True Efficiency Isn’t Always About Doing More with Less.
It’s about doing the right things—
the first time, every time.
Services
At the Legal Lean Sigma Institute, we guide legal and business professionals on a path of continuous improvement—where collaboration thrives, client and employee experiences improve, and operational excellence becomes second nature.
Consulting. Certifications and Certificates. Capability-building.
Let’s transform how you work—together.
Tailored Solutions. Proven Methods. Designed for Legal.
The Legal Lean Sigma Institute delivers expert consulting, project facilitation, and training programs created specifically for legal and business professionals.
From a full range of consulting services to certification courses, workshops, retreats, and speaking engagements, everything we offer is designed to help you, your team, and your clients, improve how work gets done—together.
We know there’s no single path to process improvement or project management success. That’s why every engagement is customized to your unique goals—whether you’re a law firm, legal department, service provider, government agency, or legal aid organization.
Global Experience. Measurable Impact.
We’ve worked with thousands of professionals worldwide, delivering measurable results and elevating performance at every level. Let’s explore, design, and build better ways to work together, by building a culture of continuous improvement. We can help assess, plan, design, and build organizational readiness, capacity, and structures to achieve your goals.
Purpose-Built Programs for the Legal Profession
Our Legal Lean Sigma programs are the first of their kind—built exclusively for the legal industry. We’ve already done the work of translating powerful methodologies like Lean, Six Sigma, and Design Thinking for legal professionals, using real-world examples and case studies from law departments, firms, and offices.
You’ll learn practical tools and approaches, applied in the context of your own processes and priorities—not abstract theory.
Trainings
The Legal Lean Sigma Institute’s compendium of courses and resources, coming soon. Check out recordings of past programs* here.
* This asterisk means it’s FREE!
CERTIFICATIONS & PROGRAMS
Legal Lean Sigma® and Project Management education and skill development is available through certification courses, virtual certificate programs, process mapping, workshops, programs, retreats, and keynote addresses.
CONSULTING
Consulting services that encompass the spectrum of organizational development and PI/PM architecture and program structuring. Our capabilities include needs, baseline, and readiness assessments, strategic thinking and planning, advisory services to leaders, compensation redesign, marketing of PI/PM programs, as well as planning, pricing, performance management, practice management, and other “P”s.
THE LEGAL WORKOUT
The Legal WorkOut® is our trademarked, collaborative approach to accelerated process improvement that “gets the work out” starting same or next day. Cross-functional, diverse teams attend our workshop to identify immediate improvements. Get a case study and find out how to reduce costs, improve quality, and greatly enhance relationships.
Our Approach to Process Improvement and Project Management
People. Process. Platform.
At the Legal Lean Sigma Institute, we specialize in translating and integrating proven process improvement (PI), project management (PM), and Design Thinking (DT) methods for the legal profession. Our unique approach combines the strengths of these disciplines to deliver real results.
Individually, PI, PM, and DT each offer value—but together, they create a powerful framework. PI helps us design better processes; PM ensures those processes are executed effectively, and DT is a user-centered formula for innovation.
Our primary focus is on taking the best of PI and PM and employing them together. Relying on one without the others leads to inefficiencies—either a well-designed process that’s poorly managed, or good skills and a well-managed project that still requires people to struggle with a flawed process. By aligning PI and PM, we help legal teams:
- Strengthen collaboration and communication
- Eliminate inefficiencies and reduce waste
- Improve quality and consistency
- Identify and adopt best practices
- Maximize value for clients and stakeholders
As the recognized leader in legal PI and PM, the Legal Lean Sigma Institute (LLSI) offers the industry’s most experienced consulting and the first certification courses for law. LLSI holds the registered trademarks for Legal Lean Sigma® and the Legal WorkOut®. Our experts have helped law firms, legal departments, and service providers across the globe build lasting capabilities, award-winning programs, and drive meaningful change.
Lean Six Sigma for Law
Description | Read a chapter | View table of contents
This groundbreaking thought leadership piece, now in its second edition, relates the foundational concepts and vocabulary of Lean and Six Sigma with other process improvement methodologies, including Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA), Legal WorkOut®, Business Process Redesign, Robotic Process Automation, Theory of Constraints, Gemba, and 5S. It describes how they are combined with project management and other approaches originally developed in other industries and explains how they apply and how to employ them in a legal environment.
To state the obvious, law is different to manufacturing. However, the same thinking, frameworks, and tools can produce the same extraordinary results and experiences. All legal departments, law offices, and firms, wherever they may fall on the process improvement continuum, will benefit from learning about the use of Lean and Six Sigma in a legal context. Written by the pre-eminent leader in this field, Catherine Alman MacDonagh JD, this book makes the case for continuous improvement.
This second edition includes new content in the areas of process improvement, project selection, structure, roles, responsibilities, and planning as well as deeper dives into how to use key concepts, structures, and tools such as the DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control) framework and the activities involved in each phase. It also explores the more important organizational development and strategy elements of building a continuous improvement culture. A review of readiness and operational excellence assessments, change management, and new information that helps make the case for continuous improvement is also included.