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Feature Richard Stock Partner Catalyst Consulting Toronto attempts to quantify each highlight, based on the five metrics. metrics became clear to him during a two-year sojourn he took “I tell our CEO the value of the services we delivered as in the late 1980s away from law and into business. a measure of the value that we added to the organization each Armstrong had been a corporate lawyer with a small Ontario year — that’s one way you can demonstrate value added by the firm in the late 1980s. After the firm dissolved,Armstrong,tempted law department.” to try his hand at business, signed on as CEO of Survey Research The next question is, to what extent does legal work support Firm, Decima Research, then a division of Hill and Knowlton the company’s strategic objectives, business improvement initia- Canada and then as COO for Hill and Knowlton nationwide. tives, capital programs and risk management strategies? It was exciting work,he says,but he missed the practice of law “Our strategic focus metric goal is to focus up to 80 per cent and the collegiality of working with other lawyers on a daily of our resources on work that contributes to the organization’s basis. He joined theToronto firm of Smith Lyons, where a num- corporate and divisional strategic objectives,” says Armstrong ber of his former partners had found a home.He remained there who starts with the premise that each lawyer averages a 50-hour until joining Bruce Power. work week. “My propensity to manage based on data was probably shaped “I don’t ask the lawyers to docket their time. I don’t think that’s more by that two-year experience in the research and public a measure of anything and never have thought so,”he says. He con- affairs business than from my background in a law firm,” he cedes that it is hard to measure the average work week with a high reflects.“I believe in data-based decision-making.” degree of precision.“The objective is for the lawyers to ask them- selves the right questions about strategic focus on a weekly basis,” Client satisfaction he explains. In that sense, metrics must be used to show value As he leafs through his department’s annual review, Armstrong added, to keep on track and to drive continuous improvement. comes back time and again to the client satisfaction report and To achieve this, a report of the results of each of the metrics is the 50 or 60 pages colour-coded with red, white, yellow and reviewed monthly with the legal team, then sent to the execu- green score boxes. These highlight the progress the law depart- tive team, including the CEO. ment has made in earning the trust of the organization. “In the first few years there was a lot of red in these survey Data capture mindset results; they thought we were accessible and that we listened well, Armstrong knows it is unusual for corporate counsel or private and were thorough, but that was about it,” recalls Armstrong. But MARK STEGEL practice lawyers to rely so heavily on metrics. But the value of the picture changed over time as survey responses showed numbers 30 CCCA Canadian Corporate Counsel Association FALL 2011