Originally recorded on the Pricing Matters Podcast by Digitory Legal. Digitory Legal is now BigHand Impact Analytics. Learn more here.

Aurelia Spivey, Marketing Consultant with BigHand, chats with Jessica Gichner, Senior Director of Pricing & LPM Solutions at Pillsbury. Jessica leads a team responsible for matter budgeting and monitoring, process improvement, legal project management, knowledge management, and technology solutions. She regularly collaborates with the firm's attorneys to develop solutions that are tailored to meet individual client needs, as well as provide transparency and predictability.

Jessica also has experience in matter management, business development coaching, marketing strategy, associate development, attorney staffing, and law firm women’s initiatives.

Prior to working in pricing and legal project management, Jessica worked as a practicing attorney at Waller Lansden Dortch& Davis LLP, where she focused on finance transactions, both as borrower’s counsel and lender’s counsel.

Top three takeaways from this episode

• As work becomes more commoditized, you need to consider how your firm can change the way the work is being done with processes or technology to match the price that the client and market will pay.

• Share data with your clients. This enables clients to be part of the pricing discussion, evaluate pricing models and get a better understanding of the work you are doing for them.

• The most successful creative fee arrangements are simple, tailored and reflect the client’s needs.

When everybody's nervous about calling the client, it's because they're going to surprise them. You're going to surprise them and really the client is not going to have a good basis of understanding what changed or why they should absorb the change.

Podcast Transcript:

Jessica Gichner
We can help them be more thoughtful on the front end and communicate more consistently throughout and wrap up that matter and get paid in a way where the client is recognizing the value the attorney brought and the attorney feels like they were appreciated. And I think that is a really great service we can help provide inside the forum.

Aurelia Spivey
Welcome to Pricing Matters, a podcast by Digitory Legal. Digitory is a data analytics and cost management platform and service, bringing data-driven pricing and cost prediction to law. My name is Aurelia Spivey, and I will be your host as we speak to leaders who are making an impact in legal pricing, discuss market trends, and find out from them why pricing matters. Welcome to the Pricing Matters podcast. Our guest this morning is Jessica Gichner. Jessica is the Senior Director of Pricing and LPM Solutions at Pillsbury. Good morning, Jessica, welcome to the podcast.

Jessica Gichner
Thanks for having me.

Aurelia Spivey
You are welcome. So I always like to start at the beginning and I think it's helpful for our listeners to hear about your background and your journey into legal pricing. So can you tell us a little bit about that?

Jessica Gichner
Yeah, certainly, I think that I have the same kind of background that a lot of our pricing professionals in the market have which is a real hodgepodge of experience. So let me hear. So I started out, I went to law school, and I graduated from law school in 2002. And I intended to have a very traditional legal career, went straight from college to law school, straight from law school to practicing in a mid-market firm based here in Nashville, and fully intended to be a partner there and have a partner career long-term. And just like often happens, life intervenes, and opportunities come up. So, over time, my husband's an attorney as well, and over time, we found that the two lawyers working two lawyers' schedules with kids, and all those things weren't necessarily compatible with a healthy lifestyle. So we started, both of us actually, looking around for ways to find a little more balance and just was really fortunate that at that time, my firm was starting to look at the changes in project management in particular that were happening, and so that was really my first entry point. As I started talking to my firm about other opportunities to serve there and project management was new, so we started talking about that and I went to a bunch of roundtables and some training, and eventually started project management as an official endeavor at that firm. Then from there, just over the years, things would happen, and I think because I had a lot of political capital at my firm, I could just try anything. So if somebody wanted research for a client done on something around improving a process, and that always kind of comes back to pricing in some way. It gives me the chance to do that research and sort of broaden my skill. So over time, I moved into pricing, and then for a while, I had business development and marketing and after several years of doing that, I had the opportunity to come and focus primarily on pricing and LPM and technology at Pillsbury. Exactly the kind of career path that I remember being frustrated by hearing about in law school, because it's not easy to plan for just a lot of opportunities, but I feel very fortunate to have had along the way.

Aurelia Spivey
Thank you for sharing that and I think it is, as you said, it's a common story in the pricing world, but the main theme there is looking for opportunities and taking them. Having built up a great reputation, that the firm trusted you to be able to do that. I think it's something that it's helpful for our listeners to hear and remember if they're looking at a change as well. So one of the things you mentioned and I'd like to dig in a little bit about is it all leads back to pricing. I think we're definitely hearing from our guests, how pricing is a real catalyst for innovation in law firms. So I'd love to hear from you, about how pricing is driving innovation at Pillsbury.

