Explores an alternative billing method that uses a risk/reward model for working with outside counsel.
Many have discussed the topic of selecting and retaining quality outside counsel, especially as it relates to efficient litigation. Here, the author explores this topic, with a focus on the law firm qualities that in-house attorneys should be looking for during this process.
Law is the original outsourced function. Yet the question of what gets in-sourced and what gets outsourced has really never been systematically addressed. Rather than focusing on meaningful measures of law firm productivity and efficiency, law departments have emphasized scrutinizing the bill. Five key questions can help your department get service that is more attuned to your company's competitive environment.
Over the past decade, with the pressure to cut costs wherever possible, many legal departments continue to rely on a smaller core group of external firms to help achieve higher levels of business performance. Often termed 'convergence,' these and related strategies allow greater accountability for results and greater efficiency from dealing with fewer outside firms, particularly as each panel firm gets to know your organization better. As this trend continues, however, of the hidden problems of convergence is gradually beginning to emerge. Some companies beginning to find that even their preferred law firms' 'other' offices may fail to measure up the high standards of the main office with whom you had been used to dealing with and on which, in truth, your original selection process might mostly have concentrated.
Cutting legal costs is still a high priority with many a CEO, and there's a new tool to do so: procurement analyst, or strategic sourcing professional. With novel ideas about the best vehicle(s) for buying professional services, their ideas that can either make CLOs uneasy or excited. Learn what strategic sourcing can do for your department's budget, before the CEO comes knocking with a sourcing consultant in tow.