Articles Posted in How Lawyers Deliver Their Services to Business

My last post was discouraging:

“Business Leaders Need to Drive Better Legal Pricing and Services Delivery Because Lawyers Won’t or Can’t”.

Discouraging, but proven.

Among law firms:

• 69% of leaders surveyed said that, “partners resist most change efforts”, and

• 59% gave this reason: “We are not feeling enough economic pain to motivate significant change.”

And among in-house law departments:

“Altman Weil found that 55% of Chief Legal Officers believe that they do not have enough buying power to negotiate more effectively. Some 51% also say that law firms are resisting discounting. Interestingly, 30% of the CLOs do not want to damage good relationships with external counsel by asking for greater discounts.”

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But it’s not all gloom.

Some outlier firms and individuals in the legal industry understand that client companies need to do more with less in managing their legal affairs. And they’ve been taking decisive action to that end.

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The message of this blog, and what I do for my clients, is based on a single guiding conviction:

American businesses large and small pay increasing (never decreasing) legal costs – and miss opportunities to prevent liability before it happens.

Because owners and executives let the legal industry and its business model call the shots on pay, work flows, and personnel. They let law firm and in-house attorneys make decisions in these areas that no general manager would tolerate anywhere else in the business.

Meanwhile, demands of the litigation and regulatory environments proliferate.

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It’s not as though no one agrees with this view.

In fact, this view is the staple of lawyers’ conferences (for instance, here, here, and here) and publications (for instance here, and here).

The words are the staple … that is.

Any constructive action in response not so much.

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On the law firm side, the most recent Altman Weil survey of law firm leaders reported: “In 69% of law firms, partners resist most change efforts”.

69% of law firms.

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