Jessica Gichner
I think for us, at least the real reason that pricing is driving innovation, which it most definitely is because for whatever reason it seems to be the entry point for discussion. Often I'll get a call from an attorney and they'll say, our client is interested in an alternative fee arrangement or they're interested in reviewing the pricing on this work that we've already done. It always starts out as if the whole conversation is going to be about the bill or about the rates or those sort of core pricing elements, but as soon as we start talking to the client, as soon as I start talking to the partners, it's always really about what is the client really need? And conversation moves towards, are we delivering service in a way that helps them be efficient internally? Or could we make some changes? Do they, is the real issue that we're having that they're asking for a price reduction is it really they're frustrated with the method of communication? For every client that wants communication to be centralized, there's a client that wants communication to be diffused. So, a lot of it really starts with that pricing conversation, but it very rarely ends up being primarily about the pricing. So, that's really why for us it's driving innovation, is because it's what starts the conversation. Then we just have to be open and listening and asking good active questions to find out from the client, what is it that they really need. Because sometimes they need certainty, but that doesn't mean that they need it to be less expensive, because sometimes certainty is more expensive. So it's just a funny conversation opener. As long as we make sure that it's not the end, some attorneys sometimes think it's supposed to be the end, oh, they need a price reduction, and so we have to give it to them. Like, well, hold on, let's ask them what they're really frustrated about. And that leads to much better, more productive, and long-term solutions that are developed cooperatively, instead of just a write-down or discount.

Aurelia Spivey
I'd love to dig in a little bit on that. It's interesting how you say, it's so easy to think about it being about the price. So tell us a little bit about tactics that you use with your attorneys, and with your clients to move the conversation from a rate reduction conversation to an innovation conversation.

Jessica Gichner
All kinds of things. I try very carefully to read the people that I'm talking to, to do a little background research, if I can, but some of it is feeling around in the dark, if it's a new relationship, either with a lawyer or to new or newer clients that we don't have a long history with. Often I try to focus questions on, are you happy with your team? Do you like the people who are doing the work? Do you feel like we've got all the right skill sets represented? Do we need to address some things around the team? Is that part of the disconnect between the value that we're providing and the price you're paying because you don't have the right team? And often the answer is no, no, we love our team. we love our teams, like okay, good, that's good. It's good to build that in the beginning, and then talk about well, on this particular matter do you feel like we understood what you defined as success? Did we understand what we needed to deliver to you? Or do we understand your risk profile and really start talking about how we've performed, and try to tease out through all of that, where the actual myth is, as opposed to just moving forward with a general sense of dissatisfaction or frustration, ask those types of things. What can we do differently? How about technology? Would you prefer if we emailed you more or email to less? Or if we corresponded through a collaborative platform, instead of the more traditional ways? Do you want standing phone calls? Do you not want standing phone calls? As we start to have those kinds of conversations, usually what's really at issue will pop out. I like to ask a lot of questions. Sometimes it makes our attorneys to ask them so many questions, because I think historically, especially when I was an associate, I remember work would come in, and I'd want to ask all kinds of questions. But the attorney is like, No, we just have to start, the client is nervous and we need to start right away. But starting right away without asking questions is more trouble and I think that there's an openness that I'm hearing at CLOC and that other companies. An openness for that dialogue that we should take advantage of because it makes it better for everybody.

Aurelia Spivey
I love that, we've heard a lot about that sort of curiosity and your role being about asking questions. I think that I'm going to lead on to another question here about engagement because what, we know that there is this risk averseness and I'm glad that we're seeing that openness now. So how do you get lawyers to engage with you on pricing in as many matters as possible from the outset? So that you aren't, as you say, down the line having not asked the questions and not priced things out well. Give us some tactics and approaches that you use.

