Panel Management

Overview

In-house teams have often asked for better ways to create and manage lists of firms, including panel or approved firms. This need will show up in a number of ways, like:

• We want a seamless way to organize our firms by several dimensions, including panels, approved firms, firms used for high-risk matters, etc.
• We want an easier way to identify and invite these specific categories of firms to relevant RFPs. In doing so, we want to make sure we’re tapping into the full potential of our panel or approved firms, and not missing the opportunity to invite them to matters.
• We want to guide our attorneys on who to invite to an RFP without stripping them of autonomy

Panel Management allows you to create customized lists of firms, complete with clear guidelines for your attorneys on when to engage them. So whether you want to create a list of specific panel firms, NAMWOLF firms, or firms that are excellent for, say, IP Litigation, we’ve made it easy for you to do so. By surfacing these lists—and instructions—directly on the invite view for any request, you maintain governance around who to engage for each matter while maximizing opportunities for your key firms.

Product Walkthrough

List Creation

Panel Management can be accessed by all users in the top left menu on PERSUIT. Only those with the Group Manager role permissions will be able to create, edit, or delete lists. All other users will have read-only access.

Step 1: List Names/Descriptions/Instructions

Group Managers can effortlessly create and categorize firm lists, with the first step being optional to select whether this list is Panel or Approved. Each list features a unique name, description, and clear instructions for use, alongside establishment and refresh dates. This information will appear to users who are drafting requests and looking to add firms from certain lists.

Step 2: Adding Firms to a List

In this second step, Group Managers can search and add firms to their lists. Note that in V1, only firms who the client has previously invited to RFPs on PERSUIT will appear here. If you do not see firms here that you'd like to invite, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager. You can also leverage Firm Recommender, which is linked at the bottom right, to explore firms for this list.

Step 3: Review and Confirm

In this last step, Group Managers will have the option to review the full list of firms they’ve added, the description and instructions for the list, as well as the “established” and “refresh” dates. Once they hit “Create List”, this list will flow to their Panel Management dashboard and be available on the invite list for any new request.

Invite View

Accessing Lists While Drafting Requests

Firm lists are integrated into the invite screen, both during drafting and after publishing an RFP, in case you want to add more firm contacts to the RFP at any point following publish. This enables users to easily access and invite contacts from curated lists with clear instructions for each list.

Adding Specific Firms within Lists

By clicking the dropdown symbol (^) on any specific List Name, you will see all of the firms available within that list. 

Adding Specific Contacts from Each Firm

Taking it a step further within a list, by clicking into the dropdown symbol (^) on any specific firm, users will see all individual contacts available within that firm, allowing you to individually select specific firm contacts. Please note that upon selecting an individual contact, these contacts will not receive the RFP until you officially hit “Send”. They will simply be added to your Invitation List queue.

FAQs

• PERSUIT had previously helped me tag firms as being “panel” firms? Will they still show up for me in this new release?

  • Yes, we are importing all previously tagged panel firms for each client and on Day 1 of launch, they will already be set up as a Panel List for the respective client.

• Which permissions within the platform will have access to setting up Panel Management

  • Only the Group Manager has the ability to create, edit, and delete Lists. Your attorneys/end users have the opportunity to invite firms based on those lists. Note that end users will be able to access "Panel Management" in the top left menu, but it is purely a read-only permission. No one outside of the Group Manager can create, edit, and delete Lists in that view.

• What are best practices for Group Managers when setting up lists?

  • As mentioned, any customer that has at least one panel firm today will have a panel list set up automatically at the time of release. This will be a general list called "Panel". Group Managers can then add more firms to that list and create entirely new ones with ease.

    Best practices:

  • We suggest giving clear names to all lists
  • We suggest only using the “Panel” tag for lists where ALL firms in that list are considered panel firms. If the list contains some that are panel, some that are not, we don’t recommend tagging it at all, or only tagging it as “Approved” if they are all Approved.
  • We suggest using the instructions field as end-user lawyers will be able to see these at the invite screen.
  • We suggest using the dates fields to help users understand how recent the lists are

• Do lists live at the Group or Team level?

  Currently at the Group level, so the lists will be visible to all users within your Group.

• How does Panel Management interact with the data within Firm Recommender?

  Previously, Panel firms would always appear in Firm Recommender if that firm was previously tagged as 'Panel'. With this release, Firm Recommender will now show any Panel firm that is part of a list that is labeled as 'Panel'. So again, it is important to only tag lists as 'Panel' if all firms within the list are truly panel firms.

• I don’t see any (or I only see a few) firms listed on my Panel Management page. What if I want to create a list with other firms that aren’t shown here?

  Today, in the List creation view, you will only see firms if you’ve already invited them to an RFP through PERSUIT. Newer clients who want to set up a Lists right away, but have sent very few or no RFPs, will only see the firms they’ve invited so far on PERSUIT — which could be a few or zero, depending. If this is the case, please see this article for how to add more firms to your view.

• Is there a limit on how many lists I can create?

  There is no limit on list creation.

• Will this flow to Insights in any way?

  Not in V1, but later on we do plan to show whether or not the invited & selected providers are part of an approved or panel list. More to come here.