• Organization and Resources of the Law Dept, Performance and Metrics, and Benchmarking, Surveys and Retreats

    • October 31, 2022
    • Category: Organization and Resources, Performance Management, Benchmarking and Surveys
    • Publication: Legal Business World, Performance for Law Departments, E-book #2

    This e-book reprints a portion of our articles from our on-going series of articles in the on-line magazine Legal Business World. This second, short 47-page volume contains 2 articles on law department organization and resources, 4 articles on Performance and Metrics, and a final 2 articles on benchmarking, surveys and retreats.

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  • Benchmarking Legal Operations Maturity

    • April 26, 2022
    • Category: Benchmarking and Surveys
    • Publication: Legal Operations, Issue 1 (2022) at pg. 26 Legal Business World, Issue 6 (2021) at pg. 46 Canadian Lawyer In-House, posted June 19th, 2020

    The article profiles the ACC report on benchmarking law department operations and best practices across 15 functions and 92 sub-functions. The article examines the External Resources Management function and its 13 sub-functions. From 50% to 75% of the 316 respondents are only in the early stages of adopting leading practices.

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  • The State of Corporate Law Departments

    • April 20, 2022
    • Category: Benchmarking and Surveys
    • Publication: Legal Business World magazine, Issue 4 (2022) Canadian Lawyer In-House website, posted 19 Apr 22

    Three factors likely to improve the contribution of corporate law departments are critiqued. Taken from Thomson Reuters Institute’s “2022 State of Corporate Law Departments: Benchmark, Optimize and Innovate”, they are strategic positioning, effective partnering, and the right metrics. Legal leadership is encouraged to read the report.

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  • Benchmarking Law Department Operations

    • June 25, 2020
    • Category: Benchmarking and Surveys
    • Publication: Canadian Lawyer In-House, website

    The article profiles the ACC report on benchmarking law department operations and best practices across 15 functions and 92 sub-functions. The article examines the External Resources Management function and its 13 sub-functions. From 50% to 75% of the 316 respondents are only in the early stages of adopting leading practices.

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  • Thoughts on Pricing Legal Services

    • May 13, 2019
    • Category: Positioning and Strategy, Workflows and Workloads, Organization and Resources, Performance Management, Managing Total Legal Spend, Benchmarking and Surveys
    • Publication: Legal Business World, Issue 5 (2019) Canadian Lawyer In-House, 13 May 2019

    The Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) released a comprehensive report benchmarking 15 legal operations. The law department maturity model uses three stages to survey the External Resources Management function. Only 11 % of the 316 participants reported they were in an advanced stage for this function. Few law departments made significant use of alternative fee arrangements or of metrics applied to pricing. The article discusses the need for pricing expertise, four questions to include in RFPs for legal services and how to approach alternative fee arrangements.

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