Welcome to the subscription service economy.<\/p>\n
Subscription services are prevalent in the software and e-commerce industries, but inroads are being made into other sectors as well.<\/p>\n
Like, legal.<\/p>\n
Future focused legal teams are looking to subscription services as a method of achieving efficiency and certainty in parallel to future focused businesses looking to subscription services as a key source of revenue.<\/p>\n
I have been an early adopter of subscription model services since I formally started my in-house career in 2008. And once I started, I (nor the business) didn\u2019t want to go back.<\/p>\n
Here are three (3) reasons why I believe legal subscription models are the way of the future for in-house legal teams:<\/p>\n
In my last role, I described our outside counsel (law firms and legal tech vendors) as our \u201cextended legal team\u201d in order to create a sense of community around us as an account, a client.<\/p>\n
Any firm or legal tech vendor, and its individuals, had to be at their top of their game as well as be a good cultural fit – for our legal team but also with the company culture – enough that we as a team would feel comfortable putting our internal clients in their care.<\/p>\n
And that last point is a huge one. The way we practice law in-house is very different to the traditional law firm-client relationship.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what drew me to LegalVision\u2019s<\/a> <\/strong>desk extension service. It aspired to act as an extension of client\u2019s inhouse teams: on demand, and with unlimited access for a fixed fee.<\/p>\n I almost fell of my chair with excitement when I received an email from its principal requesting for us to hold a training session for LegalVision (and the lawyers which would be servicing our account) so that the firm could understand our business model, our billing practices, risk appetite and commercial profile.<\/p>\n Outside counsel tend to see themselves as legal experts and service providers first, and then collaborators.<\/p>\n As a General Counsel, I sought to set the benchmark a little higher – our outside counsel needed to see themselves as collaborative experts.<\/p>\n General Counsels don\u2019t often talk about the administrative effort that goes into managing outside counsel. Probably because it doesn\u2019t make for the most riveting of conversations.<\/p>\n However, it\u2019s a practical reality we all face.<\/p>\n With workloads ever expanding, it\u2019s a (manual) headache to manage outside counsel costs in granular detail as an in-house lawyer, particularly if you have multiple matters briefed out to multiple firms, across your team.<\/p>\n But, in today\u2019s climate, operational efficiency is an ever-increasing focus of C-suites and legal departments.<\/p>\n Why have three law firms doing the same work, when you could subscribe to one?<\/p>\n A subscription model allows you to rationalise, redirect and centralise overflow\/business as usual work.<\/p>\n No constant emails or awkward conversations requesting for costs update from multiple law firms.<\/p>\n No constant emails and conversations defensively justifying over runs.<\/p>\n No constant need for approvals to brief out from business stakeholders – particularly if you rely on the relevant business unit to raise the purchase order for the spend.<\/p>\n No constant administration of invoices and adjusting of purchase orders.<\/p>\n No constant requests from your financial controller to phase your outside counsel spend due to fluctuations.<\/p>\n And, no wanting to talk about the administrative burden with your GC colleagues and in team meetings.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s the challenge – a law firm partner has to generate up to $1m – $2m+ per annum in fees. A General Counsel is typically under pressure to save that same (or greater) amount each year in outside counsel spend.<\/p>\n In today\u2019s digital age, General Counsel need to be more business minded and to look up to trumedical.co.uk<\/a> in the way that they run their legal functions. To be more intrapreneurial.<\/p>\n This puts us as potentially at odds with a standard law firm business model. It\u2019s the great divide.<\/p>\n For me, part of being more business minded means treating the legal budget like it\u2019s your own money.<\/p>\n I can very easily count the number of times I engaged outside counsel on a billable hour basis. AFAs (Alternative Fee Arrangements) were the norm, not the exception. As a modern General Counsel, I saw it as our team\u2019s duty and part of our value prop to give the business cost certainty wherever possible.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t accept open ended cost arrangements in my personal affairs, so why would I accept it for my legal department, and more importantly, for and behalf of my stakeholders?<\/p>\n With COVID, businesses are dealing with enough uncertainty in their day to day, so if legal department can achieve greater cost certainty to your business colleagues, they and their P&Ls will be grateful.<\/p>\n I\u2019m glad that some California law firms as http:\/\/www.sandiegobk.com<\/a> are waking up to these chapter 13 bankruptcy business realities which their clients are facing.<\/p>\n I can hear the sigh of relief all round – can you?<\/p>\n If you want to learn more about LegalVision\u2019s desk extension servic<\/strong>e<\/a>, or talk about bringing efficiency to your outside counsel spend, please contact me<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n Thanks for taking the time to read my post.<\/p>\n Stay positive and future focused.<\/p>\n X Anna<\/p>\n \u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n In 2021, I\u2019m on a mission to help law and business adapt to the digital age. Come and build your Innovation Intelligence (what I call IQ2.0) with me:<\/p>\n @legallyinnovative<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0annalozynski.com <\/a>| Anna Lozynski \u2013 LinkedIn<\/a> | @annaloz\u00a0Clubhouse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I can very easily count the number of times I engaged outside counsel on a billable hour basis. As a modern General Counsel, I saw it as our team\u2019s duty and part of our value prop to give the business cost certainty wherever possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3744,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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