2.2.4. Specifics for the legal context

Legal business and professional regulations obviously differ from software development, the industry in which the Agile methodology was developed. Due to that, an adapted version of Agile working methods is required to fit the legal sector. The good news is that this is indeed possible with relatively small changes. We see two topics that need to be addressed in regarding Roles and Responsibilities.

Firstly, many jurisdictions’ regulations require the attorney who is a member of the bar associa- tion to be liable towards third parties and have the oversight and control over the work that the firm delivers, sometimes to the extent that the attorney needs to implement controls in all areas of the firm. To mirror that, we suggest that the attorney responsible should take the Role of a Product Owner in the Agile setup. This makes it easy to keep the final decision with them. Big projects at a firm with many attorneys will sometimes have attorneys responsible for certain areas of expertise. In such settings, in general, each of them will take on the Elements assigned to their specific expertise, while the attorney leading the overall project will bear the responsibility of the overall work outcome and for deliverables that are handed out (e.g. the submission to court). The details can be adapted as needed for the setting at the respective law firm.

Secondly, especially in formalized proceedings such as litigation or administrative proceedings, deadlines are imposed by procedural rules, including the sanctions if they are not met. That gives deadlines a different importance than in software development and consulting businesses. While typical Agile settings have fixed timings, they also have flexible outcomes. In the legal setting, often the output (e.g. a court submission) and key content are externally dictated (e.g. the requirement to have delivered certain facts or evidence by a certain point in the proceedings). In such settings, you might need to deviate from typical Agile setup in the implementation. We will bring examples on how to do so in this workbook.