An overlooked obstacle in legal departments to effective control of law firm fees – split motivation by the lawyers who manage them

For some time, I have fretted about an under-discussed obstacle to successful cost reduction. Law department managers assume their reports will diligently keep the brakes on law firm spending. Counter-intuitively, perhaps, those same lawyers may willingly tramp on the accelerator.

My article last week in the National Law Journal lays out my thinking about the reasons for this ironic situation and some steps that might alleviate it. To learn more about this psychological reversal, click on this link.