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CCCA61_054.qxd:CCCA_V1No2_BackPg-V1.qxd 02/07/2008 06:50 PM Page 54 Closing The Deal Get more value from your external counsel Encourage your outside counsel to gain a deep understanding of your organization’s business. here are occasions when you must outside firms invest some of their non- organization?Are the fees centrally account- Tselect, instruct, and manage external billable time to provide: ed for or charged back to departments and counsel. In those situations, you need subsidiaries? Do these lawyers understand lawyers who add value — not just by • In discussions with law firm lawyers, we that you may be held responsible for informing you about the relevant law — find a great deal of variability in the levels meeting certain performance standards — but by constructively helping you to of client knowledge. Some have a very including meeting budgetary targets — apply the law to your organizational deep knowledge and understanding of and that their performance on your legal needs. By doing do, they help you grow their client, what we would refer to as matters could affect your compensation? your business, not just their own. “client insight.”Other lawyers really think • Invite your external counsel to propose Law firm marketing machines bombard they know their client,but the client does ways and circumstances in which they potential clients with assertions on how not agree. Still others know about their might charge — other than hourly client-focused they are and with their clients, without truly knowing the intri- billing — to more accurately reflect value ability to add value. Yet surveys continue cacies of your particular organization. to you.Help them accept that the billable to show that many general counsel mere- Help your external lawyers under- hour can reward inefficiency and often ly tolerate the level of service they receive. stand the dynamics of your industry. encourages transactions becoming com- As one general counsel reported: “Of the Identify the organizations that you are plex and disputes taking years to resolve. lawyers we’ve used over the years, I can certain- involved in and that you believe your • Help your external law firms understand ly confirm that they will do exactly what they’re external firm should be monitoring. that you need them to help you make asked… and nothing more! I don’t think many Perhaps you might invite them to attend decisions. Assure them that any compe- of them could spell ‘proactive.’” an industry event with you. Help them tent lawyer can exhaustively outline legal Yet another general counsel confided, understand that any competent lawyer risks;but that what you need them to do “Most of these efforts are defined and managed can tell you what the law is,but the most is identify how best to utilize legal to serve the law firm’s interests.To us, they are valued lawyers will also have a deep expertise to achieve your commercial nothing more than thinly veiled sales cam- understanding of your business. objectives. Make sure they understand paigns. Someone comes in, asks how their firm • Compile and give your external law when you might need a 20-page opin- is doing, and if we dare say okay, they then firms a list of those industry and trade ion and when you actually want a single want to immediately introduce us to a number publications that you expect them to page, bullet-point outline of the ques- of their other lawyers.” read on a regular basis. tion, issues, risks, advice and conclusion. All too often, law firms look at their • Do your external lawyers know what client’s situation through the lens of their your organization’s top three objectives You can get more value from your own offerings and their desire for another are in the current fiscal period? Do they external counsel by educating them on sale. Little wonder increasing numbers of even know where your organization may how investing non-billable time to learn general counsel sense that when any law be having problems realizing its goals? more about you, your objectives, and your firm talks about “building relationships,” it Explicitly record and communicate your industry can give them a decided advan- becomes nothing more than a euphemism objectives, and then invite your external tage over their competitors. for “give us more work,” while “providing law firms to identify three ways that they added value” means,“at higher rates!” can help you achieve your organization’s Patrick J.McKenna (www.patrickmckenna.com) So how can you, as in-house counsel, (and your legal department’s) aspirations is a principal in Edge International (www.edge.ai) help your external lawyers to become in the coming year. and since 1983 has worked exclusively serving more genuinely client-focused? Here are • Do your external lawyers have any sense of the legal profession in matters of strategy and prac- some specific actions that you can ask your how legal fees are accounted for by your tice management. 54 CCCA Canadian Corporate Counsel Association SPRING 2008