Jessica Gichner
Well, we have some good structure inside the firm that I think helped facilitate some of that, definitely not perfect, and hope to grow it over time. We have two primary committees that approve a fee arrangement, one is our contingency fee committee that manages our whole portfolio contingency matters and one is our other alternative fees committee. So before I even started, they already had sort of a workflow in place that if you wanted to put in place a budget or a significant discount, or a blended rate, or a real robust AFA, that you had to run that through the committee. Now with me on board, and I've been with Pillsbury for almost three years now, most of those get routed, if they didn't come through me beforehand, those committees will say, Well, wait for a second, did you do any modeling with the pricing team, and send them back to us. I prefer that they know about us from the outset and give us an opportunity to model from the beginning, because usually if they've already asked for fee committee approval, it does mean that we've got a hurry. Once that happens then the attorney knows the process, and generally, we work really hard to be an ally, for the attorneys, as opposed to viewing us as a roadblock, we're trying to be a facilitator, tell them, look, we have some good knowledge of what the committee's will and won't approve and if we work together, we can help you put this together in a way that's the most likely to be approved and to be successful for you. All I really have to do, all we have to do is kind of do that once with each attorney. Now we have a lot of lawyers, so I'm still working my way through the list, our team is, but that's really how it's built up over time for us. And I anticipate that as we get more sophisticated, we've been working hard in my three years here to build tools and reports and information. So that it's a streamlined workflow, where they get their budget to actual reports regularly and all those sorts of things, and that's been a long time to build. Once that's all really settled, which hopefully will be soon, I think the next level then is to get a little bit more strict about some of that and also to encourage smaller matters. We have, our attorneys have a lot of latitude on their smaller matters, but they could learn good habits on the smaller matters, that would translate to the larger matters. So that's sort of the next thing is, how to push it down to the smaller things, because we're mostly scooping up the big stuff, the big risky stuff.

Aurelia Spivey
Yeah, that makes sense. I'd love to talk a little bit more about the project management element of that because you mentioned some of the tools that you're using and the workflow. So how does that go interact at Pillsbury?

Jessica Gichner
Some of its humans still, well a lot of it is still very human. Because our team is pricing and project management and km and practice solutions, we tend to try to look at each project and figure out which combination of us the project needs and shepherd it through that way. So, sometimes somebody comes in and they have been managing litigation matters for years and years and years with great success and we really just don't want to mess with them. They have good communication with their clients and all of that. And so we'll help them set up a budget, they'll get a weekly budget to actual report and we leave them alone. For other people who are newer to it or who have matters that have had inconsistent results in the past, as far as managing to a budget or managing to a fee arrangement, for them we will talk to them about how we can help them. Do we set up, besides the reporting, can we talk to them about workflows and staffing? We definitely have a lot of staffing conversations about changing the way people think about staffing their matters, and in how many partners belong in a matter of things like that. So we do, but a lot of it is very human. The reports are automated, which I'm excited about, but a lot of the rest of it is triaging it when it comes in and trying to figure out which combination of things they could use. And often, a good catalyst like we talked about before with the pricing being a starting point is, when we have something that's, We've all seen this in the market, right? Where areas of work that used to be very prestige over time have become more automated or more formulaic, wills and estate, leasing work, lots of EEOC claims, all kinds of things, pockets of work that 20 years ago or whatever were really bespoke, and now they've become more automated. So sometimes we'll look at the work that they're talking about doing and if the price doesn't match up with the way they've historically managed it, that's a great time to have that conversation about, should these be templated forms. Should we be using technology to simplify this? Or should this really be run by paralegals under attorney supervision? How do we change how the work is being done to match the price that you're telling us that the client and the market will pay for the work, because if they are not going to pay bespoke rates any more then we have to look at it differently. So it is still a very hands-on process, but I think we're helpers and I think that that helps build good rapport inside the firm and helps attorneys be more open to those kinds of conversations. Because it is a little scary when somebody comes and tells you, you should change the way you practice, which is part of what's happening in law right now.

Aurelia Spivey
Absolutely, and it's the change management aspect it seems, and that does involve people. So I think we're never going to get away from the people. The technology needs to match what the people in the process need. But that's fantastic and I imagine it's been a real journey to get that level of trust and be able to have people come to you and trust you with, which are real economic and personal problems in a way. If your practice is changing that much. So from the people, I'd love to talk a little bit about the data that you're able to use in this pricing process. What are your challenges? What are some successes that you've had in leveraging data and your pricing and practice management?

