3 True Outcomes: Sabermetrics for Lawyers

I’ve been kicking around the idea of using sports statistics as a basis to create legal practice metrics for a long time now, and was even more interested after reading Moneyball by Michael Lewis.

I would love to get a discussion going here as to what these metrics might look like.  To kick things off, I would suggest we think about the concept of 3 True Outcomes.  This concept is used in baseball when evaluating pitchers.  Generally, baseball stats experts (often known as “sabermatricians“) start with the idea that once a hitter hits a pitch and puts it into play, the pitcher has little to no control as to whether or not the pitch will be fielded for an out or allowed to drop in for a hit.  So, to more accurately evaluate the pitcher’s actual performance, instead of the fielders behind him, sabermatricians often focus on what the pitcher can control:

(1) Home runs.
(2) Strikeouts.
(3) Walks.

While reading Beyond the Boxscore the other day, I realized that the transactional work I’ve spent my entire career performing is quite similar to pitching.  There are aspects to negotiating a contract which are completely within my control, and there are other aspects that are not (e.g., obtaining a response from a client, getting a response from the other side, the other side providing revisions).

What can I control?  I think there are, for a transactional attorney, at least 3 True Outcomes:

(1) 1st Client Meeting.  This is where I gather all essential information from the client necessary to provide a 1st draft of the contract, and formulate a client approved negotiating strategy.
(2) 1st Draft to Other Side.  This is where I send a 1st draft to the other side for their review.
(3) Revision Turnaround.  This is how long it takes me, once I receive a revised draft from the other side (or the 1st draft if I don’t control the paper), to turn a draft and provide my own revisions for the other side’s review.

How would a legal 3 True Outcomes statistic be formulated?  Well, one could create a cycle time (”CT“) stat and check the lawyer’s CT regularly.  This would allow one to get a quick snapshot on which lawyers in your organization are turning drafts quickly and which are not.  One could also break it down by each outcome, and have:

(1) 1CT: to see how long it takes me to do a 1st draft and formulate a client approved negotiating strategy.
(2) 2CT: to know how long it took me to provide a 1st draft to the other side (for deals where I do the 1st draft).
(3) 3CT: to know how long it took me to turn a draft after receiving a revised version from the other side (or if the other side did the 1st draft).

Of course, like any statistic, it may or may not reflect the attorney’s level of efficiency.  For instance, an attorney that has an extremely fast CT might not be following an effective negotiating strategy and may be unnecessarily lengthening the negotiation with endless revisions.  But this risk is true of all statistics.

What statistics are effective at is drawing our attention to an issue we may otherwise be unaware of.  In a world where people often refer to the law group as the “Sales Prevention Department,” it would be of tremendous value to see who is actually moving the ball and who is not, then analyzing what the efficient lawyers are doing and building their wisdom into the process so we can improve everyone’s performance.  Without statistics, such as, perhaps, CT, we cannot do this effectively.

What does everyone think?  Thank you for your time.

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