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We report on the metrics quarterly to our CEO and our “Fundamentally, in-house executive team, indicating how well we are doing on practice is not all that different the metrics that we’ve measured that quarter. And at from private practice in the the end of the year, we send them an annual report. sense that you’ve got to have People usually ask me, “Who is the customer for happy clients. If you don’t have this report? It looks like a lot of work?” And I say, happy clients, you won’t have “I am the customer; me and my team.” It is a very a practice. You won’t have a helpful exercise for me to sit down with my team and private practice because the see how we did against the business plan we set out. clients will go somewhere else. And to ask, “What do we want to do to drive client But in-house, if you don’t have satisfaction higher next year?” happy clients they’ll fnd a way to avoid you. They will Christa Wessel: I try to speak the same language as fnd a way around you. They the business. For example, the business is always won’t consult you. It will make looking for productivity improvements. So one area I your job immensely more diffcult, and you will be report on looks at what effciencies and improvements viewed as a compliance cop or cost centre and not the legal department has made in the year. Have we someone who adds value.” rolled out a tool, created a system, moved work from a senior-level, high-cost function to a lower-cost func- Brian Armstrong, Executive Vice-President and tion? If I can, I turn that into dollars, showing how a General Counsel, Bruce Power. particular initiative will generate productivity improve- ments with a value of X dollars in the next year. « Il est essentiel d’avoir des clients heureux, même au sein de votre entreprise. Sinon, vos collègues Brian Wylynko: In addition to annual reporting, we do vous éviteront et vous considéreront comme un a weekly summary of major matters dealt with by our policier de la conformité au lieu de voir en vous une department. This report goes out to the CEO of the personne qui apporte une valeur ajoutée », affrme FedEx Express Canada Division and to our General Brian Armstrong, vice-président directeur et avocat- Counsel. These reports get compiled right across our conseil général chez Bruce Power. legal departments around the world and are sent to the general counsel at the top level, so there is know- ledge of what’s going on right across the organization. annually as to how much we should be spending in- house and externally. Then we measure and report on Christa Wessel: Don’t wait for the business to tell how we do in terms of the goals that we set. you what they want the legal function to measure. The only department that can fgure out what you can, Weyerhaeuser Company recently became a REIT and should, measure is you. You should engage your in the U.S. The REIT conversion was actually done fnance group or CEO in a dialogue, but I believe that internally as a co-operative project including the law at the end of the day the legal function has to take department, fnance, tax and others. It is very easy responsibility for the development and implementation to fnd out what other companies that converted to of metrics that make sense for your business. Those REITs spent to do that, [spending] large numbers metrics will also depend on where you are in your jour- using outside counsel. So this is the kind of thing you ney as a function in your company. really want the executive team and the board of direc- tors to be aware of, because having done that kind Connie Sugiyama: How do you benchmark your legal of work in-house really demonstrates the value that department? legal, working with other departments, brings to the organization. Brian Armstrong: There is a benchmarking survey that I came across this year: a survey that was con- Connie Sugiyama: What struck me from what our ducted by an organization called General Counsel Met- panelists have shared today is that your comments rics. They developed a comparator group of Canadian about the importance of metrics are somewhat energy companies, and we were able to benchmark contrary to some of the fndings in the CCCA’s 2011 ourselves against those companies on a whole variety In-House Counsel Barometer Survey. In the survey, of fnancial metrics, including external and internal when metrics were reviewed, generally the consensus legal spend. was that they are a good thing, but that practically, in many cases metrics didn’t seem to work too well. Anne Giardini: Weyerhaeuser Company is a Fortune [But] all of our panelists have made note that they believe 500 company, so information is pretty readily available to in the effectiveness of measuring and quantifying be benchmarked. This includes FTEs [full-time equiva- performance, and are very instrumental in the develop- lents] in the law department for companies of a similar ment, ongoing evolution, implementation and reporting size. We benchmark outside budget counsel spend of the relevant metrics. For me, that was one of the and take those numbers and set goals for ourselves clearest takeaways from what is being said. 3 CCCA_FM_8pgF.indd 3 11-05-05 11:07 AM