Have you considered “single-point post-transaction” reviews? "At the end of each transaction ask individual business colleagues within your organization for one improvement suggestion. This should be one improvement you and your external lawyers can make to continue to improve the service that you provide.”

This technique comes from Ann Page and Richard Trapp, Managing External Legal Resources (ICSA 2007) at 81. Keep the question simple, easily and quickly answered by a thoughtful client, and to the point of continuous improvement (See my post of May 27, 2008: post mortems with 7 references.).

Previous posts have disagreed with the ideas of Bo Yancey, Director of Professional Services at Redwood Analytics, on March 9, 2009, about RFPs. Here is my third disagreement with Yancey.

“In the end, firms and clients are best served working closely together to understand each other’s needs and values, and arrive at pricing structures that fit up with the value delivered. This can only be achieved over time, with commitment from both sides. It can’t be accomplished through concepts like RFP’s, which measure only cost and work best when applied to commodity products. While RFP’s are supposed to allow those using them to compare “apples to apples” with cost as a differentiator, not all businesses sell fruit. Service levels, client-specific knowledge and “win-win” pricing can’t be achieved or measured through an RFP.”

Yancey must not see what I see in my consulting projects: every kind of service in the legal orchard has been put out to bid by requests for proposal. To clarify that metaphor and emphasize the point, law departments have selected law firms through an RFP process for every legal service imaginable – it is a management technique most fruitful.

Nice folks shouldn’t be expected to finish last. “People tend to see warmth and competence as inversely related.” As explained in the Harv. Bus. Rev., Vol. 86, Feb. 2009 at 24, being nice doesn’t mean being incompetent. Nor, of course, is being mean a sign of effectiveness. Unfortunately, both inferences correlate too often with gender (See my post of Nov. 10, 2007: gender differences with 10 references.).

Obstacle to professional networks if IT blocks access. At a client recently, where I had access to the Internet through the corporate network, I was unable to log on to Twitter. A message chided me that “This site is blocked under the category of ‘Social Networking’’”. If many companies clamp down on access to professional networks from work, the value they might provide to in-house lawyers will decline significantly (See my post of Sept. 22, 2008: professional networks such as Legal OnRamp, with 7 references.).

Law firm discounts don’t make a difference on longevity of client relationships? Here is another odd statement from the Redwood Analytics’ research, by Bo Yancey, Director of Professional Services at Redwood Analytics, on March 9, 2009, about RFPs. “[D]iscounting, or lack thereof, was not a factor in the longevity of client relationships.” Surprised? So am I, especially now. A law firm today that refuses a request for discounts throws a seven.

Newsletter for primary law firms. A technique that I have not heard of before, a newsletter for network law firms, is referred to in Ann Page and Richard Trapp, Managing External Legal Resources (ICSA 2007) at 60. The brief mention says that the Carillion Legal Network News is “used to set out changes, issues and successes across the Network.” I suspect that is a bit much for most law departments, even if they have a panel or set of preferred firms, but perhaps I under-estimate the benefits and over-estimate the work involved (See my post of Sept. 4, 2006: general comments on purpose of in-house newsletter; March 13, 2007: examples from BMO and Lucent; Sept. 22, 2006: one way a law department markets its services; Sept. 1, 2008: electronic newsletter of an insurance company’s law department; and Oct. 3, 2008: Lockheed Martin ethics newsletter.)

“The best way to deal with RFP’s is to avoid them altogether, and the stronger and deeper the relationship with a client, the better chance a firm has of doing just that. Redwood Analytics has conducted research that indicates, not surprisingly, that clients with more than one senior partner who are actively engaged with a client are much less likely to stop working with that firm.” The quote comes from Bo Yancey, Director of Professional Services at Redwood Analytics, on March 9, 2009.

An RFP process does not necessarily mean dissatisfaction with the incumbent law firms. RFPs test the market, gather alternative ways to handle the work, and keep everyone on their toes (See my post of Dec.16, 2005: complacency among entrenched firms; and March 16, 2009: survey data from Altman Weil on RFPs, success rates and costs.).

Law firm partners widely dislike RFPs, unless they by getting one they have an opportunity to secure work from a new client. If firms only see RFPs as bludgeons to shrink their margins, as the following quote asserts, they would have more justification for their animus.

“Of course, a primary reason for companies using RFP’s to begin with is to get the lowest price across all parties—which means that the ‘winner’ of the RFP may not be getting profitable work. In an RFP process, it’s not a guarantee that the lowest price will get the business, but it’s nearly certain that ‘bidders’ with pricing substantially above the lowest prices will be eliminated quickly from consideration.”

The querulous quote (with its sarcastic “winner” and “bidders”) comes from Bo Yancey, Director of Professional Services at Redwood Analytics on March 9, 2009. Yancey, however, is off base. RFPs go far beyond billing rates and care more about non-cost information. Cost is probably third or fourth on the list of attributes that RFP processes collect, analyze and decide on; clients care about expertise, knowledge of the industry, and bench strength, for example, much more.

Grant general counsel legal knowledge and judgment. Grant them the ability to manage up and across their peers. What about managing down? Even if a general counsel avoids managerial ineptitude, some shortcomings in leading members of a law department are common, including the six below. I have listed them in what I perceive to be their declining frequency (See my post of March 30, 2009: inept management practices.).

