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CCCA_V6No1_Dept-Performance-FIN_CCCA_V5No3_Dept-Performance 2/13/12 4:25 PM Page 9 The business unit’s Performance in the Law Department eye-view of working with legal By Richard G. Stock fter recently interviewing some 30 Arepresentatives of business units about how they regard their use of legal services, I was able to find a number of opportunities to add value. These are too late in the process and come with often, but not always, present in corpo- incomplete documentation. rate and government settings. From the vantage point of the consumer of legal Workflows services, things are not always clear. A few organizations actually provide writ- Priorities are not the same as those of ten guidance to business units in the form the legal department. of protocols for “When to Call Your work lend themselves better to legal proj- Lawyer”. Some companies spell out the ect management methodologies where Demand list of circumstances, suggesting when to phases, tasks and schedules are developed Business units are quite unable to quantify call. No doubt that experienced business in collaboration with the business unit. the amount of legal work they will need executives and senior management of in a year. Most legal departments do not most companies need little coaching in Workloads keep time and do not chargeback for their this regard. But front-line management Business units know if they are organized work. So few legal departments are able to and professionals in large, decentralized or chaotic, methodical or improvisational, estimate and communicate the amount of organizations may not have the experi- and progressive or freshmen in how they resources that will be required for com- ence to get it. Some will call every time, consume legal services. In other words, plex matters. Instead, they simply do the just in case. This helps with risk manage- they know their strengths and weaknesses. work and suggest milestones and comple- ment, but repetition and interruptions do Like law firms, legal departments depend tion dates. The complexity and volume of not make for efficient operation of the on effective working relationships with work are not top-of-mind for the business legal department. their clients. In-house counsel are reluctant unit. Not surprising then that they under- Better to generate a protocol that to introduce a lot of structure in their rela- estimate the amount of effort required to makes it clear when consulting legal is tionships with business units — perhaps complete a matter in the legal department. mandatory and that provides guidelines thinking this will dampen the perception However, my interviews did tell me that about when it is advisable to call. A pro- of their effectiveness. most consumers of legal services are pret- tocol like this is also important because it There was a pretty clear consensus dur- ty knowledgeable about what types of cir- helps to manage business units’ expecta- ing my interviews with business units that cumstances and matters will require sup- tions for service delivery. Every survey of guidelines, standards, and templates would port from the legal department. There is legal departments shows that business be welcome. Otherwise put, users favour not much doubt about litigation, other units are sensitive to turnaround times. all measures which reduce the amount of forms of disputes, and for regulatory mat- Better then to adjust the expectations for time it takes to get things done and the ters. The grey areas are those involving intake. These are occasionally supple- resources to achieve it. commercial transactions — deals, leases, mented by service level agreements and Legal departments have no financial licensing agreements, and so on. Unless standards for accountability and turn- incentive to accumulate the hours on VEER.COM the working protocols are explicit, the around times for high-volume work. a matter. Quite the opposite. So, it is sur- prising to still find that significant volumes Special projects and last-minute complex business unit will call the legal department SPRING 2012 CCCA Canadian Corporate Counsel Association 9