e’re more than happy to be the first call for compliance crisis management and litigation fire fighting. By all means. But what really floats our boat is delivering long-term value through the application of engineering problem-solving tools to our client’s most gnarly and solution resistant litigation and compliance issues. For instance, we worked with a global manufacturer to develop and implement a better system to capture and curate their priceless “lessons learned.” We often find that clients already have the necessary elements for a solution in place. Sometimes all it takes is a fresh set of eyes to leverage existing resources and implement the sort of day-to-day business process improvements that will prevent the next crisis.

illions of dollars worth of hard-won solutions to bet-the-company litigation and compliance crises at Fortune 100 companies made it abundantly clear to us that lawyers need to adopt the sort of structured problem-solving techniques long utilized by engineering disciplines.

It seemed apparent to us that these techniques and tools, which had long been used and understood in business (but not by law departments) could play an important role in identifying and implementing effective and sustainable solutions to traditionally “legal” problems in litigation and compliance.

We asked ourselves why and quickly determined that the difference lay in the use of structured problem-solving processes. We took it upon ourselves to incorporate process where possible to assist our clients with their litigation and compliance issues.

hrough the years we’ve tried out dozens of excellent problem-solving processes such as Kepner-Tregoe, 8D, 5-Whys, Ishikawa, Kaizen and so on.

What we determined is that, like a lot of things, you get out of these processes what you put into them.

We’ve also learned that our clients want solutions as quickly and inexpensively as possible. They don’t care if a solution is state-of-the-art or back-of-the-napkin. Clients need to know if it works. Is it efficient, durable, sustainable, scalable, and implementable? Boiled down, successful processes require integrity, simplicity, clarity, focus, and discipline.

ragmatic risk-based model for e-discovery. Provides accurate, real-time spend against budget and effectively balances court expectations, custodian burden, and the costs of processing and review. We help business systematically identify strategic matters for early special handling.

We help business utilize real-time, contextually relevant analysis of planned versus actual litigation activity and spend to achieve transparency, allocate resources according to business goals and facilitate nimble legal pivots.

We help business improve ROI and transform legal operations from cost centers to profit centers. We’ve helped clients implement simple quality control tools to reduce cost and improve predictability and consistency.

We have deep expertise successfully running and resolving high-risk litigation and investigations in subject matter areas including Antitrust, Casualty, Class Actions, Environmental, Insurance Coverage, Intellectual Property, Mass Tort, Multi District Litigation, Product Liability, Recovery Litigation, and RICO.

We have deep and broad expertise applying a wide range of tools to more efficiently and effectively manage litigation risk in a way that is aligned with larger business goals.

The tools and techniques that we utilize include root cause analysis, analytics, decision tree analysis, eDiscovery, jury research, SMART matter budgeting, subpoena & service of process management, and others.

tay harmonized and in tune globally and enterprise wide with your ethical aspirations. Stay in compliance with the regulations and requirements that apply to your business.  Develop and maintain processes that detect compliance failures before they get out of hand. Learn how to capture the lessons inherent in your largest headaches and convert them into institutional knowledge efficiently shared across enterprises and regions.

We’ve got deep experience helping clients with effectively managing their risk in relation to compliance areas such as ABAC, Anti-Corruption, Customer Requirements, Data Privacy, “Due Care” Requirements, Environmental Requirements, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), ISO 37001, Product Safety (NHTSA, CPSC, etc.), Record Retention, Litigation Holds, Sarbanes-Oxley and other Regulatory Requirements.

ood compliance and regulatory risk management processes aren’t a burden. They’re no more an impediment to business than a gas gauge is to a driver. They’re just a tool to help manage resources to reduce compliance and regulatory risk.

We help clients get ahead of and favorably influence regulation by monitoring and responding to rule-making. We help clients coordinate with industry groups to maximize the influence of their research and development. We help clients interface with regulatory authorities and negotiate favorable resolutions to regulatory subpoenas and investigations.

We work with clients to develop and implement an integrated framework of processes that shield the business from individual and systemic failures. We help clients develop and implement policies that discourage compliance failures and encourage necessary escalation.

