The four-part legal “Value Chain” put forward by Global Leaders in Law

Four stages to describe the contributions of internal and external counsel make up the heart of a recent report: the legal value chain. The Executive Summary for “Leading the Way to Value in Legal Services,” a 35-page thought piece from Global Leaders in Law (See my post of Dec. 2, 2008: formation of Global Leaders in Law.), frames its analysis around four sources of value.

One is “service value,” with its focus on optimal service delivery. Next is “expertise value,” which brings to bear “risk management specialist knowledge and expertise.” Third on the value chain is “commercial value,” emanating from “understanding and enabling the business,” followed by “leadership value,” which means “driving commercial value and acting as a thought leader for the business.”

The five-page Summary amplifies each of these links in the legal value chain and emphasizes various measurements and other attributes of them. You can get a copy and study it from the link above.