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Sunday, January 29, 2006
Friday, January 27, 2006
Baker & McKenzie leads a trend which is more a necessity
Few law firms have been as innovative as the largest behemoth of them all - the 1.35 billion dollar Baker & McKenzie. They are actively outsourcing some of their work to their offshore outfits, point and case the Manila office which is currently providing rontline IT support and computer maintenance, marketing support for the firm around the world, word-processing, as well as clerical tasks, some translation work and the icing is - the office undoubtedly will provide full-blown legal research and document drafting for Baker & McKenzie in the U.S
Business Week carried an article to that effect where John Conroy Jr., chairman of Baker & McKenzie's management committee has quoted on legal research and writing "I don't think it's a question of whether, I think it's just a question of when,"
Additionally, Thomas Lifson who is a contributor for The American Thinker concurred to that effect by analyzing the issue and saying ".....it makes perfect sense that certain legal functions, as well as administrative ones as in the case of Baker & McKenzie, can be outsourced. Unless regulatory barriers are errected, this should become a trend. "
This leads to an extremely important observation: Large/Mega firms can benefit from legal outsourcing just as much as smaller firms and in-house counsel. It may seem like a stretch--why would a mega firm with hundreds of nameless associates at its disposal, need legal outsourcing? The simple reason is cost.
More and more in-house counsel are bidding legal work out to law firms on a fixed budget. Straight billing is no longer as common-place as it once used to be. Companies like Cisco Sytems require law firms to bid on and then work within a defined legal budget. Legal outsourcing allows firms to work within these constraints, and just as importantly, to maximize profit. In other words, if a law firm is put on a $100,000 budget, and the actual cost to the law firm to complete the work required is probably between $80-90,000. By using a legal outsroucing provider, the law firm can brings its actual cost down significantly, thus maximizing its profits in any given contract.
Business Week carried an article to that effect where John Conroy Jr., chairman of Baker & McKenzie's management committee has quoted on legal research and writing "I don't think it's a question of whether, I think it's just a question of when,"
Additionally, Thomas Lifson who is a contributor for The American Thinker concurred to that effect by analyzing the issue and saying ".....it makes perfect sense that certain legal functions, as well as administrative ones as in the case of Baker & McKenzie, can be outsourced. Unless regulatory barriers are errected, this should become a trend. "
This leads to an extremely important observation: Large/Mega firms can benefit from legal outsourcing just as much as smaller firms and in-house counsel. It may seem like a stretch--why would a mega firm with hundreds of nameless associates at its disposal, need legal outsourcing? The simple reason is cost.
More and more in-house counsel are bidding legal work out to law firms on a fixed budget. Straight billing is no longer as common-place as it once used to be. Companies like Cisco Sytems require law firms to bid on and then work within a defined legal budget. Legal outsourcing allows firms to work within these constraints, and just as importantly, to maximize profit. In other words, if a law firm is put on a $100,000 budget, and the actual cost to the law firm to complete the work required is probably between $80-90,000. By using a legal outsroucing provider, the law firm can brings its actual cost down significantly, thus maximizing its profits in any given contract.
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
First salary hikes - Now bonuses?
Dont get be wrong. Its not a case of sour grapes. Kudos to all who earned those bonuses. But one begs the question - is the end cost to the client really an issue with the legal community? Among the top 5 things clients are looking for from law firms was cost saving initiatives. One can only think this is not really a priority for most large law firms. Associates are getting as much as 100% of their base salary in bonuses. According to Law.com's recent article As Times Get Better, So Do the Bonuses law firms increased the base salaries of their attorneys this year as well as their bonuses some to the tune of $150,000.
