A cluster of ways of thinking needs to mesh for a law department to have confidence that a law firm will perform well under an alternative fee arrangement. Six come to mind Data mining – to set the matter or phase fees reasonably accurately based on analyzed historical data from…
A comment in InsideCounsel, June 2010 at 57, triggered several thoughts. “The next real advance would be for firms to be able to test their bill against their client’s guidelines before submission and avoid the whole back and forth.” A good idea, but it will encounter challenges. I suppose vendors…
At the recent SuperConference, several panels talked about alternatives to hourly billing. I strongly favor them, but there are some limitations on their applicability. Think of them as boundary conditions, and consider these half dozen. Small law departments with modest expenditures on outside counsel have little room to maneuver…
A survey by Sweet & Maxwell of finance directors at the top-100 UK law firms asked about financial threats the directors foresee. The most pressing was downward pressure on fees, but the second one deserves discussion. “The second greatest threat identified was the potential cost overrun incurred on legal work…
It is a risk that some collusion may occur between the inside lawyer responsible for approving the matter budget of a firm and the firm that submits the budget. Neither lawyer nor firm wants to look bad so a fatter budget serves both. But that pattern rolled up for the…
Predominantly, the in-house counsel I speak with like and respect the partners they retain. They do not, by any stretch of the imagination, believe that lots of partners “out there” can do just as well for the same or lower cost. “Jones knows our company, works really hard for us,…
Speaking on a panel at the SuperConference, Steve Williams of the General Counsel Roundtable displayed a dashboard for legal departments. One of the items on it was scores by law firms from evaluations they complete on the department. Law firms grade their clients? On this man-bites-dog view of the world,…
Where there are Requests for Proposals there should be bidders’ conference calls. Yes, they should be a best practice (See my post of March 18, 2007: basics of teleconferences for bidders; May 21, 2007: auctions and call-ins; Nov. 30, 2007: ten tips for better competitive bids; Aug. 13, 2008: good…
A gutsy law department could say, for new matters familiar to it and a trusted law firm, “We will pay you what we think each month’s work was worth AND we will explicitly state why we gave it that value.” Would law firms daringly accept those terms? They should, because…
The Second Annual Law Department Operations Survey at 9, lists 16 initiatives that administrators in large US legal departments ranked by effectiveness. At the top, selected by seven out of ten, is “Use less expensive attorneys (i.e., regional firms).” Many ideas lurk inside that initiative as stated. Legal skills are…