriptions using the UPBMS.

Goal #3 — Enhance Thought Leadership

Become recognized as a thought leader in the legal industry by conducting critical industry research and developing new ideas, innovations and solutions to guide the legal management industry. 

• UPBMS:
  

  The public comment period for UPBMS 2.0 is open. ALA is seeking legal industry feedback on the next version of codes intended to standardize how processes within legal support operations are identified, defined and organized. All legal management professionals are invited to review and comment on Version 2.0 of the UPBMS using a robust peer review portal developed specifically for this important initiative. Review and comment on the UPBMS at: https://upbms.alanet.org/.

  Changes and updates found within the UPBMS 2.0 include some reclassification of tasks and processes and new and revised definitions of processes and substantive areas.

  As part of its practice analysis work, HumRRO conducted a mapping exercise of the UPBMS to the body of knowledge for the CLM program. Working with the Certification Committee and staff, HumRRO will determine which UPBMS codes reflect work activities that are performed routinely by legal administrators across various contexts and firm types. Legal administrators who participate in the practice analysis focus groups will review this reduced set of codes, along with the alignment results, to determine if new tasks should be written to capture activities not included in the existing 2012 practice analysis list. Once the task list is updated, the focus group participants will consider whether corresponding new knowledge statements or abilities need to be added to the Knowledge, Skills and Abilities list.

• Compensation and Benefit Studies:
  The 2019 Compensation and Benefits Survey will open for participation in May. The ALA team has confirmed partnerships with ILTA and LMA; each partner is providing us with additional legal technology and marketing positions, job descriptions and data collection points.

• SALI Alliance:
  ALA is a Founding Member of the Standards Advancement for the Legal Industry (SALI) Alliance, a not-for-profit organization comprised of legal industry professionals leading the development of industry standards for efficient and innovative legal services. The first release of the matter category standard, which includes the publication of area of law and process codes was launched on January 28 during LegalTech in New York. Membership renewal notices were distributed to SALI members in mid-March. For more information on SALI, click here.

• Global Legal Hackathon:
  The Global Legal Hackathon (February 22–24) was a great success and had 43 attendees. Four teams competed at this year’s hackathon that took place at iManage headquarters in downtown Chicago. Here are descriptions of their projects:
  
  

  Winner: #TeamPythonParty — IntelliWHY is an application created by lawyers, technologists and law firm management that aims to save the lives of lawyers by changing law firm culture. Created in response to the influx of millennial workers, IntelliWHY provides individuals with insights about their own stress indicators to inform their behavior. And it gives firms the ability to assess the health of its talent and use that data to make informed decisions on what 43 attendees can change for the better. ALA President-Elect James Cornell, III, was on the winning team!

  #TeamSwift — An efficient pricing and budgeting solution for attorneys that do not have sophisticated systems and dedicated pricing personnel. This team included Standards Review Committee members Bill Mech, CLM, and Rachel Jennens, and ALA staff member Bert Saper.

  #TeamOracLEX — IT leaders and legal administrators in small firms and law departments have limited resources to help them identify technology solutions to address their business challenges. They have too many possible solutions and info from general research is too general and overwhelming. OracLEX is a self-learning technology review platform. This is a curated knowledge base, starting with data from the entire legal ecosystem, with no vendor bias. It is continuously improved through a crowd-sourced review forum (a feedback mechanism that makes the knowledge better over time). It uses machine learning to increase the quality of the answers and make them more deeply targeted to specific needs. The goal is to make sure there is enough information to make the right technology decision, every time. This team included ALA Past President Teresa Walker and ALA staff member Steve Kenney.

  #TeamJaarles — The study and deployment of laws and legal practices as interventions to prevent disease and injury, and as enablers of effective public health administration.

• Global Legal Blockchain Consortium:
  ALA is also a member of the Global Legal Blockchain Consortium (GLBC), a group of more than 140 large companies, law firms, software companies, universities and associations that have joined together to develop standards to govern the use of blockchain technology in the business of law. ALA served as a co-host for the GLBC’s Chicago briefing, February 13, at the offices of K+L Gates. The purpose of the briefing was to connect GLBC members in various regions, raise awareness of the consortium and solicit participation. ALA Executive Director Oliver Yandle, JD, CAE, provided brief remarks regarding the ALA’s interests in supporting GLBC. GLBC representatives discussed the history of the effort and K+L Gates attorneys shared insights on the impact of blockchain on the legal industry. For more on the GLBC, click here.

• White Papers:
  The Content and Publications team is working with Annual Conference speaker and Legal Management contributor Eileen Whitaker from Traveling Coaches on a white paper on KPIs. The issue is targeted for publication in May. A second white paper, from Annual Conference speaker and Legal Management contributor Jennifer Hill, will focus on the changing role of the legal management professional. Check out the April 1 and April 8 issue of BOLD Bites to get the link to the survey that’s part of Jennifer’s research. This white paper is targeted for June publication. You can find all our white papers here.