Monday, January 23, 2006
Lightened workloads getting heavy praise
by Tariq Hafeez, Esq
In today's Detroit Free Press, columnist Margarita Bauza writes, "Companies that respond to deamnds for reduced-worl arrangements are being rewarded with increased productivity, talent retention and improved employee relations, says Ellen Ernst Kossek, a workplace researcher at Michigan State University". She goes to cite a study undertaken over the last six years which finds that reduced work loads increased in 60% of firms polled and finds:
In today's Detroit Free Press, columnist Margarita Bauza writes, "Companies that respond to deamnds for reduced-worl arrangements are being rewarded with increased productivity, talent retention and improved employee relations, says Ellen Ernst Kossek, a workplace researcher at Michigan State University". She goes to cite a study undertaken over the last six years which finds that reduced work loads increased in 60% of firms polled and finds:
- Retention of talent was the top reason for reduced work load arrangemnets
- Hard economic times did not have a negative effect on reduced-load arrangements
Law firms will probably be slowest in adopting reduced work load for their associates, who ironically, likely need it the most. The billable requirements for associates at law firms nation-wide are almost impossible to attain without significant sacrifice in either quality of work or quality of life for associates, or a mix of the two. Much attention is being called to the system of billable hours and the absurdity of expecting associates to honestly bill for work when billable requirements are essentially impossible to reach (see the post dated 11/28/05 "The Billable Hours: Are its days numbered?"
By utilizing outsourcing as a tool to reduce workload pressure and strain on associates, law firms, can stand to gain significantly in morale and job satisfaction of their attorneys--all the while increasing productivity which results in happier clients. Law firms, no matter how huge can improve the quality of life of their associates by integrating legal outsourcing into their work. 15 years ago, heads of law firms would have laughed/scoffed at the idea that associates could reserach law on their computers without opening a single library book. Today those same law firm heads have realized the immense benefit of using Lexis and Westlaw. Similarly, while legal outsourcing may have its detractors now, it's only a matter of time before law firms realize that the last laugh is on them.
Saturday, January 21, 2006
Fixed Fee Vs Billable Hour
During a recent conversation, the Director of Litigation of a Fortune 100 company indicated that he had a fixed fee contract with his law firm for litigation support. How great is that idea? It sure did not work for Walmart - well nobody gets sued like Walmart.
Nonetheless, taking cue from the Wired GCs recent post...
"If we are only talking about “overseeing” litigation (whatever that really means), perhaps I can find a lawyer who will do this on a fixed fee. We assume that it is not a lawyer at the primary litigation firm. It should come as no surprise that most litigation is billed the good ol’ fashioned way–by the hour. I don’t know how many lawyers would want to “oversee” litigation for a fixed price when the underlying case is being billed by the hour. Part of me thinks that if you need someone to oversee a case, you may have the wrong person handling it in the first place."
There is bound to be some level of compromise somewhere. Let’s discuss some hypothetical scenarios.
Scenario 1: The workload substantially increases a particular month (Sarbanes Oxley has become omnipotent). How does the law firm handle the fluctuation? Scramble to find temporary lawyers or keep highly paid attorneys on its staff on call?
Scenario 2: The workload is minimal for a few months - free money for the law firm but the GC is under pressure to get the bang for his buck
Corybantic management on both sides.
Some amount of legal work needs to be commoditized for the lack of any other term. You need to slice up the work and compartmentalize wherever possible. However small that chunk is - only then can you even start budgeting something like that efficiently.
A large portion of legal work however will continue to be based on the billable hour but why not build efficiencies where you can?
Nonetheless, taking cue from the Wired GCs recent post...
"If we are only talking about “overseeing” litigation (whatever that really means), perhaps I can find a lawyer who will do this on a fixed fee. We assume that it is not a lawyer at the primary litigation firm. It should come as no surprise that most litigation is billed the good ol’ fashioned way–by the hour. I don’t know how many lawyers would want to “oversee” litigation for a fixed price when the underlying case is being billed by the hour. Part of me thinks that if you need someone to oversee a case, you may have the wrong person handling it in the first place."
There is bound to be some level of compromise somewhere. Let’s discuss some hypothetical scenarios.
Scenario 1: The workload substantially increases a particular month (Sarbanes Oxley has become omnipotent). How does the law firm handle the fluctuation? Scramble to find temporary lawyers or keep highly paid attorneys on its staff on call?
Scenario 2: The workload is minimal for a few months - free money for the law firm but the GC is under pressure to get the bang for his buck
Corybantic management on both sides.
Some amount of legal work needs to be commoditized for the lack of any other term. You need to slice up the work and compartmentalize wherever possible. However small that chunk is - only then can you even start budgeting something like that efficiently.
A large portion of legal work however will continue to be based on the billable hour but why not build efficiencies where you can?
