Legal news and trends for Canadian in-house counsel and c-suite executives
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business plan goals and objectives," says Armstrong. Central to managing workload for Gervais and his colleagues was manag- ing expectations. "We are the service provider and they are the client. We need to understand what they want to achieve," says Gervais. Last year, the Assumption Life legal team, which includes three lawyers, redefined its values and spelled out what it needed from other departments in the company. In all, the legal depart- ment identified 10 core values central to achieving success. These include respecting others' ideas, approaches, and competen- cies; accepting responsibility for their actions and the outcomes; and involv- ing those who are affected by their decisions. Three expectations were also articulated. First, clients must disclose content completely. Next, they must provide honest feedback regarding the advice they received. Finally, in-house clients must understand that the legal department offers advice but the final decision is the client's. Drafting the values and expectations was not a paper exercise, says Gervais. "We live by it and we die by it." Denise Smith's staff at the Nova Scotia Public Prosecution Service, Halifax Region, use a team approach to handle workload, and workflow. "For the most part, people don't have own- ership over files. . . . Files pass through a lot of hands," says the chief Crown attorney. "The real challenge is how do you maintain the quality of legal work and pass on the intelligence of what's been done on a file." To streamline the process, Smith and her team put together a best practices guide. "It was an attempt to reduce to writing those things that were under- stood. We ended up with a work product we could distribute to our new Crown attorneys and that was also adopted as a tool for performance management," Smith notes. The guide helps ensure consistency, avoid duplication, and save repeating instructions time and again, particu- larly important when a department is as large as Smith's. The Halifax office, 26 • APRIL 2009 INHOUSE between the Association of Corporate Counsel in the U.S., and Serengeti Law, an e-billing and matter management firm, concerns about controlling out- side legal expenses no longer top the list of what keeps in-house counsel awake at night. That dubious honour now goes to keeping track of company activities that might have legal implica- tions. The survey found increasing com- plexity of regulatory requirements driven by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and related laws, along with a series of high- profile trials involving executives and in-house counsel, has led to heightened concerns regarding legal compliance issues. Many of the law departments surveyed admitted they generally use e-mail, phone, paper correspondence, and other manual systems to collect and which Smith oversees, is the largest in Atlantic Canada. Smith is assisted by two regional Crown attorneys, one housed in the Halifax office and one housed in an office in Dartmouth. A third smaller office is located at the Halifax provincial court. In the Halifax office, there are 22 Crown attorneys and 17 support staff. In the Dartmouth office, there are 12 Crowns and eight support staff. Last year, the Halifax office opened 5,400 files and the Dartmouth office opened 3,400 files. Managing the flow of work for in- house counsel also means anticipating what work will cross the desk, a sig- nificant, and growing, issue. According to the 2008 ACC/Serengeti Managing Outside Counsel Survey, a joint effort report on compliance issues. Many also acknowledged that their systems lack basic safeguards, such as verification of data entered and spreadsheet formulas, and maintenance of an audit trail. While the survey examined process- es in U.S. legal departments, these con- cerns are certainly mirrored north of the 49th parallel and contribute directly to an increased workload and the need for greater efficiency. In many cases, these issues are linked directly to another workflow issue: out- side counsel. For Armstrong, three situations trigger consideration of hiring outside counsel. If the work is highly specific or specialized, if the work requires human resources the legal department doesn't For the most part, people don't have ownership over fi les. . . . Files pass through a lot of hands. The real challenge is how do you maintain the quality of legal work and pass on the intelligence of what's been done on a fi le. DENISE SMITH, Nova Scotia chief Crown attorney have, and thirdly, if the work is routine and it is more cost effective to have it completed elsewhere. In an economic recession, there may well be a fourth reason, optics. Workloads continue to climb, but hir- ing does not always keep pace. Now if companies are forced to lay off staff, or even contemplate it, they may be reluctant to hire new legal talent. Where to turn? A new survey from Robert Half Legal found that more than one-third of attorneys polled had noted an increase in work with outside counsel during the past 12 months. Regardless of the impetus for turn- ing to outside counsel, the model for working with those lawyers remains consistent, says Armstrong. "We follow a co-counsel model. The work is closely