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CCCA_V2No4_RedefineValue-FIN.qxd:CCCA_V1No1_DriversSeat-FIN.qxd 11/24/08 2:57 PM Page 39 Feature associates, says Bayley, citing is now the global law giant a LexisNexis study that found Mayer Brown. law firm partners spend on Martin envisions one day average two hours a day looking expanding PLC into Canada as for information. well. In her experience, Novus Law clients,he said,are Canadian lawyers have “a very able to find the information they good sense of what their clients need in documents it has pre- want,” she says — and what they pared much faster and in a format don’t want. Outside counsel that is easier for them to work with. exhausting billable hours by That benefit can be a game-changer rewriting contracts and forms — in courting new business. often in large part out of a personal loy- Novus Law doesn’t just handle its docu- alty to their law firms’ own standard docu- ment review and production assignments more ments — increasingly falls into that latter catego- cheaply than law firms do, by shuffling the work to ry, Martin says. lawyers in less expensive jurisdictions. Its work product, Bayley Via its web site (www.practicallaw.com), PLC currently offers maintains, is completed far more efficiently and is every bit as U.K. lawyers access to a comprehensive array of “FastDraft” stan- good, if not better than that done directly by outside counsel. dardized forms, commonly utilized across a broad range of trans- In doing so, Novus Law allows the lawyers who send it work actional practices.Lawyers can download and then alter the forms to put their law degrees to better use and give their law firms a to suit their clients’ specific needs. potential advantage over their competitors, he says. PLC also offers its subscribers a vast database of due diligence With operations in four locations — Chicago, London, Paris reports and “practice notes” to guide them through the nuances and New Delhi — all of Novus Law’s legal assignments are car- of transactional law in more than a dozen “know-how” areas, ried out by lawyers who are or are on their way to becoming Six ranging from corporate finance to environmental law. These Sigma “Green Belts,” the widely used practice developed by guides are written by experienced private practice lawyers and Motorola and championed by GE to promote quality control and are designed to spare law firms from embarking on time-consum- customer satisfaction. ing research missions, says Ian Nelson, vice president of business That feature — unique in the legal industry, as far as Bayley development and marketing for PLC’s new U.S. operations. knows — along with an ISO 9001:2000 quality management sys- Initially, PLC’s new effort will focus on providing guidance in tem overseen by a Six Sigma “Black Belt,” assures customers that two areas of U.S.law:corporate & securities,and finance.“We take the service they are receiving is first-rate, he said. (The a lot of reinventing the wheel out of the equation,” says Nelson. International Organization for Standardization rating of its quali- That translates into savings for corporate counsel increasingly ty management system was obtained after a nearly yearlong audit.) reluctant to pay BigLaw associates to complete tasks like researching Novus Law is currently partnering with one AmLaw 100 firm the terms of mergers and acquisitions similar to ones their compa- to revolutionize its document preparation and review processes. nies are contemplating. In-house legal departments, says Nelson, Since retaining Novus Law’s expertise, that firm, he says, has only want their outside counsel automatically to“know what their mar- lost once in request-for-proposal contests.“They call us, internal- ket is.That is why they are going to these elite law firms.” ly, their secret weapon,” he says. Decisions on whether to skip over BigLaw and engage lower- cost law firms and legal service providers, after all, often hinge on Spending decisions what in-house departments consider commodity work — legal The London-based Practical Law Company (PLC) is another matters where savings can be achieved through technological enterprise riding the wave of in-house legal departments and efficiencies and farming out assignments in bulk — and what outside counsel seeking better value and greater efficiency. In they’re willing to pay top dollar for. Much uncertainty, however, fact, PLC rode that wave across the Atlantic this fall, launching remains in determining exactly which is which. its first two “know how” services for U.S. lawyers. Jeffrey Carr, general counsel at Houston-based FMC “It’s a hugely exciting opportunity for us,” says Rosemary Technologies, is a champion of alternative billing arrangements. Martin,who recently joined PLC as its chief executive after stints He and his in-house staff, Carr says, divide outside counsel mat- as general counsel of Reuters and as a corporate partner at what ters into so-called“bet-the-company”work and“everything else, HIVER 2008 CCCA Canadian Corporate Counsel Association 39