Using Data to Measure Quality of Legal Services

I appreciate this piece by Mona Kalantar about using data to measure the quality of legal work.

I agree that the opportunities for measurement are "endless." However, it's critical that those doing the measuring are collecting the data that will be most useful to them in their work, under their circumstances.

While it's true that there are templates and checklists as starting points, legal practices aren't cookie cutter. A good starting point would be satisfaction surveys. Yet even here, it's essential that those doing the measuring understand what "satisfied" or "unsatisfied" means to a particular lawyer's client base. A "win" for one client involved in a messy divorce where there are no winners may be very different from a "win" or positive experience for another one in a contract dispute.

I also have concerns about data-driven quality practices that result in quotas that depress employee morale.

Still, as Mona says, the opportunities are there and if implemented and leveraged well, can vastly improve a lawyer's or company's legal operations.