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CCCA_V4No4_Dept-Performance-FIN.qxd:CCCA_V1No2_Dept-MgLaw-V1.qxd 10/27/10 2:51 PM Page 10 Performance In The Law Department Best of breed Management practices from global legal departments. By Richard G. Stock develop objectives at rather than trying to “do more with less.” the practice groups This was achieved by a discussion of and country levels. needs with senior client representatives. Some companies The reductions affected the level of oper- with support special- ational support in mostly non-legal activ- ties that cut across the ity. Support staff took a larger proportion- company, like litiga- ate share of the reductions. Every effort tion, IP and labour/ was made to prevent demand from going employment also to external counsel. develop key objec- Despite its size, Microsoft’s legal team tives for each year. around the world was facing an increasing One company intro- amount of work with much greater com- ontinuous improvement is the key duced “Measures of Success,” where signif- plexity but with reduced budgets. What Cto leading a corporate or govern- icant matters and target results are listed. seemed like irreconcilable differences ment legal department. Efficiency and In many instances, the approved objec- became an opportunity to change how effectiveness depend on it. That said, tives are available on the intranet and the legal department worked. there are more than 150 distinct man- shared outside the department. Microsoft Three goals were set: to maintain high agement practices, constituting a check- Legal measures its annual goals and com- client satisfaction levels, to maintain high list which never seems to end and which mitments on a quarterly basis through a employee satisfaction levels, and to meet covers categories such as client relations, departmental scorecard. the budget. The decision was to focus knowledge management,corporate gov- Legal departments were asked to list up efforts on streamlining the work done by ernance, risk management, external to three examples of recent steps they have the department through process excel- counsel and technology. taken to be more efficient. Intel seconded lence initiatives and with technology One place to start is to consider what former employees of the department, and solutions that leverage Microsoft’s prod- general counsel with significant resources it pushed for the use of “playbooks” for ucts like Sharepoint .There was also suc- ® are doing in several areas of endeavour. I commercial legal activity as part of its cess in using cycle maps and standardiza- recently compiled a fairly detailed but knowledge management strategy. It was tion of contracts. non-financial benchmarking survey of 11 the only company to look at the cost of U.S. public companies, many of them people in terms of where they live and Business processes multinational. Some, such as Microsoft, whether relocation made sense.Ultimately, Service level agreements (SLAs) with Cisco and Intel, are high-tech. Dupont, it chose to not relocate anyone. clients are usually introduced to clarify Boeing and 3M are in the manufacturing 3M was not alone to expand its use of timeline expectations for response and sector, while The Hartford, Aetna, Allstate alternative fee arrangements (AFAs) with work completion.Only three of the com- and USAA are in the insurance sector. external counsel.It did initiate an Enterprise panies have these in place. Records Management program to reduce One company found that the SLAs Efficiency and effectiveness unneeded documents while respecting improved the satisfaction level of their Each company was asked how it develops records retention schedules, all with a view clients because they are aware of when to the annual objectives for its legal depart- to significantly reducing e-discovery costs. expect information or an answer to a ques- ment. Most rely on the company’s annual The Hartford’s legal department coped tion. Another company says they use SLAs objectives as a starting point to develop their with the company’s 2009 across-the- because they charge their time back to VEER.COM own.The larger legal departments go on to board cut in its workforce by doing less, users. Only two other companies charged 10 CCCA Canadian Corporate Counsel Association WINTER 2010