Eversheds report, “Law firm of the 21st century” at 8, has a curious finding. “The majority of clients (58%) emphasised that trust would continue to be of absolute importance in the client-lawyer relationship, more so than in other professional advisory relationships.” What does this “trust” consist of? The term as…
As part of its arrangement with Tyco International, the law firm Eversheds has incentives to meet specified measures of client satisfaction. According to an article in Met. Corp. Counsel, Vol. 16, June 2008 at 71, the company and firm agreed to conduct a regular audit, “with bonuses calculated by how…
“AOL reported that the solutions provided by DataCert save the global web services giant $7.33 million within the first year of implementation,” explains an item in Met. Corp. Counsel, Vol. 16, June 2008 at 52 The source for this statement is a case study on DataCert’s website. It offers some…
Six firms in the United States serve all the considerable real estate legal needs of Starbucks. The company has negotiated fixed fees with those firms based on a fairly predictable volume of work that arises from expansion. For quite a while, hundreds of stores have been opened in the United…
Sabine Chalmers, chief legal officer of InBev, writes in ACC Docket, Vol. 30, June 2008 at 14, about the “sticky area of whom the law firm should accept instructions from.” She notes that being clear on what the law firm should do if a client reaches out to the firm…
A consultant, quoted in InsideCounsel, June 2008 at 66, asserts that “work that involves discretionary spending would be more prone to the RFP process than litigation work, where nondiscretionary spending is a given.” Adding more, the consultant claims that “Spending around compliance training for employees, litigation readiness, content management and…
Praising the law department of Qwest Communications, Corp. Counsel, Vol. 15, June 2008 at 96, mentions that last year the department, winner of the magazine’s award for Best Legal Department of 2008, aspired to handle as much as possible of its client’s work in-house. For instance, “they resolved 61 percent…
At a recent speaking engagement, I heard of a technology company that has retained a law firm to prepare assessments of litigation cases early in the case, even though the firm is not the chosen litigation counsel. It seems like a wonderful idea. The firm looks across a range of…
In contrast to those law departments that seek through a Request for Proposal one or more firms to handle the work in a given area (See my post of June 10, 2008: Exelon’s process.), some law departments send our RFPs for individual projects. InsideCounsel, June 2008 at 64, describes how…
InsideCounsel, June 2008 at 63, reports that Exelon Corp., the utility company, recently sent RFPs to 44 law firms and all but two of them responded. Some surveys have decried low rates of responses by law firms (See my post of May 9, 2007.), but this 95 percent rate shows…