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Most corporate law departments use fewer than 10 firms to do 85% of the work. And most have secured what they are told are the maximum discounts for hourly work. There remain 6 strategies to further reduce legal spend, strategies that are effective when the sequence and combination is right. Reducing the number of hours is a part of each strategy along with a reliable multi-year forecast of the demand (complexity, specialization, hours) for legal services, mandatory RFPs to cover the demand with no carve-outs, multi-year commitments to select firms for large parcels of work, hybrid fees (base plus variable not tied to hours) to the total exclusion of hourly fees, significant fees for innovation that makes a measureable difference to efficiency and results and supply chain management of local counsel by primary law firms, including tighter intake and allocation protocols.
Learning Objectives:
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Corporate law managers will learn about the importance of effective specifications for legal work
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Moving to fee arrangements that change behaviors and resource allocation in law firms,
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Transferring administrative work regarding external counsel from the company to primary law firms.
Richard Stock, B.A., M.A, FCIS, CMC, has consulted to more than 250 law departments over the years, covering every major industry sector. Many clients are public companies, while others are country counsel with international companies or are privately held. He has written more than 350 columns, articles and books and is an experienced conference presenter to corporate counsel in Europe, Canada, the US, the Middle East and Australia. His approach to managing workloads and workflows for law departments, and his innovation with data analytics and performance-based fee arrangements was instrumental in securing an ACC Value Champs award for HIROC-BLG in 2013.
Richard has been an Associate member of the ABA and the CBA for 20 years. He is a Certified Management Consultant, a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators, and a regular member of the Association of Legal Administrators and of the Buying Legal Council.
CLM App Management Category-Functional Specialist: Legal Industry / Business Management
CLM Recertification Credit: 1 hour in the subject area of Legal Industry/Business Management (LI)
California MCLE: Law Practice Management
MCLE/Other States: Credit may be available in other states but cannot be guaranteed. In all states, accreditation is dependent on individual state guidelines and filing regulations.
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