Standard ‘Language’ for Legal Work Launched by Firms, Companies

A coalition of law firms, legal departments, and legal tech companies has published what it hopes will become a standardized system to describe legal matters to drive more efficient legal services.

The public release of the “Legal Matter Specification Standard” is the culmination of more than three years of work by the Standards Advancement for the Legal Industry Alliance, known as SALI.

The group in August said Microsoft Corp.’s legal department was the first to adopt the matter descriptions for an internal test.

Developing a standard language to describe legal matters is seen as crucial for the improved use of analytics in legal purchasing decisions. Microsoft, for instance, said the matter descriptions would help track law firms’ levels of experience on particular types of matters.

Law firms could also leverage the information for marketing or management decisions. Goulston & Storrs chief value officer Chris Ende said his firm had struggled with its firm-specific description of matters.

“We were excited to participate in the development of the first standard for describing matters in the legal industry, and are thrilled to see it released,” Ende said in a statement. “This collaboration among parties across the legal ecosystem represents a groundbreaking milestone for the industry in terms of quality, consistency and transparency.”

Toby Brown, a SALI board member and chief practice management officer at Perkins Coie, said SALI is also moving forward with a working group that will develop standard project codes for litigation.

Those codes would help law firms and clients better understand the specific tasks such as depositions and document production involved in litigation matters, Brown said. That would help build the data set required for more accurate pricing and legal project management tools.

SALI’s members include law firms such as Barnes & Thornburg, Clifford Chance, Fish & Richardson, Perkins Coie, Schulte Roth & Zabel, Shearman & Sterling, and Winston & Strawn. Its corporate members include Cox Automotive, GSK, Shell, Citigroup, and Microsoft.

Bloomberg Law is also a member of the SALI Alliance, and its business unit has contributed taxonomies to the group.