Thursday, January 19, 2006
A New Balance
An excerpt taken from an article, taken from Legal Week, a UK based publication for UK lawyes, discusses a subject that corporate counsel in the US can relate to: the drive to cut legal costs, often times by legal departments taking on increasingly more work without going to outside counsel. Outsourcing routine legal work, as the article mentions, can help legal departmets control legal costs without giving up control to outside counsel. Case in point--Accenture UK, which has a captive off-shore in the Mauritius Islands.
Author: Ed ThorntonSource: Legal DirectorStart Date: 19/01/2006End Date: 16/02/2006
Law In Business: Law firms take note: in-house legal teams are taking on more and more work themselves, at the expense of their general advisers. Specialist external advice will remain in demand, but corporate counsel are confident of taking on major deals without law firms holding their hand. Ed Thornton reports
When BOC Group and Marks & Spencer (M&S) sealed a £1bn outsourcing contract in November, outside counsel were strangely absent from the line-up of key players. This was surprising, given that the deal was described by the two FTSE 100 companies as one of the largest food distribution contracts in the UK, seeing BOC deliver food to approximately 420 M&S stores until 2011. The BOC team was led by senior counsel Andrew Brackfield, an ex-Linklaters corporate partner, who worked alongside associate counsel Robert Breedon. Meanwhile, in-house lawyer Carolyn Lock led the M&S team. While Stevens & Bolton advised BOC on some property aspects of the deal, this was a deal where outside counsel played second fiddle to the in-house legal team, at best. Adrian Thurston, head of legal at MFI, thinks this may be symptomatic of a wider trend. "There is an ongoing realisation that it can be cost-effective to do work internally," he says. "[But] even well-stocked departments do not have the back-up of resources for a deal like that [that a law firm would have]. I expect it was quite a challenge." Nonetheless, with a legal department of 40 lawyers worldwide, BOC was convinced it had the resources and expertise to manage the deal in house — particularly since outsourcing was one of its strengths. "As business lawyers, we aim to know the business really well and provide a service," says Brackfield. "Economically, it makes sense to do as much in house [as possible]." . ........
Accenture’s 30-strong UK legal department found a creative way to control legal costs and bring Nevertheless, the trend among corporate legal departments to retain a greater volume and quality of work in house should cause law firms to take notice. In-house lawyers appear to be increasingly eager to try their hand at complex deal work sometimes thought to be the preserve of private practice specialists. At the same time, the Accenture example shows that the routine, day-to-day work can be outsourced further afield than the City.
Author: Ed ThorntonSource: Legal DirectorStart Date: 19/01/2006End Date: 16/02/2006
Author: Ed ThorntonSource: Legal DirectorStart Date: 19/01/2006End Date: 16/02/2006
Law In Business: Law firms take note: in-house legal teams are taking on more and more work themselves, at the expense of their general advisers. Specialist external advice will remain in demand, but corporate counsel are confident of taking on major deals without law firms holding their hand. Ed Thornton reports
When BOC Group and Marks & Spencer (M&S) sealed a £1bn outsourcing contract in November, outside counsel were strangely absent from the line-up of key players. This was surprising, given that the deal was described by the two FTSE 100 companies as one of the largest food distribution contracts in the UK, seeing BOC deliver food to approximately 420 M&S stores until 2011. The BOC team was led by senior counsel Andrew Brackfield, an ex-Linklaters corporate partner, who worked alongside associate counsel Robert Breedon. Meanwhile, in-house lawyer Carolyn Lock led the M&S team. While Stevens & Bolton advised BOC on some property aspects of the deal, this was a deal where outside counsel played second fiddle to the in-house legal team, at best. Adrian Thurston, head of legal at MFI, thinks this may be symptomatic of a wider trend. "There is an ongoing realisation that it can be cost-effective to do work internally," he says. "[But] even well-stocked departments do not have the back-up of resources for a deal like that [that a law firm would have]. I expect it was quite a challenge." Nonetheless, with a legal department of 40 lawyers worldwide, BOC was convinced it had the resources and expertise to manage the deal in house — particularly since outsourcing was one of its strengths. "As business lawyers, we aim to know the business really well and provide a service," says Brackfield. "Economically, it makes sense to do as much in house [as possible]." . ........
Accenture’s 30-strong UK legal department found a creative way to control legal costs and bring Nevertheless, the trend among corporate legal departments to retain a greater volume and quality of work in house should cause law firms to take notice. In-house lawyers appear to be increasingly eager to try their hand at complex deal work sometimes thought to be the preserve of private practice specialists. At the same time, the Accenture example shows that the routine, day-to-day work can be outsourced further afield than the City.