Contact us in confidence for more information or a courtesy evaluation.

appiness is helping clients discover and implement elegant solutions to gnarly problems.  Our deep experience and expertise in legal and process expertise to help you through this process. Better yet, don’t wait for a crisis. We love working proactively with data analytics to improve your litigation and compliance management results.

riving the successful resolution of $ billions in Fortune litigation and compliance crises taught us a few things. As reflected in our 5-step approach, integrity and simplicity matter most. Each of these steps is prerequisite to a solution. First, contain the damage. Make sure the fire is out before pointing fingers. Second, define the problem. You can’t fix what you can’t name. Third, set team and operating parameters. Ambiguity invites chaos. Fourth, investigate thoroughly. Validate all rational hypotheses. Fifth, take prompt corrective action consistent with the root cause(s).

ailing to fully contain the problem at the outset will mean greater losses even if the process eventually uncovers the true root cause. Lack of definition or communication about the scale and nature of the problem means you will be aiming at a constantly moving target. Neglecting to report or escalate at each phase gate results in surprise and makes it difficult if not impossible to obtain buy in from the profit and loss owner and other stakeholders. The exclusion of a reasonable hypothesis from consideration for territorial or financial reasons can delay the determination of the true root cause.

lients are already seeing better results in their litigation and compliance matters, due to the incorporation of data analytics and decision tree analysis. Our success with e-Discovery data analytics speaks for itself. We work with existing people, processes, and technologies to identify and collect valuable data latent in existing systems. We help you categorize, organize and analyze that data. We help you extract the essence from that data to generate actionable real time reporting on compliance and litigation matters. We help you utilize process discipline to get your data in front of the right people, at the right time, in the right context.

ffectively measure improvements in the quality of litigation and compliance decisions. We help you demonstrate the value of your legal department with improved alignment between strategy and effort. We help you demonstrate the value of your legal department with increasingly accurate budgets, reserves, and results. SMART planning eliminates unnecessary spend by keeping vendors focused on your strategic goals. SMART makes it easy for all vendors to generate consistent, harmonized budgets in your format. SMART dynamically links litigation and compliance strategy, budget, effort expended, and time billed with your litigation and compliance strategies. SMART gives clients real-time visibility and control over which time billers are able to bill time to their matters, for what purpose and at what rate. Clients access and approve litigation and compliance plans through the SMART client portal. All time billed to SMART matters must be linked to an approved timekeeper. All time billed to SMART matters must be at an approved rate. All time billed to SMART matters must be linked to an approved strategy or goal. In-house counsel has real-time, at-a-glance visibility to time billed against the strategy and budget. No more throwing good money after bad. By eliminating surprises and facilitating nimble legal pivots, SMART law departments never miss settlement opportunities.

hese days, it’s not enough to build a better, cheaper mousetrap. To be sustainably profitable, products must navigate a minefield of conflicting regulatory schemes, social media attacks, and product liability lawsuits. We help clients proactively develop systematic processes to assure that your products comply with regulatory, customer and “due care” requirements.

Acme Gear provides Ace Automotive with gear assemblies manufactured to a 0.001 mm tolerances. Bear Gear supplies a component that mates with the Acme Gear component. All supplied components are within specification, but when mated together, the stacked tolerances result in failure. Whose problem is this? IT depends, but it could easily belong to Ace Automotive. We can help you develop the best solution which is to avoid tolerance stacking issues through the use of rigorous DFMEA and PFMEA processes.

You face a potential product safety crisis. Can you rely on your internal processes to capture data early, determine root cause and escalate for action? We can help you by facilitating structured problem solving, avoid confirmation bias, and efficiently establish true root cause. We help you reach the right solution faster and cheaper.

The news reports that accident victims are saying your product harmed them. With a 24-hour news cycle and viral social media, how much time do you have? We can help you be prepared to systematically explain what you did and why. We can help you get ready to demonstrate the rationale behind your safety critical engineering and business decisions.