Shearman Acceler8
The challenges that in-house law departments face, now and in the future, are complex and multi-faceted. To solve these we need to take a fresh approach, and one that provides focus and the necessary tools to support rapid decision-making.
Our integrated collaboration event, called Shearman Acceler8 enables you to reach decisions in days that would normally take months.
The problem
Content is everywhere, and it is easy to be overwhelmed by multiple distractions in business-as-usual operations. There is a danger that important messages get lost and treated as noise. Studies have shown that people remember only 10% of what they hear and 30% of what they read. However, people can recall up to 80% of what they see and do. Applying a combination of structured facilitation, visual scribing and subject-matter-expert support, Shearman Acceler8 transforms ideas into easy-to-understand images in real-time, which when combined with words helps stimulate the emotional, creative, and logical parts of our brain.
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- People remember only
%of what they hear
-
- and
%of what they read
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- However, people can recall up to
%of what they see and do


Use Cases
Typical in-house law department use cases are those where time sensitive, critical decisions are needed, particularly those with significant strategic implications, including:
- Agreeing the scenarios when the in-house law department should provide advice in its own capacity, and where it should engage external counsel based on value, cost, and volume metrics.
- Determining which activities drive legal demand from the business, and how they should be sourced.
- Determining the optimum in-house law department structure to support cost-effective delivery.
- Agreeing on opportunities to apply technology to increase operational efficiencies.
- Improving a complex existing process.
- Developing a multi-year legal operations strategy.
How Shearman Acceler8 works
Our three-step approach helps to accelerate decision making, to support change by:
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Defining the problems to be solved.
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Developing early hypotheses that can be validated, tested, and iteratively refined.
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Creating action-oriented and time bound plans.
Our Pre-work helps to accelerate decision making, to support change by:
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You determine the key stakeholders and decisions makers required for a given challenge.
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We work with you to scope a Shearman Acceler8 collaboration event (online or in person), including some limited pre-work.
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We schedule an event for 1-3 days (depending on the scope and number of issues to be tackled).
Shearman Acceler8 helps support the following outcomes:
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Decisions that could have taken months are made in days.
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The desired future state is clear to all stakeholders.
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Roles and ownership are transparent.
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Time-based, action oriented plans are documented.
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Duplication of effort and unnecessary steps are avoided.