Poor communicator – the general counsel who does not timely and completely share with the team what he or she learns (within the bounds of corporate and personnel confidentiality)

Unpredictable – difficult to guess what the general counsel will do, which makes people insecure and leads to too many decisions bucked up to the top lawyer (See my post of Jan. 25, 2009: bottleneck managers.)

Perceived as unfair – the worst form of this is playing favorites, but the broader manifestation is a pattern of unequal treatment

Dominating – unwilling or unable to let others voice their opinions or make decisions

Indecisive – reluctant to make difficult calls within a reasonable time

Low tolerance for different styles – the general counsel likes clones of him- or herself (See my post of Nov. 9, 2007: psychometric tests with 17 references.).

As we blame parents for many misdeeds and misfortunes of their children, so too we blame managers for many shortcomings and grievances of their employees. General counsel, in loco parentis, face similar complaints, most deservedly if they themselves behave badly (See my post of April 23, 2008: bad behavior by managers with 10 references.).

My pool of posts on managerial incompetence has deepened considerably since that year-old metapost (See my post of Jan. 17, 2009: poor managers; Jan. 25, 2009: bottleneck managers; Oct. 12, 2006: clumsy managers; Aug. 22, 2006: the Peter Principal; Feb.12, 2008: dysfunctional law departments; Feb. 22, 2009: narcissistic managers; Feb. 26, 2009: no snark about law departments; Jan. 7, 2009: mistakes of newly-promoted managers; and Jan. 7, 2008: reasons to retain coaches.).

This post is part of a series sponsored by Martindale-Hubbell Connected. Please see tomorrow’s post on Sean Doherty’s blog, and all the subsequent posts in the series.

A couple of recommendations I would make for lawyers who are new to online professional networks are to concentrate on one or two networks and to comment on blogs by email.

As to concentrating, you will find that you can sign up for any number of professional networks and spend more time than is productive keeping track of all their emails, requests for connection, discussion forums, announcements, and other spin-offs. Much better to pick one or two networks and get to know them and their members. If you become familiar with a network, you might form a discussion group and keep it going. Once you know a network, you can get much more out of it than if you flit from network to network and never really get a handle on any of them (Sept. 22, 2008: professional online networks for lawyers, with 7 references.).

Regarding blog commentary, as I have concluded from hosting LawDepartmentManagementBlog.com for more than four years, I love it when a reader leaves a comment, but many of them are spam. And I am not sure how many readers look at comments, since they are of such variable quality.

It is much more useful to me, as a blogger, if readers email me their thoughts. That way they can write at more length and keep a record of their thoughts. Additionally, I can quickly write back to clarify a point or ask a question.

But the biggest benefit for a lawyer who responds to a blog post by email is that the blog host – that would be me – can then publish a post about the email, credit you for your brilliance, and give you more prominence. So, pass on comments but e-mail the author of a blog post. Why don’t you venture a comment right now and e-mail me?

Most in-house lawyers, I would wager, refer to fellow employees who seek their legal advice as “clients.” Others, a much smaller number, vociferously reject that term. They perceive themselves as working together with fellow employees on a team and disavow some of the implications of the term “client” (See my post of Sept. 25, 2008: MetLife refers to “business partners”; and Oct. 8, 2007: banish the word “client”.). Perhaps one of those implications is that in-house lawyers are less familiar with the business and less enablers of it when in a client relationship. Other differences occur to me.

Clients pay. Clients come to in-house lawyers, as clients come to law firms, but few pay for the services. At least not directly. It is the small minority of clients who receive bills from the law department for hours worked and actually transfer funds internally (See my post of Nov. 22, 2008: charge backs of internal lawyer time with 8 references.). http://www.lawdepartmentmanagementblog.com/law_department_management/2008/11/the-debate-on-whether-to-track-and-charge-back-time-to-clients.html

Attorney-client privilege. Clients are entitled to the attorney-client privilege, an important right forsaken if lawyers take business decisions (See my post of Feb. 16, 2008: attorney-client privilege with 18 references.).

Partnership. Clients are not truly partners. No one contributes capital, no one is promoted, no one shares in profits and losses.

Voluntary. Clients have no choice but to use the in-house legal team, whereas you pick your team. Then again, even “business associates” still have to use the in-house group rather than blithely go outside.

As I see it, neither “clients” nor “partners” are “customers” of a legal department, even though some legal teams use that term (See my post of Dec. 21, 2005: Philipps’ law department pursues “customer alignment”; and April 15, 2006: Adobe’s general counsel used the term.). Customers come to an establishment and purchase something. Often, they receive no counseling, unlike getting training or advice from a lawyer; money always changes hands; and establishments want more and more customers. I use the term “customer” for those who do business with the company of the law department (See my post of Dec. 9, 2008: document assembly helps customers.).

Nelda Young, the Contracts and Litigation Manager at Celerity, Inc., recently posted a comment on my LinkedIn group, Law Department Management. It deserves wider circulation.

“I've created a true "tool" for my Legal Department. It is a customized Microsoft Access database that combines the working data and documents for all functions of the department with a user-friendly dashboard that the General Counsel can easily utilize. It features intuitive drill-down through main tabs for legal functions including Contracts, Corporate Records, Outside Counsel, Intellectual Property, Research, Budgeting, Forms, Legal Dept Admin, and more."

That is quite an application. Some matter management stirred in with document management and a dose of knowledge management. On top of that the drill down function and dashboard. It sounds impressive.