Clients want predictable costs, not surprises. They want to pay for results not time. They want to share the risk not bear it all.
We helps clients work with their lawyers to achieve greater value for the corporate legal spend and achieve demonstrable performance improvements. We do this by using our unrivalled local experience of fee management, and our knowledge of the market, international trends and best practice. For you as the client, predictability of legal costs is important, with flow on benefits to your internal budget.
Active management of the matter ensures the lawyer focuses on the big picture, objectives, strategy and results. If the ground rules are clear from the outset, the outcomes are far more likely to meet expectations and the relationship between lawyer and client is strengthened.
We can help by:
- reviewing outsourcing practices
- establishing internal and external performance metrics
- establishing or reviewing legal panels
- developing engagement protocols, billing guidelines or benchmarks
- implementing value pricing arrangements
- implementing project managing techniques for large legal projects
The focus is on delivering a mutually beneficial, richer and stronger lawyer/client relationship.
How you you practice legal spend management depends on where you want to go and what your specific needs are. The size of your organisation and your legal spend, your existing practices, and the nature of your legal requirements will all be relevant to the approach you take.
At one end of the spectrum are engagement protocols, billing guidelines and negotiated billing arrangements. At the other end of the spectrum, are more sophisticated processes such as convergence of your firms, establishment or review of a legal panel, benchmarking, legal process outsourcing, legal project management, alternative fee arrangements, value pricing.
No matter what technique you use, benchmarking external law firm performance is critical to ensure delivery of quality legal services. Performance to benchmarks can also form part of a value pricing arrangement.