Jessica Gichner
Yeah, there are lots of challenges with the data. In large part, like everybody knows me, time entry is a miserable process for the attorneys. When I was an attorney practicing, I did transactional work, and I blocked build everything. Eight hours in a single day, on one matter, just working on documents for closing and that's not particularly. So, I joke a lot that about 80% of the frustration that I read is probably my fair due to how I behaved as a practicing lawyer. Because I know that I did a lot of the things that now make it make it difficult for people in pricing-type positions to find all that gold in the mess that is the data. So, the data is messy because often you have block bills, or you have, there was a time when fees for services rendered were acceptable. There's a lot of time, there was a time when work on file was fine. And so, the time entry narratives are a challenge, but I also, I think there's enough good in there, that if we combined some use of good research with what we know now, we get close enough, I'm trying not to be perfect on the data, because I think that that can lead to endless, endless cycles through it. But we have some tools that we use, that are available publicly in the market, that apply some, read the metadata on our matters and our time entries and try to help us break them down and into their component pieces that are a little bit more useful. We use that, we've always had a lot of coding here, we code our matters by the matter type, which can be very helpful. And then, of course, we use these in tax codes when appropriate and we also are very active in making sure that the industry of the clients that we represent is well reflected. So we have a lot of data, it's just the humaneness, the human part of it because no two people code the same thing exactly the same way and no two people write what they did, even if they were doing the same kind of work. They don't write the same way in their time entry. So the data is tough, but we have had some good success with it, especially this year. We went through and did a big analysis of our due diligence work portfolio. How much we do, who's doing the work, whether we're pushing it down to the right levels, and how it's changed over a five-year look back. And I felt like that was a really successful project for us, that shows that our work on our data, up to now, is worthwhile. There are tons more to do, but really very helpful. Similarly, we did some great analysis on IPO work, that was hugely helpful. And now we're working on a lot of work around our contingency matters, and I feel pretty positive on being able to leverage that internal data, to help us figure out how to price, how to manage, how to evaluate cases for success, and things like that.

Aurelia Spivey
Well, it sounds like you guys are doing a lot of great things and I can relate to a number of things that you talked about. Obviously, we see all of those interesting time narratives here at Digitory and obviously, on the historical data analysis, we're also big believers in how you can leverage that for future pricing, I think you gave some great points that I think our listeners if they're not doing it will be able to think about the different types of matters that you can look at and the types of information you can draw from it. So thank you for sharing that I think it's really important for everyone to know, we're all in the same boat and we're all making progress in some way, shape, or form. We talked a little bit, when you talked about the committees, you talked about the different contingency fee committees and other alternative fees. It would be great to hear from you, any trends that you're seeing in alternative fees at the moment, from your clients?

Jessica Gichner
I don't know if I'm seeing any real trends or changes. I would say that, and I feel like all of my peers would laugh with us, still, the majority of us get what we get asked to do, regardless of what we propose, is still this discount. I think that's reflective, that it says that we haven't quite figured out the alternative fee arrangements space quite yet. So a lot of that's still, we've been getting a lot of RFP requests that have asked for portfolio pricing and details like that, but those are really hard to do. We've been finding that, that's a place where I think we could use some better dialogue with our clients. Is that in an RFP, trying to do some really complex pricing around a hodgepodge of work, especially if they're doing a panel reduction, that those are really hard to do. I think that maybe that's why we're not really getting great traction on the other types of fee arrangements. I think where we do have better success is when we do something that's really simple, with a client on a particular matter, or a really discrete group of matters. Where the client feels comfortable evaluating the success of the fee arrangement. I think that that's part of why a lot of them haven't been successful, not just because of the like, the RFP asks where they are so broad, that we can't define them very well, but also, I think if a client doesn't know how to evaluate whether this feels like a good deal, or feels like a fair way to price something, then they shy away from it or they do it once and then they wish they hadn't done it or are frustrated afterward. I think that's part of why there haven't been nearly as many, like the big change, the death of the billable hour, and everybody going to 80% fee arrangements, all these things that were supposed to happen. I think that's why but so our successes lately, especially around creative fee, and arrangements, is when they're really simple and very tailored and really reflect that. As conversations I've mentioned before, what are your pressure points, what are the needs of your legal department, and What does success look like? Is this a repeatable thing that we could do again and therefore we can come up with pricing that takes into account a larger portfolio of matters, so that we don't instead of we smooth them all out, instead of having spikes between the different projects, things like that seem to be more successful. But again, no like specific, we're seeing all blended rates or we're seeing collars or we're seeing all different types of risk-sharing arrangements. It's more about just the one-on-one building of fee arrangements that seems to be successful for us right now.

Aurelia Spivey
That's really interesting to hear and when you're talking, what I'm hearing is that collaboration piece. And I'd love to talk a little bit more about how you, you've described really well some of the ways you are engaging with clients in the pricing process, but are there any other tactics that you have that you could share? Because you're asking some great questions and then creating a bespoke product seems to be what I'm hearing. Is there anything else that you would like to share with the listeners?

Jessica Gichner
For existing clients, with where we have those good relationships, sharing data can be really helpful. I think right now clients are, especially when using the billing vendors, they are gathering a lot of data about our billing practices anyway. But being really transparent with them and saying, part of the reason that we came up with this pricing is because we looked at what we've been doing with you over the last couple of years and the efficiencies that we've gained, or the changes that we've made, or the staffing shifts that we've put in place, and how that helps us think that this is the right way to go. We've done, we have some clients for whom we've done some big data analysis on their matters over time, with the idea being we're going to step through a couple of different things. First, we're going to, based on the data we have, we're going to go to a blended rate for a couple of years and then based on some more data gathering, we think we'll be able to go to a portfolio price, based on some volume assumptions, based on information. I think they really like being part of that discussion and understanding, okay, if they send us more work, we have to take that into account, but if we have a couple of years of patterns of data of, this is about what you usually send us per year, do you think there's going to be an uptick? Or do you think that's about right? They can say, oh, yeah, that really is what we're going to do again this year, that does make sense that the pricing would be similar and that we can maybe find some efficiencies by changing these couple of things. Like that conversation, I think, is really productive and then it gets rid of some of that black box feeling that I think can come from just traditional hourly law firm pricing.

Aurelia Spivey
I honestly couldn't agree with you on the power of data to be able to move relationships forward. And I agree, I think that is the piece that clients really value, and removing that black box element is really going to make an impact, so I love you sharing that. Thank you so much.

I wanted to talk a little bit about the pricing team and the legal practice management team or legal project management team. I'd love to talk about, we talked a little bit about the collaboration already, but could you tell us a bit about the evolution of these roles at Pillsbury, and what you've seen over the three years that you've been there?

Jessica Gichner
There, the rolls themselves are still, I would say, a little fuzzy around the edges. When I first did training in project management, it was very much about the scoping and the RACI chart and it was a very structured discipline, I guess. Then pricing is a separate discipline. But for me in this experience, both of my prior firm and here, the edges really bleed between the two of them in particular, because the attorneys, they don't care, right, they just want help. And so what we've done and continued to do because we are young in our group, is really trying to cross-train people across a couple of the related disciplines in our group. So that you don't just have a siloed pricing and siloed project management. For example, our pricing analyst just went and did some project management training in New York a couple of weeks ago because I think that while her primary role is to work with attorneys on their budgets and managing to those budgets, being conversant in, well, this seems like it's getting out of control, is it time for communication with the client. Having that bleeding over into the LPM space, I think makes a lot of sense. I think we found that trying to combine three disciplines is probably too much, so being pricing, project management, and like KM, for example, that's too many things to try to be knowledgeable about at one time, but we're trying to cross train and have people knowledgeable about each other's work. And also, we're a small team. I think you had mentioned when we talked earlier about most groups only having two or three people in pricing and project management, and that's definitely us. We're small and so we have to just from necessity, we have to be flexible.

Aurelia Spivey
I think that leads me very nicely into my next question, which is around prioritizing in a team of that size. How do you do that? What are your, what is your focus? And what advice would you give to other teams who are also mostly in that range, as we said?

Jessica Gichner
We are focused in, I think we've got kind of some top-down focus, and maybe some bottom-up focus. So the top-down focus is really on the bigger matters that are higher risk to the firm, big and multi-year litigation matters, big contingency fee matters, big transactions, and things like that. Those tend to be where we focus the most of our energy, but, and training and doing training programs and coaching for the partners that manage those that work. But also trying to get in front of associates and counsel about, you're going to grow into the role of being responsible for managing these matters, so here are some things that you really need to do. Our theme right now is really primarily around communication, because I think a lot of the other stuff can get sorted out, as long as you have really good and healthy communication back and forth between the client. And the associates can practice that by communicating well with their attorney, their lead partners, by saying, you budgeted 50 hours for me this month and there's no way that I can get done what you've asked me to get done in 50 hours, and here's why. That educates the partner as to whether their assumption, they made an assumption that was wrong in setting the budget for that month for that associate that way or it might be that the associate actually needs more guidance and if they had a clearer picture of what they were supposed to do, they could complete it and allocated time. If they practice that with the lead partners on their matters, ultimately, they'll then be, have practiced it enough to hopefully do it successfully with their clients. So, trying to tackle it from both ends a little bit, knowing that we are never going to reach everybody at our current pace. I do anticipate that we will grow over the next couple of years but we're not a fast staffing firm when it comes to things like this. So I think we'll always be a little shy of what exactly we and I would dream that we would have staffing-wise.

Aurelia Spivey
I don't think you are alone. What I'd love to talk a bit more about I mean, I love this communication theme. How do you coach your team and those associates to have those conversations? Because I imagine they're not straightforward, to be able to tell someone that they have budgeted incorrectly. Do you have any tactics for that?

Jessica Gichner
It's really not that bad to do if you did the work on the front end. If you clearly defined what the matter is, you were clear as to what was not in the budget, and what was in the budget, and who was going to do the work then. Then while they're nobody's favorite conversations, they're not, they don't make you sweaty and shaky, the thought of calling a client about it, right? When everybody's nervous about calling the client, it's because they're going to surprise them. You're going to surprise them and really the client is not going to have a good basis of understanding what changed or why they should absorb the change. So, for a lot of the conversations we have, just have a good conversation, to begin with, and figure out what the client's expectations are. If the client can't, and we also say a lot, if the client can't tell you what they think the matter involves, if they can't scope it out, how can we how can we set a budget? So let's maybe talk to them about budgeting a smaller portion of it and then having a check in four weeks. So we'll just budget the four weeks, what we know we're going to do, and then in four weeks we'll have a check in and then we'll talk again. Those types of things I think are a lot easier when they've already done the pre-work, to figure out the matter in advance. When it is scary and it's a mess and they're going to call and they know the client is going to be really surprised. On those we tell them, you can have them be this surprised today or you can have them be twice as surprised three weeks from now, so why don't we just do it now? Because they're never going to get away from having the conversation, right, it's just going to continue to build up and get worse. Sometimes it's just, also, and just be ready to take it. If the client is frustrated, let them vent that at you and say, we understand, and then maybe we also have to go in prepared for taking some responsibility for not having communicated. That means we're going to have to eat some of the difference and that can happen, but it also can help mollify a client, we've been surprised. So that's something we sometimes have to be ready to do.

Aurelia Spivey
I love the phrase, that they will be twice as surprised, but I also love the tactic that you described in terms of budgeting a small piece and then checking in. I think that if people aren't doing that, I think that's something really helpful for people listening because that is going to make all the difference in terms of not having the second surprise conversation. So that's really helpful information. And this brings me to my next question, which is around challenges. I'd love to hear from you know, what are the grace greatest challenges that your team is facing and if you have any stories of overcoming some of those challenges, that would also be helpful for us to hear.

Jessica Gichner
Things that are challenging are, we've been asked to jump in on a lot of matters that are already underway, and that can be a really tough thing to do. To take something and try to unstitch all the work that's already been done and understand why the matter is where it is and then try to figure out where it's going forward. That can be really challenging and difficult. And then sometimes attorneys, they, it's a very personal practice, right, that what they do, I definitely felt this way when I practiced, what they do is really a reflection of their integrity and how thoughtful and detailed they are. So one of the things that's hard to talk to them about is the changing, what I would say, sort of risk tolerance of clients. When I was growing up as a lawyer the attorneys would often say things like, we're going to do whatever it takes to get this done regardless. Maybe we agreed on the price and we're going to go way over, but we're going to do all it takes to protect this client. But at times, I've had responses from clients that say, we're adults, we're sophisticated businesses, and we have a risk tolerance, and we'd like to have a business conversation with our lawyers about what we want you to lawyer away, what risk should be, you should lawyer down to zero and what risks we're willing to accept. Because while the dollar amount of something bad in that area going wrong, and that dollar amount could be high, the risk of it happening with a 2% risk, so we'll accept that risk, rather than pay for the legal time and research to be perfect on it. That's definitely another place that can be very challenging, which is changing that mindset. I think different people do it at different firms a different ways. Me and my team, we're very much a one heart and mind at a time, working with one person at a time. And I think that as we've worked through those types of concepts with people over time, we build that trust, and that helps, that really helps. One of the biggest things that I find that helps us get over any sort of friction or humps with the attorneys that we're working with, is just letting them tell us how hard it is because it's a really tough job. And I think often, administrative staff in law firms, we have a job to do, but the attorneys, nobody's listening to the attorneys, who are really struggling with how much they're supposed to know. They're supposed to be good lawyers, they are supposed to be good at business, they are supposed to get their time in on time, they're supposed to read prebuild, and catch every time an associate actually writes the word meeting, and get through that time entry or whatever they're supposed to do. They can get very overwhelmed by all that. So I find that if we're good listeners at the beginning, that also gets us over a lot of the, maybe initial mistrust of somebody who's trying to get up in their business about the way they run their law practice.

Aurelia Spivey
I love that empathy and I totally agree with you. It is a tough job and I'm sure that your team really appreciates it, and I think the team of lawyers that you work with really appreciate that approach. Thank you for sharing, that was really helpful. What are the skills that you think are most important for this role? I'm particularly referring to the hybrid role that you have at Pillsbury, with the pricing and LPM side of it.

Jessica Gichner
I'm probably a little bit biased, based on my experience and my background, but I do think, well, I don't think that everybody who's in pricing, or project management needs to be a lawyer. We have lots of wonderful people on our team and other teams that we work with, that are not lawyers. I do find that having a practice, having been a partner at a law firm, and having done a lot of experience, a lot of the lawyer pain, really gives me a shortcut in my communications with our attorneys. And so, I think that at least having some people who have been practicing attorneys on the team can be really helpful. At the same time, I think somebody's got to be great with the numbers. I would say, I am good with the numbers but I'm not an analyst. So, I do a lot of conceptual work and details with our lawyers and I can run models and projections and stuff, but we definitely people on our team have really deep skill sets, at doing really fine deep data analysis, And I think that's a skill that's important on the team. I think that for everybody, I think having a sense towards, are we, is what we're doing scalable, is really helpful, because it can be very tempting inside of a law firm, to just give every single attorney exactly what they want. But we have, but I don't think we're really doing our job, if we don't push back and tell them, if we do this, this way on this for you, it's not going to translate to any of your other work, so every report you will get on every matter is going to be unique and different, and I don't see how that helps you. You know, really what you should want is something that makes it simple for you to look across all your matters, regardless of what kind of matter they are, this one's an IPO, this one's a merger agreement and this one's general corporate advice. It should still all roll up into something that you can digest quickly and easily. But I think we have to be pragmatic and be able to communicate all of that. Some of the, I don't know, there's such, a lot of soft skills, I think, are required. Empathy, I think is really important because I think it does help open the door. Attorneys will share with us if they trust us and feel like we're listening. So it's a combination of things that we have on our team right now that I'm really happy about. I'd like, I think I'd like if I could staff it with any more that I could, I would like a few more people with law backgrounds and project management training. And I would like a few more people with like data science type background, which I think is also becoming very popular. The data scientist is, that is one of our buzzwords right now in legal.

Aurelia Spivey
It is, but I love that, and I love what I'm hearing that there is diversity and balance, and you cannot underestimate the soft skills in any business. But particularly what I've been hearing from guests on the show, is that soft skills piece. To be able to do the work that you do. This has been a wonderful conversation and because our podcast is called pricing matters, my last question is always, Jessica, why does pricing matter to you?

Jessica Gichner
I think it's because I really, I love lawyers. I don't exactly know why. I guess it's all that time working with them and being one and all that. But I really have a heart for how hard it is to practice and what a challenging job it is. And so, it matters to me I think because it's a place where we can provide support and help to those lawyers, help them be successful in their work, and also help them realize the value of the work that they do and what they give up. A lot of attorneys they miss birthday parties and dinners and canceled vacations and do a lot of things because they need to be there when the work is there. And so, for them to feel like, to do all that work and then have a conversation with the client, where the clients really angry about a bill, kind of devalues all that time and effort that they put into it. So if we can help them be more thoughtful on the front end and communicate more consistently throughout and wrap up that matter and get paid in a way where the client is recognizing the value the attorney brought and the attorney feels like they were appreciated. And I think that is a really great service we can help provide inside the forum.

Aurelia Spivey
I can relate to everything you said and thank you so much for being a guest on our show.

Jessica Gichner
Oh, no, my pleasure

Aurelia Spivey
Thank you for listening to Pricing Matters, a podcast Digitory Legal. To find out more about our guests please visit our podcast page. If you have any feedback or guests that you think we should feature, please reach out to me. Thank you for listening, see you next time.