Author: Ed ThorntonSource: Legal DirectorStart Date: 19/01/2006End Date: 16/02/2006
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Salary Hikes Galore!
Seems like most top law firms in the country are going to follow suit. Salary hikes mean
- firms will want more bang for the buck
- will mean they will either have to increase the number of billable hours required for their associates or increase their billing rates (if the partners want to continue making the same level of profits, which I assume they do)
- Might be a strategy to retain and attract the brightest(of which there are only so many) to maintain/increase their billing rates
- Might be a strategy to fight competition posed by avenues like legal outsourcing (a losing battle eventually)
Bottom line: Nobody retained market position very long by just paying more. Clients will realize that a plethora of legal work is not necessarily the most complicated and hence requires the best lawyers in the country. They will look for and demand cheaper alternatives. Score one more for legal outsourcing/offshoring.
An excerpt from an article in Law.com....
Keker Matches Associate Salary Hikes
Petra PasternakThe Recorder01-17-2006
Days after two big L.A. firms hiked base salaries for associates, San Francisco's Keker & Van Nest announced it was matching the raise.
Keker partner Christopher Kearney said last week that the 50-lawyer litigation firm would increase the base pay for first-year associates to $135,000 to compete with three L.A. firms that announced hikes in the past month.
- firms will want more bang for the buck
- will mean they will either have to increase the number of billable hours required for their associates or increase their billing rates (if the partners want to continue making the same level of profits, which I assume they do)
- Might be a strategy to retain and attract the brightest(of which there are only so many) to maintain/increase their billing rates
- Might be a strategy to fight competition posed by avenues like legal outsourcing (a losing battle eventually)
Bottom line: Nobody retained market position very long by just paying more. Clients will realize that a plethora of legal work is not necessarily the most complicated and hence requires the best lawyers in the country. They will look for and demand cheaper alternatives. Score one more for legal outsourcing/offshoring.
An excerpt from an article in Law.com....
Keker Matches Associate Salary Hikes
Petra PasternakThe Recorder01-17-2006
Days after two big L.A. firms hiked base salaries for associates, San Francisco's Keker & Van Nest announced it was matching the raise.
Keker partner Christopher Kearney said last week that the 50-lawyer litigation firm would increase the base pay for first-year associates to $135,000 to compete with three L.A. firms that announced hikes in the past month.
Friday, January 13, 2006
Don't Gloss Over The Very Real Benefits Of Legal Off-Shoring
by: Tariq Hafeez, Esq. (Partner and General Counsel of LegalEase Solutions)
Off-shoring of legal work, while easily overlooked, is an important development in the legal field. For one, it has allowed US lawyers to tap into the intellectual capital of lawyers all over the world. Just as important, it has and continues to help US attorneys save significantly on costs, often times resulting savings to clients.
Case in point: Prominent US based charity: We are currently handling an appeal in the DC Circuit for a US based charity which had its assets frozen. LegalEase recently started up an appellate division, and has teamed up with a brilliant appellate attorney in Detroit-Rubina Mustafa. Rubina brings with her over 10 years of state and federal appellate experience. The federal district court ruled against the charity and its attorney, based in the Detroit area, needed to appeal the ruling. This attorney, who is a top-notch trial attorney, did not have sufficient resources or funding to file an appeal. He turned to LegalEase's appellate services to handle the appeal, from filing the summary of the arguments to the actual appellate brief.
We have a team of attorneys working on this case, all managed by Rubina. We are billing the trial attorney less than $50/hour for this high level work--and this is only made possible because of legal off-shoring. Hope this makes you think twice before glossing over legal off-shoring. I would like to read your comments on this.
Off-shoring of legal work, while easily overlooked, is an important development in the legal field. For one, it has allowed US lawyers to tap into the intellectual capital of lawyers all over the world. Just as important, it has and continues to help US attorneys save significantly on costs, often times resulting savings to clients.
