Forty five Chief Legal Officers located in Europe were asked by Altman Weil, the Association of Corporate Counsel and the Practical Law Company “What is the single most innovative practice proposed or used by your outside counsel in the last twelve months?”
The most common answer was “none” — only 10 even named an innovative practice, such as “e-learning compliance tool,” “document management” (far from the madding crowd!) and the radical “volume fee reductions” (Innovative? What does this say about the law department?).
The sad truth: law firms don’t rock the boat, they don’t feel the need to try new ways of serving their law department clients. Sadder still: law departments do not insist on creativity or reward it or experiment with it.