Page 9 - CCCA Magazine Summer 2014

{ PerFormaNCe iN tHe law dePartmeNt } “ …the real benefts in being explicit about expectations with a degree of predictability and serious teams, and to lower and stable prices. It comprehensive terms of engagement. ” and selection criteria are in leveraging current service providers to improve their oferings. discounts to favourable fee arrangements fee arrangements, to re-confgured legal and introduced partnering agreements or cost savings. often takes a formal procurement process Legal departments must become more It is often better to ask law frms to pro- to introduce new terms of engagement profcient about stating their require- vide the raw data (hours, number of mat- with external counsel, especially if they ments on how best to manage scope of ters and categories) for the last 2-3 years. are an existing provider. work, the use of legal project manage- From there, the legal department can It is important to create a level playing ment methodologies and budgets, migra- project volumes and incorporate their feld when evaluating law frm proposals. tion to non-hourly pricing, and the use of plans into the RFP’s scope of work. Pro- Inside counsel should take the time to performance-based fees. Annual review jections are only estimates, yet too many ask for client references from frms that and adjustment mechanisms applied to inside counsel shy away from showing the hope to offer services in a specialty for service delivery, outcomes and costs are estimates in the RFP for fear of having which they have not been used. An ad- appreciated by law frms wanting to im- these used as guarantees or commitments ditional step would be to interview lead prove their competitive position. of work by successful law frms. However, partners working in those same special- Improving the business relationship with these estimates are essential to law frms ties. Only then can true qualitative com- primary law frms takes less than 50 hours if they are to prepare competitive fee pro- parisons be made. per year, and all stakeholders beneft from posals and commit professional teams the investment of time and money. ❚ properly confgured to do the work. terms of engagement Legal departments too often stop short evaluating proposals of the fnish line when it comes time to Richard G. Stock, M.A., FCIS, CMC, is a partner Experience suggests that most RFPs result paper the deal. Retaining external counsel with Catalyst Consulting. The frm has been designated the in legacy frms winning the process. So, depends on the usual elements of profes- Preferred Provider for Legal De- why bother “going through the motions”? sional services: competence, coverage and partment Consulting by CCCA for There are at least four reasons: law frms price. But it must also be business-based. the past 18 years. Richard can can commit to using legal project man- Many companies have moved past billing be contacted at 416-367-4447 agement and budgeting, to alternative guidelines for a list of preferred law frms or rstock@catalystlegal.com. Canadian Corporate Counsel assoCiation | CCCa-aCCje.org 9