More In-House Teams Are Using Firm Panels; Here's Why

Leave it to a bunch of lawyers ?? to start their dinner party icebreaker with this:

"Share your most ridiculous law firm billing story."???

Now if I hadn’t been in the company of an all-star lineup of enterprise GCs at that moment — including Intuit, Lyft, Clorox, eBay, Intuitive, Box, and Podium — I might have been more pessimistic in my outlook for an entertaining rest of the evening.??

But although we all ended up having a good chuckle (and a fabulous dinner), the current climate of rising firm rates is no laughing matter.?

And it’s not just (if at all) about costs.?

The often unspoken truth is that even the best in-house/firm relationships carry a lot of friction that no one wants to acknowledge. ??

That friction hurts both in-house teams and their firms.?

There is also a better way of working together that solves for that friction — firm panels.?

More and more, we see enterprise legal teams who are using PERSUIT (and even those who aren’t) adopting an evolved approach to how they work with their relationship firms through the panel process.?

I recently spoke with one of our team’s leading experts on legal spend management — Will Holman — about what he’s seeing from best-in-class in-house teams in how they think about their panel firms.?

Will’s not only a former seasoned litigator, but he’s worked directly with dozens of Fortune 500 customers and their law firm partners to help them find better ways of working together.

Here’s what Will shared with me.?

A lot of in-house teams think of panels simply as an exercise in negotiating rates from preferred firms and then (sometimes) sending work to them.?

That’s where most in-house teams stop.?

It’s a huge missed opportunity.?

When the panel process is properly structured at the beginning — and then the right governance is layered onto that process — there is so much more that in-house teams and their firms can glean from the panel exercise beyond just cost control and predictability.?

Here are some of the key benefits of a well-run panel process.

?? In-house teams can engage firms on new matters with greater speed and confidence and pull from a deep bench when conflicts arise.?

?? Cementing relationships with a small number of firm partners enables a deeper understanding of your business beyond just a particular matter to better inform their approach across the entire scope of their work for your team.

?? Panels empower firms to help the business more broadly, including providing critical horizon scanning and strategic advice to the business that goes beyond a specific matter.

?? In-house teams receive more value from their firms through creative value adds, like CLEs, on-site visits, or dedicated hotline advice.

We also increasingly see teams establishing panels for specialized practice areas, in addition to geolocation for corporations with a more global presence that spans multiple jurisdictions.?

The benefits of the panel process aren’t just one-sided.

Firms benefit from a well-run panel exercise by getting in front of more of the organization, expanding into other areas, and ultimately increasing their wallet share with the business. ??

So when we talk about “Are you getting the most from your panel,” what we really mean is, "Are you maximizing that two-way relationship?”??

Are you able to speak to your firms to tell them what they're doing well and what they could be doing better?

And are they giving you the quality level of service that you expect as you select them both for individual matters and as strategic partners to the business??

Panels won’t solve for everything.?

But if you do them well, they can set the foundation? — beyond just cost predictability — for establishing the discipline within your organization to grow healthy firm relationships to the benefit of both you and your outside firms.?

Will and his team have put together an excellent guide on the exact steps that your in-house team can take to make sure you’re getting the most out of your next panel exercise.

I highly encourage you to give it a read and/or share it with others on your team.?

In the meantime, I’ll be thinking of an even better icebreaker ?? for the next dinner I’ll be hosting at the London Economist GC Summit.?

It could be a hard one to top, but maybe you’ve got ideas? ??

I'm Jim Delkousis. Founder & CEO of PERSUIT? | Recovered BigLaw Partner | Helping Transform How Enterprise Buys Legal

Follow me here on LinkedIn or subscribe to The PERSUIT newsletter here.