Page 18 - CCCA 247020 Magazine Spring 2016

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ant began a review of how it delivered legal services “ 3 get the sCope right The computer science
At least one-
quarter of
a million
dollars a year
”
[justifes[
Deputy General Counsel and Chief Administrative
the time and
Offcer at BMO. That’s when the global fnancial gi-
RFPs—the output is only as good as the input. So if
internally and its external legal spending. It identi- expense. concept, “garbage in, garbage out,” applies equally to
you don’t properly defne the scope and goal of the
fed more than 1,000 law frms with which it was do- project, the responses will be all over the map and
ing business in some capacity around the world. To- not of much use. The key is understanding your
day, that has been reduced to less than 200. “It came objective, experts say. Is it simply to cut costs? Or is
down very, very dramatically,” Cudjoe explains. “It it more fulsome than that?
allowed us to have greater sight lines into the work Rees Morrison “We expect the law frms we use to deliver excel-
that was being done.” lent service,” explains Cudjoe. “For us, it was trying
Daniel Desjardins, Senior Vice-President, Gen- to step beyond that.” She said what was important at BMO was
eral Counsel and Corporate Secretary at Bombardier Inc., “innovation” and how law frms were proposing to work with
knows a lot about the procurement process, as his company the bank. What type of alternative fee arrangements would they
builds trains and airplanes through competitive bids. He consider? “We wanted to make sure our law frms were aligned
believes that an RFP has now become part of the in-house with our organization’s corporate values. That was a key part
counsel toolbox. However, he’s quick to warn that “it is not the of the process.”
answer to everything.” Desjardins adds, “A lot of your strategy will depend on what
So what do in-house lawyers need to know about RFPs and when you are going after.” Is it a large volume of standard work that
should they be used? Here are seven tips for running a successful RFP. you need help with, or is it a specifc type of litigation or cor-
porate transaction?
1 Consider Your spend There is some disagreement For example, the recent IESO proposal, which closed in early
over when a legal department should consider using an RFP. January, was looking for legal expertise covering 12 practice areas,
Richard Stock, a partner with Catalyst Consulting who has ranging from litigation to corporate-commercial, privacy, labour
worked with legal departments to develop RFPs, advises not to and electricity regulation. It sought to qualify up to six vendors of
consider it if your legal spend is less than $500,000. It’s simply record under each practice area, with the exception of corporate-
not worth the effort. commercial and litigation, where it would bump the roster to 10.
Rees Morrison, a consultant with Altman Weil in the U.S., (Because it was currently evaluating the responses, the IESO de-
however, sets the foor price lower. He agrees that “you better clined to comment to CCCA Magazine about the process.)
have enough money at stake to make it worthwhile,” but says For TELUS, Belec says it wasn’t simply about pricing and secur-
that “at least one-quarter of a million dollars a year [justifes] ing discounts: “We weren’t interested in managing our law frm
the time and expense.” relationships in that manner.” One of the important things TELUS
considered was the value-added services that law frms proposed,
2 it tAKes time Once you jump the cost hurdle, the next things like access to library services, continuing legal education
thing you need to know is that RFPs do not come together seminars, seconding lawyers to TELUS and, like BMO, the willing-
quickly. “Managing an RFP process seriously is not something ness to explore or propose alternative fee arrangements.
you do off of the cuff,” notes Desjardins.
Both TELUS and BMO spent months preparing to issue 4 mind Your metriCs And meAsurements One of the
theirs. Part of the problem is gathering the necessary data to important elements of an RFP are the criteria upon which you
fgure out what the goal and objective should be. will judge law frms, and a lot of time and thought has to go
In TELUS’s case, it had to pull together information about its into that. It means building a matrix and assigning values.
legal spending, some of which resided with existing law frms. Take the IESO evaluation criteria. It basically covered three
It used the services of Catalyst Consulting’s Stock to help them categories: skills, practice area and general experience account-
gather the data and categorize it. Belec says that was “very valu- ed for a total of 60 out of the 100 points ascribed to respondents;
able when it came time to defning the RFP.” confict mitigation was worth 10 points; and pricing came in at
BMO used SeyfarthLean Consulting, part of the U.S. law 30 points. It also included a formula law frms needed to use to
frm Seyfarth Shaw LLP, to help in its process. “We wanted to calculate their average hourly rate.
make sure we were drawing on best practices,” says Cudjoe. In TELUS’s case, Belec says, “We created a lot of evaluation
This upfront work is just the tip of the iceberg. Much more factors.” They judged frms on things like expertise, rates, con-
time is spent interviewing frms and reviewing proposals, fict mitigation, value-added services, willingness to adopt al-
which can run hundreds of pages depending on the scope of ternative fee arrangements and willingness to consider recipro-
the project, how many people are approached to submit and cal business, among others.
what parameters you set around responses.
If he were to do it over, Dabb says, “I would probably invite 5 eVAluAte And rAnK Once you receive the responses,
fewer frms. It takes up an incredible amount of time to review the hard lifting and number crunching starts. It’s time to
that many frms and their extensive proposals.” fgure out how frms stack up—and you may be surprised at

18 CCCa MaGazInE | SPRInG 2016 PRInTEMPS