Legal news and trends for Canadian in-house counsel and c-suite executives
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our external service providers and do project management, reduce costs, and part of it is maybe work on managing them in terms of saying, "I want you to do this. What do you think it's going to cost? This is what it's worth to me." FITZGERALD: I think one of the challenges with retaining outside coun- sel is that we as lawyers are all very well trained in negotiation, and we negoti- ate business deals on a regular basis. We forget this is a business deal. It's no different than any other business deal we're negotiating. They have a perspec- tive from which they need to work, and we have a perspective from which we need to work. . . . So you want to know what's their high end, what's their low end. Treat it like any other negotiation you're dealing with. be independent, better, working as an in-house lawyer. He's going to know the people internally. When he comes back to your firm he's a changed lawyer. Now the people know him, people go to him naturally, and you've created a better relationship, a better bond with your key customers than you would ever dream of. And that's the wise way to spend your money. That's the wise way to spend your marketing dollars. AGOSTINO: I think it deals with the issue of service, because we don't want to compromise service that we obtain from our external legal service provid- ers, and it deals with dollars because that's very important to us to keep our costs down. . . . I think part of it comes from our own ability to work with BARBARA SILVERBERG: I just don't think law firms can afford to not be more creative in what they're doing. I've been hearing since I started to practise law, quite some time ago, that billable hours were kind of at risk, and I guess lawyers will be saying, "Well we've been hearing that forever, and it has never happened so here we are." But I just think that's no longer the reality. As long as 10 years ago, I started doing RFPs for law firm work. Granted at the beginning it was more specific deals but law firms were incredibly resistant. . . . But ultimately some did do it, and those were the ones who were success- ful in that particular context. Now, come 10 years later, we're in a reces- sion. We did an enormous initiative in Europe that's still ongoing . . . in terms of hourly rates we negotiated, across the board, 40- to 50-per-cent reductions in hourly rate numbers. Not only that, we got a secondment of a data-protection lawyer and a secondment of an employ- ment lawyer for six months made in the context you describe. And we've got all kinds of agreements in terms of training. It's revolutionary for our company, and where we're going, and it won't stop. FISH: I liken the business of banking to a manufacturing concept. And after all, I think that what we do is ultimately manufacture and sell contracts. We don't call them that, we call them deposits and accounts and loans and instruments. INHOUSE AUGUST 2010 • 19