Case in point: Prominent US based charity: We are currently handling an appeal in the DC Circuit for a US based charity which had its assets frozen. LegalEase recently started up an appellate division, and has teamed up with a brilliant appellate attorney in Detroit-Rubina Mustafa. Rubina brings with her over 10 years of state and federal appellate experience. The federal district court ruled against the charity and its attorney, based in the Detroit area, needed to appeal the ruling. This attorney, who is a top-notch trial attorney, did not have sufficient resources or funding to file an appeal. He turned to LegalEase's appellate services to handle the appeal, from filing the summary of the arguments to the actual appellate brief.
We have a team of attorneys working on this case, all managed by Rubina. We are billing the trial attorney less than $50/hour for this high level work--and this is only made possible because of legal off-shoring. Hope this makes you think twice before glossing over legal off-shoring. I would like to read your comments on this.
Thursday, January 12, 2006
The Five Most Likely Outsourcing Trends of 2006
Sometimes even I just cant keep up with the hype. Yet another indicator toward the 'ever expanding' LPO market. An excerpt relevant to the legal outsourcing market....
In fact, a recent ValueNotes report on legal offshoring predicts that employment in legal outsourcing in India will grow more than ten-fold by 2010. Another ValueNotes research shows that the number of employees in publishing outsourcing will grow 5.6 times by 2010.
In fact, a recent ValueNotes report on legal offshoring predicts that employment in legal outsourcing in India will grow more than ten-fold by 2010. Another ValueNotes research shows that the number of employees in publishing outsourcing will grow 5.6 times by 2010.
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
CNN/IBN proflies the Legal Outsourcing Industry
Below are some highlights from a recent article appearing on CNN/IBN website on January 8, 2006 profiling the legal outsourcing industry:
They are among the more recent entrants to the outsourcing party. They are the Indian lawyers. If industry reports are any indication, the country's legal eagles could well give much muscle to India's knowledge process outsourcing growth story. The legal services sector is tipped to be the next big offshore destination and corporate lawyers are increasingly hopping on to the outsourcing bandwagon and are handling prestigious international clients.
Recent industry reports peg the annual value of legal outsourcing at $80 mn and predict that it will rise up to $4 bn by 2015 - that translates to almost 80,000 more jobs for lawyers in India.
"Indian law is based on common law and the common law governs the basic law everywhere in the world. Indian lawyers are much in demand right now due to their sheer understanding of the law," Gunjan, a partner with ZeusPro, says.
With a just a couple of thousand employees spread across less than 50 firms, LPO outfits in India offer paralegal and research support, draft and revise contracts, handle patent filing and prosecution for Multinational Corporations (MNCs) like GE, Oracle and Sun and international law firms.
The opportunities are immense and the new breed of lawyers swear by it. "I would say it is very exciting and there are tremendous opportunities for us," Gunjan says.
They are among the more recent entrants to the outsourcing party. They are the Indian lawyers. If industry reports are any indication, the country's legal eagles could well give much muscle to India's knowledge process outsourcing growth story. The legal services sector is tipped to be the next big offshore destination and corporate lawyers are increasingly hopping on to the outsourcing bandwagon and are handling prestigious international clients.
Recent industry reports peg the annual value of legal outsourcing at $80 mn and predict that it will rise up to $4 bn by 2015 - that translates to almost 80,000 more jobs for lawyers in India.
"Indian law is based on common law and the common law governs the basic law everywhere in the world. Indian lawyers are much in demand right now due to their sheer understanding of the law," Gunjan, a partner with ZeusPro, says.
With a just a couple of thousand employees spread across less than 50 firms, LPO outfits in India offer paralegal and research support, draft and revise contracts, handle patent filing and prosecution for Multinational Corporations (MNCs) like GE, Oracle and Sun and international law firms.
The opportunities are immense and the new breed of lawyers swear by it. "I would say it is very exciting and there are tremendous opportunities for us," Gunjan says.
Monday, January 09, 2006
LegalBulk
I found this rather hilarious cartoon in the New Yorker which I felt is fairly representative... (might actually need to read Acme LegalEase)
Friday, January 06, 2006
Five Questions Law Firms Face in 2006
The following is an excerpt from an article from the Legal Times. Among the five big - "What will happen?" 's is (not surprisingly) - CAN COSTS BE CUT FURTHER?. It is interesting that most of the articles continue to mention outsourcing as a tanglible option but the legal industry is a slow moving beast. Lawyer's habits are hard to change. Yet the change is beckoning in the horizon.
