CASE STUDY – UK law firm Weightmans has transformed its new legal case intake process using the Lean Transformation Framework, revolutionizing both operations and people development.

Words: Stephen Hepplestall and Andrew Johnston

When a new case arrives, the first task for lawyers is often to organize the vast amount of documents that accompany it. At Weightmans, we understand this challenge all too well. With over 250 Partners and 1,600 employees, we receive a large number of new instructions daily across our nine UK locations. The document management process has traditionally been handled locally within each team. Depending on the case, this can mean managing as many as 18,000 pages for a single case.

We know that the time spent organizing documents can take lawyers away from the high-value legal work that truly benefits our clients. That's why we are dedicated to streamlining this process, reducing the time spent on administrative tasks, and enabling our teams to focus on delivering the expert legal advice and service our clients expect. By improving efficiency in document management, we ensure that more time is spent where it matters most – providing strategic, value-added legal solutions.

Our main challenge was managing the large volume of electronic documents received from clients in various formats, which also contained many duplicates. Organizing and cleaning these documents accounted for a significant portion of lawyer time, but it was non-value adding, something which was effectively non-billable work. As more of our clients adopted virtual processes, the problem intensified. This had a direct impact on the productivity of our lawyers and support staff, as well as the firm’s overall efficiency and profitability. We were committed to addressing this challenge, ensuring that more time was focused on value-adding legal work, which ultimately benefits both our clients and the firm.

Essentially, our problem was taking all this variation (both in the formats of the documents and in the different pieces of technology we use to handle them) and trying to create one way of transforming these documents into a manageable working set of papers for our lawyers to be able to start adding client value as quickly as possible.

That’s when Lean Thinking came into the picture. We saw it as an opportunity to not only improve the process but also to instil a new way of thinking in our people. We wanted a team to be completely focused on the process KPIs that truly matter, be able to understand them, talk about them and improve on them. By adopting Lean Thinking, we aimed to enhance both individual and collective performance, creating lasting value for our clients and the firm.

DISCOVERING LEAN

In the past, there had been attempts to implement Lean Six Sigma across the firm. While the concepts themselves were logical, we found that the Six Sigma component – particularly the heavy reliance on statistical analysis – didn’t feel as applicable to our work and sometimes seemed too complex for our needs. However, the Lean principles really resonated with us.

Looking back, we realized that our earlier efforts struggled because we hadn’t fully focused on the people aspect of the transformation. This time, with the support of the Lean Enterprise Academy, we were determined to take a more holistic approach that recognizes the importance of both people and process. Emphasizing the human element has made a significant difference in driving our success.

Often, Lean Six Sigma is presented as a rigid methodology focused solely on processes, while neglecting the importance of culture. For us, however, that human element is fundamental to the way we run our business. We also find that keeping it simple works best: we rely on tools that are practical, straightforward, and easy to understand, yet highly effective – like Pareto charts and the “five whys”. I think that’s the biggest shift from our previous approach. Informed by the Lean Transformation Framework, our lean initiative has proven so successful that we are now extending it to cover more areas of our operations.

THE FIRST STEPS

As ever, the gemba has the answers. When we walked it to observe the real file-handling process, we identified significant discrepancies between what lawyers needed and what they were receiving. We gathered input from lawyers, using Kano analysis to understand the essential requirements, such as having a case file opened within 24 hours, deduplicating papers, etc. We then mapped out the variation in the current processes and defined a gap between the current state and the future state. Understanding “what good looks like” was crucial to improve client satisfaction by enabling lawyers to start working on cases swiftly.

To address the inefficiencies we found, we used a structured problem-solving approach, starting with the Five Ws and Two Hs to clarify the issue. We also focused on metrics like 90% right-first-time and 90% on-time delivery.

Our key improvement was consolidating all case-related documents into a single, deduplicated bundle for each case, streamlining the review process. We implemented quality checklists, error-proofing steps, and standards for document naming and formatting. The process was iterative, involving several pilot tests and adjustments to identify the right tools, ultimately leading to a solution that met the lawyers’ requirements.

