Page 44 - CCCA62_2007

CCCA62_058.qxd:CCCA_V1No2_BackPg-V1.qxd 09/14/2007 04:25 PM Page 58 Closing The Deal Through your client’s eyes Improve relevance and satisfaction by talking to your internal corporate clients. ccording to Inside Counsel magazine’s the key executives — your clients — one- an innovative legal department be A18th Annual Survey of General on-one about what their current needs doing that executives like you may not Counsel, 70.5% of in-house counsel are, how they view your legal department yet have asked for? scored their outside firms a mere B for and what recommendations they may Asking questions like these might seem overall performance. Another 10.5% rated have to offer you. threatening, but the answers can be their firms C or worse. And those per- My experience has been that asking the extremely revealing. Here are some of the centages have eroded each year for the key business heads what they think the insights that departments report from past three years. However, when asked for legal department should be doing, and the exercise: their views, 62% of law firms gave them- comparing their feedback to what the • Don’t assume that all the important selves a solid A for performance! Anybody lawyers in your department think these projects and issues in the organization see a disconnect here? executives will say, usually produces the are hitting your desk,or that the value of This incongruity reappears when we necessary impetus for focused change. your work speaks for itself. ask corporate executives to grade the per- Some of the questions that I’ve used in • Focus your greatest efforts on unearthing formance of their internal legal depart- these kinds of interviews include: and understanding your organization’s ments. The individual lawyers in the 1. Are there any aspects of your business, top priorities, helping solve them, and department grade themselves highly on strategic objectives or competitive chal- reporting regularly to senior manage- their ability to understand the organiza- lenges that you wish we (the legal ment on what you’ve achieved. tion and deliver true value. But the exec- department) understood better? • Include performance metrics to illus- utive team’s perceptions are often captured 2. What would you suggest (if anything) trate where your work comes from, in comments like these: our lawyers could do to become a where your time goes, and where you “Corporate Legal doesn’t seem to really more integral part of your internal spend the organization’s resources. (See understand the business or our business rela- business team? my last column, “The Metric System,” tionships. Currently, some of our key suppliers 3. Are there specific things we could be March 2007, p. 62) cringe whenever they have to deal with us on a doing to reduce the time you have to • Structure your reports around the contractual matter.” spend managing your responsibilities? organization’s top priorities, rather than “Our Legal Department needs to do more (or: What could we do that would legal issues. trend line analysis on repetitive issues that they make your life easier?) Some legal departments have seized the are observing, and then initiate the discussion 4. Is there any policy,procedure or process opportunity to see through their clients’ on how these issues could be prevented or bet- that you feel we’re trying to impose on eyes by asking themselves hard questions ter addressed.” you, and you don’t understand why? before others do. What you learn can “It would be great to have our Legal 5. How would you describe what our help you position your legal team to Department come out and do a presentation for legal department does best?What is the become an integral part of the business us on how the work flows and how they could most valuable service we perform for that really can demonstrate its strategic be most effective. No one from Legal has ever your area of responsibility? value to the organization. Here’s to get- visited with us.” 6. How could we improve the level of ting straight A’s! It seems we hold entirely different views responsiveness, proactive counsel or based on whether we are the procurer or general service to you? (Or:tell us what Patrick J.McKenna (www.patrickmckenna.com) the provider of professional services. the legal department could do to be is a principal in Edge International (www.edge.ai) Once every year, you have to get out more useful to you.) and since 1983 has worked exclusively serving into the various departments and divi- 7. As you think about the range of servic- the legal profession in matters of strategy and prac- sions within your organization and talk to es that our lawyers provide, what could tice management. 58 CCCA Canadian Corporate Counsel Association FALL 2007