How did it come to this? Managing your legal department and controlling legal costs has all of the excitement of the new NFL season, but with all of the satisfaction of filing your taxes with an amount due. (Read More)
September 12, 2009
July 15, 2009
The Third Option, Part II
Yesterday I presented the challenge of enforcing all billing guidelines, not just those that the GC feels are being violated. Success here depends on how willing you are to challenge your current bill review procedures. The first step is to define the problem. True, billing guidelines are not being enforced. But why? (Read More)
July 14, 2009
The Third Option, Part I
I’ve worked with corporate law departments that struggled with the decision of whether to drop their high-priced firms in favor of those with lower rates. While this may make sense in the short term, the risk is that if a case goes south, the blame comes straight back to the in-house counsel who brought in the new firm, even if such blame is unwarranted. If you’re in this position, it appears that you only have two choices: stay with the high-priced firms and sacrifice control of your budget; or switch firms and assume this risk (real or perceived).
Enter the third option: (Read More)
May 6, 2009
Slashing legal costs at the expense of quality?
As the article below indicates, some companies are slashing legal costs by hiring firms with lower rates. But does that mean that the quality of legal representation is still there? With LegalEye ’s (TM) dashboarding and reporting capabilities, you no longer have to take that chance.