Goal #4 — Advance Legal Management Professional Development

Advance the knowledge, skills and leadership of legal management professionals and strengthen the role of legal management professionals in the legal industry.   

• Fall Conferences:
  We are excited to launch new conferences this fall! The ALA Professional Development team has been developing content for C4 The Legal Industry^TM Conference, ALA Master Class: Leadership for Legal Management Professionals and Advanced Human Resources Administration for Legal Management Professionals.
  
  

  C4 The Legal Industry Conference is a one-of-a-kind experience that uses design thinking to create solutions in the legal industry. The C4 subject matter experts have completed their development of the four topics that will be the focus of the inaugural event:

  1. Pricing and Profitability: How might we identify the necessary data and insights as well as develop and evangelize best practices to improve pricing and profitability in any law firm?
  2. Employee Lifecycle: How might we emphasize the many benefits of diverse perspectives and inclusive culture throughout the employee lifecycle (from recruiting, on-boarding, advancement and off-boarding) to the maximum benefit of the firm and the employee?
  3. Client Experience: How might we better understand the client and create more collaborative partnerships between firms and clients that lead to improved client service and business success?
  4. Non-Traditional Law Firms: How might we re-shape the narrative about the definition of lawyering and the provision of legal services to benefit legal professionals?

  
  Here is our full fall schedule of events for 2019:

  Large Firm Administrators Retreat
  August 1–3, Nashville, Tennessee

  Legal Lean Sigma^® Yellow Belt Certification Course
  September 17–18, Boston, Massachusetts

  C4 The Legal Industry^TM Conference
  Boston Park Plaza Hotel
  September 18–20, Boston, Massachusetts

  Intellectual Property Conference for Legal Management Professionals
  September 26–27, Washington, D.C.

  Advanced Human Resources Administration for Legal Management Professionals
  October 21, Seattle, Washington

  ALA Master Class: Leadership for Legal Management Professionals
  Westin
  October 21–23, Washington, Seattle

• Webinars/Other Online Education:
  The 2019 webinar schedule has been posted online and all sessions are open for registration, including subscriptions and bundle packages. AC18 conference recording bundles are now available, including bundles focused on HR, finance, law firm management essentials and C-Suite.

• Resource Hubs:
  In a crunch and looking for specific legal management knowledge, information and materials? Then you’ve found the place to be!

  
  The ALA Resource Hub is where you can soon get content and information that focus on the five areas of management: legal industry/business, operations/technology, communications, financial and human resources. Currently, the Human Resources and the Financial Management hubs are available. Get the skills and knowledge you need to be successful in your job and to grow in your career. Whether you need assistance with your area of focus in legal management or tips on how to navigate through your career path, ALA is your resource for webinars, articles, podcasts, e-learning and information. And keep checking back — we’re adding new stuff for you all the time.

  Discover recent educational material about human resources management that ALA has produced. It is available in a single place: the new Legal Management Resource Hub for HR.

  Find the recent educational material about financial management that ALA has produced. It is available in a single place: the new Legal Management Resource Hub for FM.

Goal #5 Build Community and Engagement

Build a stronger sense of community and shared purpose and increase engagement among members, chapters, business partners, and other stakeholders. 

• Social Media:
  

  ALA has launched the official ALA’s Instagram account — @ALA_buzz..
  

• Chapter Support:
  Chapter Resource Team: The Chapter Resource Team met via conference call on March 22. A number of task forces have been created to help define the role of the team, identify chapter needs, develop resources, and develop CLI session content.

  Chapter WordPress Theme: Version 1 of a WordPress-based ALA Chapter theme has been developed with collaboration from the Calgary Chapter. The theme program started several years ago as a side project to provide a consistent branding and greater interaction between the home site and chapter sites. Official implementation will be dependent upon further evaluation from our chapter partners.

General Operations

Finance, Personnel, IT, General Administration, etc. 

Headquarters Relocation:
The office relocation from the 8700 building to the 8600 building at Presidents Plaza is complete, with some minor modifications yet to be finalized. Staff have settled in and although the space is significantly smaller, the office layout works very well for us. We have rented a small storage space in the lower level of the building to accommodate our marketing and meetings materials, as well as for general storage. And once renovations are completed, we will be holding our monthly staff meetings in the on-site conference center as our current conference room is unable to accommodate our entire staff. We were able to negotiate for use of the conference center at no cost for our monthly staff meetings and board meetings. The conference center renovations should be completed and available for use in June of 2019. Pictures of our new suite follow: