SmartSTHaff, a proprietary staffing application developed by Thompson Hine LLP, took home the top honor in the category “Tech-Enabled Hybrid Work Environment” during the recent ALM Legalweek Leaders in Tech Law Awards, which recognize innovation in the legal technology sector and firms and lawyers working on precedent-setting projects and initiatives in the U.S. The app also was named one of the top two innovations in the “People and Skills Management” category in the 2022 Financial Times Innovative Lawyers North America awards, which celebrate the best innovation by law firms and in-house legal teams in the North American region.
The Financial Times also named Thompson Hine Chief Practice Innovation Officer William T. Garcia one of 10 innovative “Intrapreneurs,” hailing him as “one of the first law firm practice managers to spot the power of data and artificial intelligence” for his role in helping develop the firm’s matter budgeting and planning tool.
SmartSTHaff allocates supply and demand of staffing resources, provides real-time reporting on availability and assignment requests via optimized desktop and mobile dashboards, allows associates to “raise their hands” to indicate availability in areas in which they wish to grow, shows recent workload and hourly timekeeping, and gives partners a streamlined way to match projects with associates who have the skills and availability to take on the project.
“In addition to meeting day-to-day efficiency and operational challenges, SmartSTHaff supports broader firm policy goals and initiatives, such as diversity, equity and inclusion and retention,” said Deborah Z. Read, Thompson Hine’s managing partner. The flexible tool contracts and expands as needed when pulling from financial and matter management systems to meet the widely varying needs of different practices.
Garcia has played a pivotal role in enhancing Thompson Hine’s legal practice management technology and process initiatives since his arrival almost a decade ago. He was an integral part of the development and launch of the firm’s game-changing service delivery model, SmartPaTHTM (a 2015 FT top law firm innovation). Among its benefits, enhanced fee predictability and transparency enable lawyers to generate data-driven project-specific budgets and monitor and graphically illustrate actual-to-budget performance.
The firm currently has $396 million of projected legal fees under budget. The firm continues to add sophisticated tools and programs, including AI and its machine learning, to drive efficiency and transparency in the delivery of legal services. Its budgeting program is mandatory for some significant portion of work in most practice groups.
“Bill was focused on legal project management and innovation before most firms had even started to think about it,” said Read. “He views everything with an eye toward efficiency, predictability and transparency. I partner with Bill on our key innovation strategies, and I congratulate him on this well-deserved recognition.”