High reliability organizations (HROs) continually monitor their systems and practices to assure superior performances and avert low probability, high damage adverse events. One of the most effective ways of monitoring HRO systems and practices is an audit of their "safety risk." These audits measure the effectiveness of communication, leadership, culture, reward systems, training and risk perception and mitigation.

Karl Weick, a psychology professor and expert in organizational behavior, first coined the term "high-reliability organization" after studying how the operations of nuclear power plants, aircraft carriers, emergency rooms, and wildfire fighters differed from ordinary, low-risk organizations. He identified multiple factors that protect against catastrophic results in fast-paced, high-risk working environments. Other researchers have studied a wide range of experts who make hundreds of critical decisions in an ordinary day - intensive care unit nurses, fighter pilots, chess masters, platoon leaders, paramedics, and air traffic controllers -- to determine what conditions and types of personal interactions contribute to avoidable errors and undermine a "culture of safety."

DecisionSet® believes that law firms need to function as high reliability organizations because the consequences of poor decision making and problem solving skills can be catastrophic for clients. The law firm environment presents challenges similar to those confronting high reliability organizations - multiple actors, intense time pressures, highly skilled professionals, inaccurate, misleading and insufficient information, and critical decision making coupled with irreparable results - yet many law firms operate with a business model derived from trade guilds.

DecisionSet® assesses whether a law firm is operating as a high reliability organization. It evaluates a law firm's decision making and problem solving systems, values, capabilities, and results, employing a proprietary 148-point audit to test a firm's accountability for case results, adherence to uniform performance standards, deterrence of information hoarding, sensitivity to faint signals of evolving problems, and resiliency in learning and recovering from close calls and actual mistakes. The audit results are confidentially compared with baseline requirements and aggregated results from other professional services firms to identify strengths and weaknesses in attitudes and operations, enabling a law firm to achieve the superior results evident in high reliability organizations.