Midsize and large firms have become more business-like in recent years. Under pressure from CFOs, general counsel apply pressure to law firm partners who apply pressure to associates. Many firms have hired pricing professionals, but you also need new technology to enable each lawyer in the firm to effectively meet this challenge.
Thomson Reuters Panoramic in One Sentence
Launched recently, Thomson Reuters Panoramic is a cloud-based legal workflow solution that brings together the practice and business of law.
The Killer Feature
Many midsize and large firms use services such as Practical Law Connect, which groups Practical Law's checklists, forms, practice notes, and other secondary sources so you can get up-to-speed faster when starting a project. However, given today's budgetary pressures, your firm also needs tools that provide for accurate and profitable pricing, effective guidance on which tasks to perform, and accountability for keeping matters on track.
Panoramic brings Practical Law content and your firm's matters together within a suite of project management and reporting tools. The data comes from integrations with Elite's 3E financial management solution.
You — the lawyer managing a matter — start in Panoramic by selecting the appropriate Matter Map. A Matter Map is a collection of tasks for a matter type such as a federal district court litigation, M&A transactions, etc. Your lawyers can customize Matter Maps. For example, your firm might have a preferred court for patent infringement matters in which case you could incorporate that court's rules into the Matter Map for such cases.
After assigning a Matter Map to a new matter, use the Facts of the Matter scoping tool to create a Work Plan for the new matter. Here you can remove irrelevant tasks, add tasks not in the parent Matter Map, assign tasks to associates, prioritize tasks, and set deadlines.
Next, use the Budget tool to estimate the cost of each phase and its tasks. As you use Panoramic, you can eliminate guesswork and create budgets based on your firm's actual historical data. You can also create templates for common matters, or copy a prior similar matter, dramatically reducing setup time for a new matter.
A Matter Map in Thomson Reuters Panoramic.
Other Notable Features
The Matters Directory lists all active matters as well as those you manage (My Matters). At a glance, the Matters Directory shows you worked actuals to budget for each matter, and which matters are overbudget or at risk.
Panoramic's My Tasks page shows associates all their assigned tasks and due dates. Each task lists the steps to perform and provides guidance on the questions and risks the lawyer should consider. Tasks and subtasks within a matter link to corresponding Practical Law resources and to your firm's own documents from prior matters that relate to the task at hand. This puts quality documents in front of associates precisely at their time of need. Each task also contains threaded comments in which you and your team can communicate.
Panoramic enables associates to record time spent on a task without needing to look up billing codes. A built-in timer within each task facilitates accurate time entries. Alternatively, the Reconstruct My Day feature in Panoramic lists all the tasks the associate worked on for one-click time entries. As a result, Panoramic automatically matches actuals to the correct budget line items and flags potentially problematic time entries.
What Else Should You Know?
Panoramic's administration tools enable you to create user roles and limit access to information (e.g., show junior associates the budget but not the profit). Integrations with products such as Intapp Walls prevent conflicts. Explore Thomson Reuters Panoramic and bookmark the website.
Meet Neil J. Squillante
Neil J. Squillante is the founder and publisher of TechnoLawyer, an award-winning network of free email newsletters for lawyers and law office administrators. Many consider TechnoLawyer the only email subscription they need. Previously, Neil practiced commercial litigation at Am Law 100 firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher. He received his J.D. from UCLA School of Law and his B.A. from Duke University.
