-
Management Beyond the Basics
- February 27, 2024
- Category: Positioning and Strategy
- Publication: Legal Business World, Issue 2 (2024) at pg. 36
There are five features in law departments that are considered well managed. These are organizational alignment, the deployment of legal department resources, the management of initiatives and priorities, strategic communications, and a focus on leading practices. All are required to manage beyond the basics.
-
Changing Law Firms
- January 26, 2024
- Category: Managing Total Legal Spend
- Publication: Legal Business World, Issue 1 ()2024), page 34
With an hourly billing model, a company can take its time to phase out legacy firms as part of its convergence program. Fixed and hybrid fee arrangements require other approaches to manage law firm transitions. The first approach is to carve out some on-going files for legacy firms and reduce the fixed fee accordingly. The second is to have the successful primary firm oversee, pay and phase out the work of the legacy firms as part of its fixed fee. This second approach contains costs and greatly reduces the amount of administrative time that law departments would otherwise invest.
-
How In-House Counsel Can Best Manage a Law Firm Change
- January 19, 2024
- Category: Managing Total Legal Spend
- Publication: Canadian Lawyer In-House, posted Jan 15 2024
With an hourly billing model, a company can take its time to phase out legacy firms as part of its convergence program. Fixed and hybrid fee arrangements require other approaches to manage law firm transitions. The first approach is to carve out some on-going files for legacy firms and reduce the fixed fee accordingly. The second is to have the successful primary firm oversee, pay and phase out the work of the legacy firms as part of its fixed fee. This second approach contains costs and greatly reduces the amount of administrative time that law departments would otherwise invest.
-
Why Strategy Seldom Works in Law Departments
- December 8, 2023
- Category: Positioning and Strategy
- Publication: Canadian Lawyer In-House website, Nov 21, 2023 Revue en ligne Legal Business World e-zine, Issue 8 (2023) at pg. 44
Five factors which inhibit the execution of strategy are applied to law departments. They are executive leadership that is not mobilized, strategy that is not translated into operational terms, poor alignment with business units, strategy execution that is relegated to being someone else’s job, and poor direction and communication on strategic goals.
-
Risk Aversion in Retaining External Counsel
- October 7, 2023
- Category: Positioning and Strategy
- Publication: Canadian Lawyer In-House website, posted Oct 3rd, 2023 Legal Business World, Issue 7 (2023) at page 68
Flexible, independent, cost-ineffective operating practices of law departments for selecting law firms are less tenable than they were 10 years ago. Law departments must apply robust criteria when selecting law firms and begin by stabilizing and reducing the number of firms. An estimate of the 3-year demand for each specialty followed by multi-year partnering agreements with primary firms provides a good base. External counsel can be sole-sourced or selected after a competitive process. As always, service, results and pricing must be in balance.
-
The Innovative Performance Management Framework
- September 5, 2023
- Category: Performance Management
- Publication: Canadian Lawyer In-House, posted Sept 5th, 2023 Legal Business World, Issue 6 (2023), page 82
Article sets out descriptions of 11 key performance indicators (KPI) arranged in four categories
Client-Facing KPIs: strategic impact, results, innovation
Business Process Improvement KPIs: operating practices, service, technology
Talent KPIs: knowledge transfer, competencies
Financial KPIs: total legal spend, unit costs, external counsel
Objectives and targets should follow each KPI. -
An Unsustainable Business Model
- August 8, 2023
- Category: Workflows and Workloads
- Publication: Canadian Lawyer In-House, Posted on Aug 8th, 2023 Lawyer Business World, Issue 5 (2023)
The CEB reports that, for two reasons, the relationship-based business model for corporate law departments is fundamentally unsustainable. First, the number of individuals calling on inside counsel for routine matters has proliferated beyond the company executive team. Second, most internal clients want resolution not a relationship. Some General Counsel are conducting detailed studies of demand patterns affecting their resources. Others are introducing protocols and programs to make many regular clients self-sufficient.
-
Drawn and Quartered: The municipal law department
- June 14, 2023
- Category: Positioning and Strategy
- Publication: Canadian Lawyer In-House website, posted June 6th, 2023 Legal Business World, Issue 4 (2023) on page 48
Municipal mergers and population growth have generated more legal work for law firms. They have also created 5 challenges for municipal law departments: broad-based poorly defined roles and responsibilities, unclear accountability to political and administrative masters, a growing demand for commercial skill sets, failure to leverage long-term partnering arrangements with fewer law firms, and failure to use key performance indicators which matter.
-
A Manifesto for the Law Department
- April 9, 2023
- Category: Positioning and Strategy
- Publication: Legal Business World, Issue 3 (2023) on page 50 Canadian Lawyer In-House website, posted on April 6th, 2023
Shifting the perception and the focus of a law department can be accelerated with a formal positioning statement or “manifesto” that is endorsed by corporate leadership. The components include a brief mission statement for the law department, a strategic focus aligned with the corporate plan, clear operating principles, and a set of medium-term priorities for the law department. The article includes a sample “manifesto”.
-
Evaluating Preferred Law Firms
- March 8, 2023
- Category: Managing Total Legal Spend
- Publication: Canadian Lawyer In-House website, March 7, 2023 Legal Business World, Issue 2 (2023) on page 28
Performance plans provide the structure and content to evaluate preferred law firms. Plans and related metrics – responsiveness, results, efficiency, total legal spend, and unit costs – should be embedded in terms of engagements and multi-year partnering agreements. These metrics are typical and supplemented by targets and specific initiatives.
Articles on Demand – Archive