Emma SchwartzLegal TimesJanuary 6, 2006
Mergers. Firm dissolutions. Associate salary hikes. Last year was anything but docile in the legal market. With ever-increasing competition among firms, 2006 looks to be equally challenging. With that in mind, here are five issues that could be -- or should be -- in the forefront of every managing partner's mind heading into the new year.
4. CAN COSTS BE CUT FURTHER?
Even as some firms continue to raise rates, they are still looking at other ways to hold down costs.
One development likely to escalate in the coming year: outsourcing.
Firms like Howrey have already tested the waters for some electronic discovery. And there may be opportunities to capitalize on India's inexpensive intellectual assets to offshore preliminary work on patent prosecutions.
But, says Bower, "There is not a lot of confidence yet in the quality of what is coming out."
Another option may be to pare down practice groups. Firms are starting to see a greater advantage in having a few practice areas with more depth and expertise, says Robert Ruyak, managing partner at Howrey. To achieve that goal, many firms are seeking to acquire specific practice groups, such as Ropes & Gray's acquisition of Fish & Neave's intellectual property group or Jones Day's buyout of IP firm Pennie & Edmonds.
But while Ruyak doesn't see Howrey moving toward a model of having just a handful of practice groups, he believes that as firms drop unwanted lawyers, it will "have the effect of making people available for other firms."
And other firms like Arent Fox still believe that by staying small they can give better service -- and rates -- with equal quality.
Emma SchwartzLegal TimesJanuary 6, 2006
Mergers. Firm dissolutions. Associate salary hikes. Last year was anything but docile in the legal market. With ever-increasing competition among firms, 2006 looks to be equally challenging. With that in mind, here are five issues that could be -- or should be -- in the forefront of every managing partner's mind heading into the new year.
4. CAN COSTS BE CUT FURTHER?
Even as some firms continue to raise rates, they are still looking at other ways to hold down costs.
One development likely to escalate in the coming year: outsourcing.
Firms like Howrey have already tested the waters for some electronic discovery. And there may be opportunities to capitalize on India's inexpensive intellectual assets to offshore preliminary work on patent prosecutions.
But, says Bower, "There is not a lot of confidence yet in the quality of what is coming out."
Another option may be to pare down practice groups. Firms are starting to see a greater advantage in having a few practice areas with more depth and expertise, says Robert Ruyak, managing partner at Howrey. To achieve that goal, many firms are seeking to acquire specific practice groups, such as Ropes & Gray's acquisition of Fish & Neave's intellectual property group or Jones Day's buyout of IP firm Pennie & Edmonds.
But while Ruyak doesn't see Howrey moving toward a model of having just a handful of practice groups, he believes that as firms drop unwanted lawyers, it will "have the effect of making people available for other firms."
And other firms like Arent Fox still believe that by staying small they can give better service -- and rates -- with equal quality.
Thursday, January 05, 2006
The New Year Resolution
We all make resolutions personally and professionally for the New Year with one of the most popular resolutions being, I want to work harder! But is that enough?
We all want to be more successful in what we are doing. One of the factors which go into that is gaining more expertise in our fields of law. But what about being more adept in running your legal department or law firm? The legal business environment is changing fast. The order of the day is speed, efficiency, responsiveness and cost. How does one look at each of these factors individually and become better at it? There are options in today’s world. Outsourcing providers let you do just that!
While you continue to focus to gaining clients and more expertise in what you do, you have to be cognizant of the fact that you need more time and capacity to do that.
LegalEase Solutions can help you take care of your legal research and writing needs. Our services include briefs, memoranda, pleadings, document review, discovery, appellate work and patent services. As one of our clients had to say
"LegalEase saved me. As a solo practitioner my time is not infinite. Having LegalEase there is like having a reliable older partner who is willing to work through the weekend to get the brief done right. With very little information LegalEase wrote a motion and memorandum of law on a complicated point of criminal law and saw the fallacy in the State's argument. The court complimented me on my written arguments and I got to enjoy at least some of my weekend - money well spent. Thanks."
By Tariq Akbar
January 5, 2006
We all want to be more successful in what we are doing. One of the factors which go into that is gaining more expertise in our fields of law. But what about being more adept in running your legal department or law firm? The legal business environment is changing fast. The order of the day is speed, efficiency, responsiveness and cost. How does one look at each of these factors individually and become better at it? There are options in today’s world. Outsourcing providers let you do just that!
