Corporate Legal Operations Services

MWAccel, a professional services arm of McGuireWoods and McGuireWoods Consulting, appreciates the increased focus on the operations of legal departments. Building out these operational capabilities is a growing priority, as legal teams support the dynamic needs of the businesses in which they operate. MWAccel provides customized legal operations consulting services to help clients strategize and address their highest priorities. Services include:

• Strategy development
• Technology strategy
• Law firm management/convergence
• Change management
• Vendor risk management techniques
• Process/efficiency improvements
• Organization structure/alignment
• Capacity planning (staffing)
• Reporting/dashboards/data analytics
• Cost reduction/containment methodology
• Onboarding (new hire) best practices

Data Analytics

MWAccel analyzes large quantities of data and employs techniques to drive innovation. Leveraging the skills of data scientists, engineers and analysts, the MWAccel team serves as consultants for legal matters by helping uncover answers to commonly asked questions such as:

• What is the potential exposure?
• What are the potential damages?
• What is the optimal settlement allocation?

Using cutting-edge technology, MWAccel can build applications so attorneys can run scenarios for clients, using a set of assumptions or parameters that illustrate legal risk.

MWAccel also works with client legal departments to assist them in data-related efforts such as analyzing legal spend, management reporting and assessing litigation risk across portfolios. The MWAccel team has worked with multiple Fortune 500 firm clients. Services include:

• Case analytics/litigation analytics
• Class actions
• Damages/exposure analytics
• Settlement allocation
• Investigations
• Fact development
• Pattern discovery
• High-volume litigation
• Settlement outcome modeling
• Trending analysis
• AFA data management and analytics
• Summary- and detail-level reporting for AFAs
• Performance-to-budget analytics
• Client data consulting
• Legal department data management and data governance
• Management-level reporting and business intelligence
• Metrics and key performance indicator development

Our Team

		TOM TRUJILLO DIRECTOR, MWACCEL SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT MCGUIREWOODS CONSULTING				CARTER AREY INNOVATION LEADER, MWACCEL SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT MCGUIREWOODS CONSULTING
		CAITLIN PARKER SENIOR LEGAL OPERATIONS SPECIALIST MWACCEL				MANAN VORA DIRECTOR, DATA ANALYTICS MWACCEL
		JONATHAN SCHEER DATA ENGINEER MWACCEL

Team Experience

• To help a client with law firm panel convergence decisions, developed a legal spend dashboard comparing year-over-year billings and area of usage by firm as well as firms’ staffing details side-by-side. 

• Helped a client’s legal ops team improve the productivity of their lean commercial team by diagnosing capacity problems and creating solutions that improved processes, better aligned tasks with the right resources, and leveraged technology.  Helped the client develop and roll out a project management plan to guide the team through their execution of the solutions.  

• Worked with a client’s legal ops team to develop their strategic vision and updated their legal ops job descriptions to support this vision. 

• After large acquisition, deciphered client’s new scope of legal responsibility around acquired entity; set out best practices to integrate legal team members from acquired company; and planned structure for department to provide legal services across business.

• Helped client adopt technology around document management; think strategically about structure, pitfalls and issues when designing system; and determine key areas involving system requirements and usability./li>

• Established best practices for onboarding new hires in remote environment, continued engagement of employees, and ongoing training and development.

• Developed strategy for legal department regarding capacity management and resources for specific issues as well as process improvements.

• Developed methodology for legal department and legal operations team to develop strategic plans that align with key priorities.

Awards & Honors

In its 2022 North America Innovative Lawyers Report, Financial Times shortlisted MWAccel in the New Services Category, lauding the team as a “standout” for its novel approach providing customized solutions to enhance corporate law departments’ in-house operations and align their departments with internal business clients. A collaboration between McGuireWoods and affiliate McGuireWoods Consulting, MWAccel leverages the skills and combined knowledge of lawyers, consultants and data scientists to help client legal departments develop business solutions across legal operations.