This approach helped us reduce wasted time and improve efficiency, allowing lawyers to focus on value-generating work. By addressing both technology and workflow, we created a streamlined, user-focused process that enhanced accuracy, saved time, and met client expectations for rapid case engagement.

Speaking of technology, the design and implementation of a virtual operational excellence hub was instrumental in visualizing and managing the work, which is typically hidden in computers in an office environment like ours. The hub provided a collaborative online platform with task management and various custom modules (which we designed), including a Kanban-style workflow that allows team members to see the progress of tasks at a glance. This system provides a clean and intuitive interface that traditional spreadsheets can’t offer. Additional features, like mood boards and daily performance dashboards, enabled the team to track progress, identify issues in real time, and assess the status of operations at multiple times daily. This visibility was revolutionary, helping our team to stay aligned and address problems proactively.

STANDARDIZATION IS KEY

Finding a better way of doing something won’t have much of an effect until the new process is standardized, of course. Indeed, standardization played a critical role in the success of our lean initiative, but was also one of the biggest challenges we faced. In the past, documenting best practices hadn’t ensured that they were followed consistently, but Lean Thinking – especially after our training with the Lean Enterprise Academy – changed that. We relied on Training Within Industry (TWI) to teach our people and monitor their capabilities, using daily KPI reviews to check alignment with standards. When we noticed deviations, we addressed them immediately, nudging people back on track. We adopted a critical discipline: if a process changes, the standard must change, too, and retraining must follow.

Our initial work instructions were good, but left room for interpretation. To eliminate the variation that this generated, we broke down every task into precise, single-line steps, defining exactly what people need to do. This took a few weeks, but ultimately created clarity and consistency (we also treated this process as a chance to remove waste, such as reducing repetitive actions by implementing keyboard shortcuts). In true TWI fashion, we now explain to our people each task’s purpose, which helps them to understand the significance of their work and its impact on the firm. We believe this is exactly why TWI holds such a transformative power: it emphasizes the "why" behind tasks, shifting the work from a mere chore to a valued contribution. We find it fosters buy-in, engagement, and respect, aligning everyone with the firm’s goals and the value delivered to clients.

Our detailed job instructions aren’t just guidelines; they are also a core training tool. Our training sessions involve hands-on guidance: trainees practice the steps while explaining their actions to the trainer, reinforcing their understanding. Crucially, no one is left behind: we use red and green flags to track progress, and the team moves forward only once everyone has mastered the standard.

The key enabler of our transformation has been without a doubt the management system we have put in place. Without it, none of this would work. Our teams get together first thing in the morning to review the previous day’s KPIs and see how they are doing in terms of delivery and quality. In total, they meet three times a day to track their progress against the anticipated demand. Thanks to our virtual dashboard, everybody sees the work and is therefore accountable for it. That way, they can quickly solve problems if they are behind. This requires a lot of discipline, but it pays dividends: more and more, our teams are starting to make small changes, mistake-proofing tasks and gradually improving on the process.

OUR RESULTS AND LEARNING

Thanks to our efforts, the teams’ on-time delivery of documents is at 99%, while the accuracy of what they deliver is at 95%. These figures are beyond our expectations and goals and it’s great to see the results are being sustained over time.

We have learned a lot since we first embraced Lean Thinking at Weightmans. One of the greatest lessons learned was that without a management system, proper ownership and clearly defined KPIs, it is impossible to establish standards that people stick to. It’s been incredible to see the transformation that occurs in people when they start to work to the standard: they go from being overloaded and stressed to focusing effortlessly on the tasks at hand. And that’s because standardization gives them clarity over the work they are expected to do and the tools to do that job well.

What we're trying to do now is look at how we can use our learnings to both improve our wider operational processes and double down on our people development efforts. We know that this will require spreading the “lean gospel” throughout the organization and a strong focus on coaching. We believe Weightmans is fertile ground for this: we are very much a people business, a big firm with a small firm feel.

_THE AUTHORS