Canadian Lawyer InHouse

41 CANADIANLAWYERMAG.COM/INHOUSE NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018 ters. They like that it gets them out of their email and generates a list of tasks they are supposed to work on." Legal also now has a standard service level commitment to its business colleagues — an NDA is one day, everything else is about three days. "There's a lot of stuff I don't even see now because I shouldn't have seen it in the first place," says Nguyen. "Whatever makes it to my task list are the critical things I should be spending my time on and Margaret can do the non-disclosure agreements now and high-level triage." METRICS For Nguyen, knowing how long requests are sitting in legal was critical. Up until recent- ly, the company didn't really appreciate how long things were taking to get negotiated. "Now we can start to see how long is it actually with us and how long is it with the other side. Is it the industry, is it the rep, is it the form of contract? It's a way to start doing some analysis to see if we can start improving our process and drive efficiencies." Like most sales organizations, they'd like to see the time frame be shorter, but they can't say it needs to be shorter without knowing how long it takes in the first place. The next step for Nguyen is getting the same kind of tool in place for working with external counsel. "In a perfect world, I would have a tool where I could submit a request to the law firms themselves to actually know if a) a request has been received, b) has it been triaged and what lawyer has it been as- signed to it, so I don't have to call the relationship partner or other partner in charge of it," he says. Much like the Resolver sales reps do, Nguyen would like to log in and see that his request for legal work at a firm has been assigned and on what day and see any notes and have correspondence with them in real time. That would give him the ability to be more accountable to his internal clients. "Someone internally may come ask me the status of a file. If I've outsourced it to external counsel and they're on a me- diation or on a deal all day I may not be able to reach them. Why should I have to speak to someone to see where my file is? I should be able to log in to a tool and see that it's been assigned," he says. "In a perfect world, firms would start matching their docketing system to the matter, so I can see in real time how much time is being spent on it and what is actually be- ing done on the file, assuming a billable- hour model. Otherwise, I just care that it has been looked at and have some sort of update." Nguyen has also shown his workflow app to a small law firm that acts as a virtual GC for an organization and it is consider - ing using it for its own clients. IH L a w D e p a r t m e n t M a n a g e m e n t Master the law. Canada's leading law school offers a graduate degree in four unique streams: Business Law Canadian Law in a Global Context Innovation, Law and Technology Law of Leadership Apply today. Visit gpllm.law.utoronto.ca Questions? gpllm@utoronto.ca ntitled-8 1 2018-06-12 12:47 PM

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