Peer to Peer Magazine

71 WWW.ILTANET.ORG An Asset to the Enterprise: How Legal Departments Can Demonstrate More Value FEATURES and vendors accountable for inefficiencies, and you might be able to negotiate performance-based fee arrangements to ensure accountability in the future. If you track legal spend by business unit, you could isolate departments in which more or beer training could positively affect the business. Is the department's approach to assigning work to internal team members driven out of habit or based on structured thinking around the value and complexity of the work? As legal departments embrace current performance management approaches, work assignments should not be based on tenure or a traditional organizational structure. Instead, assignments should be aligned with team member performance measures like business acumen, ability to manage, creativity, efficiency and collaboration. High- potential players can be given "stretch goals" to increase their exposure to business leaders. This is an area where metrics can help legal departments aain a more objective understanding of the work they do, including: » The number of maers opened and closed in a given period » The number and types of maers handled » The number of internal team members assigned to projects » The time legal takes to respond » The overall cycle time These metrics can come to life if you also systematically track maer-related variables like risk potential, complexity and business importance. Many of these same metrics can also be used to evaluate the performance of outside counsel vis-à-vis in- house counsel to support decisions to make versus buy and to identify additional cost savings opportunities. The most important point of these activities is to be accountable to your organization. Highlight budget performance in periodic reports to management and quantify the value added to the company. Document year-over-year volume of legal services and tie that information to your analyses of budget and value provided. And don't forget to put the data you gather into context. Include information regarding unpredictable contingencies, changes in the business and decisions by management that influence or distort the reported results. Collaborate with Other Departments and Key Stakeholders Proactive general counsel and legal executives are initiating regular conversations with C-suite executives — especially the CFO, CIO and COO — and delivering valuable insight on strategic initiatives such as mergers, acquisitions, partnerships, technology investments and expansions into new markets. The legal department's input on potential risks and benefits of major business decisions can be a source of tangible value to the organization, contributing directly to its strategic vision and financial goals. Technology decisions and operational processes that could create risk depending on the adopted policies and procedures — such as email archiving and data-breach incident-response plans — are much easier to identify and correct when there is a structure in place for formal discussions and collaboration between the GC and their C-level colleagues. More Value Demonstrated Perceptions are changing regarding the GC's role and the value of the legal department. Gone are the days when legal can be content with sending cease and desist leers, handling contract negotiations aer engagements have already been decided on and managing litigation on a case-by-case basis. Today's GCs are now expected to be an integral part of their organization's executive leadership team, applying business acumen to legal problems. The legal department is expected to clearly understand the organization's strategic vision and demonstrate how it is contributing to the business objectives and financial goals that will fulfill that vision. As you demonstrate your value, it's only a maer of time before all forward- looking companies will view the legal department as a key strategic competitive advantage. P2P NANCY JESSEN Nancy Jessen is the Senior Vice President of Legal Business Solutions at UnitedLex. She has provided strategic and operational consulting services to the legal profession for more than 25 years. Prior to joining UnitedLex, Nancy served as the practice leader for Huron Consulting's law department management group and provided legal consulting at Arthur Andersen and Altman Weil. She frequently speaks at industry events on topics that inspire and educate the audience on how to set priorities, achieve cost savings, successfully implement new systems, drive user adoption of change and articulate the value contribution of the law department. Contact Nancy at nancy.jessen@unitedlex.com.

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