Canadian Lawyer InHouse

JULY 2015 24 INHOUSE ROUNDTABLE ROUNDTABLE ROUNDTABLE ROUNDTABLE ROUNDTABLE ROUNDTABLE ROUNDTABLE ROUNDTABLE ROUNDTABLE ROUNDTABLE ROUNDTABLE ROUNDTABLE ROUNDTABLE ROUNDTABLE ROUNDTABLE ROUNDTABLE ROUNDTABLE ROUNDTABLE ROUNDTABLE ROUNDTABLE ROUNDTABLE ROUNDTABLE ROUNDTABLE ROUNDTABLE ROUNDTABLE ROUNDTABLE ROUNDTABLE that occurred in the United States and else- where, a lot of legislation changed for the better. What we're seeing now, though, is even though there are very strict federal statutes, some states and even counties and municipalities are trying to pre-empt fed- eral law and it's going to be impossible to manage. It's about making the people that are attempting to legislate in those areas un- derstand that we take this very seriously and we're on top of our game so the goods con- tinue to fl ow where they need to fl ow and that it makes sense. INHOUSE: What has been your experience with alternative fee arrangements and requests for proposals? Greenberg We have used them. We recently went out with an RFP for some litigation. I think certain fi les lend themselves more to a fi xed-fee type of construct. With litigation, what they'll end up doing is splitting it into phases and they'll give you fi xed fees for each phase. You're going to get all the carve outs so in the end you still may have to spend more. So it may be effi cient work, because they're trying to get as much work done in a small amount of time, but they may put lawyers on the fi le who are not as qualifi ed. So, there's a balance there that has to be struck. I think you can get alternative fee arrangements in many different ways. We have the fi rms we work with most, who know our business best, and as a result we give them more and then we expect discounts, because we give them a chunk of our business. That works. I always wonder, though, whether they're increasing the amount of hours. In our RFP we ask for alternative fee struc- tures. I put details in certain areas and I leave certain areas purposely vague — almost like an exam question to see how they're going to approach it, then determine, based on what their way of thinking is, how creative they're going to be. It's not the fi rm I'm looking for in that particular case, it's the individual that I'm going to be choosing in that fi rm. I'm not looking for someone to make a presen- tation on behalf of the fi rm. Part of it's go- ing to be fi t — if it's going to be a long-term trial, for example, and I'm going to be on the phone with this person on a weekly basis and I can't stand their personality but they may be a good lawyer, there's probably another good lawyer that I can work with better. It actually does matter. Petrolito I've done an RFP for a very spe- cifi c time, because I was, in fact, losing a lawyer and the other one was about to go on mat leave and I needed contract work done. I went to an RFP and I was very specifi c about what I wanted to see. I wanted specifi c years of experience, their hourly rates. I also made it a little bit vague. I said, OK, you have about a week to get back to me with questions and then a week to get back to me with your proposal. It made it very interesting because with the facts and with the questions that they would ask, I would see if they were already the right players. In the end, it has to be a question of costs but it was very interesting that one got completely eliminated because they didn't even bother coming back with questions. I thought that was just ridicu- lous, because it was vague enough that you needed to ask questions and they didn't even come back to me. So I thought OK, you are really not serious enough for me to be able to hire you. The responses from the law fi rms — some of them were actually go- ing to their marketing teams and they were saying yes marketing helped me to put this RFP together. And, I thought that's hilari- ous but they are really trying. Desjardins All of us have become more sophisticated in the way we procure, through RFPs and through all sorts of alternative billing and there's no one solution that suits all. We'll go case-by-case because for certain types of work it makes more sense to go this way or this way, but at the end of the day, I always come back to how much is it going to cost me? We all work with budgets and our customers do too. We go to tender and most of our customers, either in our airline business or in the train business, know we're competing against the best in the world. At the end of the day, you've got a contract and it's a fi rm, fi xed contract. One law fi rm came to me and said, "Well it's very complex to do a budget." I tell them, let me talk to you about complexity. I don't buy this. I mean, what we've got to price is way more complex than what they have to do. In so many law fi rms you've got mar- keting departments answering RFPs after RFPs. One of my challenges to them is "guys, stop running after all those RFPs." Forget the next rabbit and concentrate on your existing client base. First go back to your existing top 20 customers. Are you serving them well? What are you doing for them? Who else is doing some work for them, how can you do more? Headon I think our proximity to the client, our familiarity with how businesses work, and all the complexity that we have to manage is something where I think the in-house community can be giving back and helping the private bar, who don't see that in their day-to-day. We can help them understand why these things are so important and how you get there, whatever the fee structure they ultimately come up with refl ects the fact it's how things are unfolding. The research we did on CBA Futures certainly

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