While you continue to focus to gaining clients and more expertise in what you do, you have to be cognizant of the fact that you need more time and capacity to do that.
LegalEase Solutions can help you take care of your legal research and writing needs. Our services include briefs, memoranda, pleadings, document review, discovery, appellate work and patent services. As one of our clients had to say
"LegalEase saved me. As a solo practitioner my time is not infinite. Having LegalEase there is like having a reliable older partner who is willing to work through the weekend to get the brief done right. With very little information LegalEase wrote a motion and memorandum of law on a complicated point of criminal law and saw the fallacy in the State's argument. The court complimented me on my written arguments and I got to enjoy at least some of my weekend - money well spent. Thanks."
By Tariq Akbar
January 5, 2006
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
What Matters Most? Expertise (and COST)
An excerpt from an article in the Legal Times reveals that among the three factors which inhouse counsel for corporations are looking for from their outside counsel is: COST. We provide a very viable option to corporate counsel and it is a matter of time before they realise the cost benefit of using legal outsourcing.
THE COST FACTOR Prevalent throughout the survey responses was a concern about costs. Litigation expenses are top-of-mind for a large number of corporate counsel. For almost 20 percent of the respondents, the overall costs of litigation, rather than any specific category of lawsuit, was the leading concern. Controlling unpredictable litigation expenses poses a challenge for in-house lawyers, so much so that 43 percent don't operate under a set litigation budget. The responses from the 146 counsel who were able to report the amount of their companies' litigation budgets, however, demonstrate the significant price of litigation. Of the average legal budget of $20.1 million, more than a third -- $8 million -- is directed toward litigation-related expenses. About a quarter of the companies surveyed said that litigation spending accounts for 21 percent to 50 percent of their legal budget. An additional 12 percent reported that litigation expenses accounted for more than 50 percent of their total legal budget. How does all of this translate into real dollars? Of the $1 billion-plus companies with legal budgets that demand more than 5 percent of gross revenues (8 percent of the category respondents), 32 percent spend anywhere from a quarter to one-half of their legal budget on litigation. That's between $12.5 million and $25 million annually. For an additional 16 percent of the largest companies, their litigation budget is more than half of their legal budget, which is the equivalent of $10 million to $25 million a year. The amount of money corporate America spends annually on lawsuits goes a long way toward explaining the desire of in-house counsel to reduce expenditures. For a third of the respondents, the message they most wanted to deliver to outside counsel was "control costs." That took precedence over results-oriented messages like "win cases" or "get results." Many corporate counsel, however, are satisfied with the jobs that their outside law firms are doing, with nearly a quarter of those surveyed responding with some variation of "keep up the good work."
THE COST FACTOR Prevalent throughout the survey responses was a concern about costs. Litigation expenses are top-of-mind for a large number of corporate counsel. For almost 20 percent of the respondents, the overall costs of litigation, rather than any specific category of lawsuit, was the leading concern. Controlling unpredictable litigation expenses poses a challenge for in-house lawyers, so much so that 43 percent don't operate under a set litigation budget. The responses from the 146 counsel who were able to report the amount of their companies' litigation budgets, however, demonstrate the significant price of litigation. Of the average legal budget of $20.1 million, more than a third -- $8 million -- is directed toward litigation-related expenses. About a quarter of the companies surveyed said that litigation spending accounts for 21 percent to 50 percent of their legal budget. An additional 12 percent reported that litigation expenses accounted for more than 50 percent of their total legal budget. How does all of this translate into real dollars? Of the $1 billion-plus companies with legal budgets that demand more than 5 percent of gross revenues (8 percent of the category respondents), 32 percent spend anywhere from a quarter to one-half of their legal budget on litigation. That's between $12.5 million and $25 million annually. For an additional 16 percent of the largest companies, their litigation budget is more than half of their legal budget, which is the equivalent of $10 million to $25 million a year. The amount of money corporate America spends annually on lawsuits goes a long way toward explaining the desire of in-house counsel to reduce expenditures. For a third of the respondents, the message they most wanted to deliver to outside counsel was "control costs." That took precedence over results-oriented messages like "win cases" or "get results." Many corporate counsel, however, are satisfied with the jobs that their outside law firms are doing, with nearly a quarter of those surveyed responding with some variation of "keep up the good work."
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