Law Department Operational Improvement

Solutions Advisory Law Department Operational Improvement

Because Morae professionals understand how law departments work, we cost-effectively optimize resources and boost performance. We take an in-depth look at the performance goals of both the law department and the overall enterprise and help the law department align its strategy and goals with the entire organization.

Our focus is on delivery. Our professionals have the vision to transform the way law departments obtain and provide legal services to their business clients and the ability to work shoulder-to-shoulder with you to ensure the execution of that vision.

By utilizing the right sourcing and optimal cost structures, we leverage efficient processes and tools while relying on data and analytics to improve decision making.

The result? Your ability to deliver the highest level of legal services at the optimal cost structure.

We Ignite Law Departments’ Business Performance

Law Department Operational Improvement Services

Comparing your performance to peers and best practices

Standard benchmarking typically provides a lot of numbers, but lacks meaningful insight into how you compare with other law departments. At Morae Global, we conduct customized benchmarking surveys that not only help you to better understand how you compare to your peers but, more importantly, equip you to make informed decisions about staffing, spending, technology and other key components of a high-functioning law department. Our approach is tailored, industry specific and targeted toward your particular areas of interest, all while maintaining confidentiality and providing independent analysis and observations.

A detailed diagnostic of your law department

Building a world-class law department starts with understanding its current state. Our law department assessment includes a diagnostic review of the department, with a focus on aligning your priorities with those of the enterprise based on identifying areas of strength and opportunities for improvement. Our proven methodology is built around the four key elements of a high-functioning law department: (1) internal resources and workload allocation, (2) outside resources and spend management, (3) process and technology and (4) performance management. Whether you’re a new general counsel getting your arms around your team or an incumbent with transformation in mind, our detailed assessment will position you to make informed decisions about your strategy and tactics.

Creating a vision for the law department

Providing world-class legal support starts with a shared vision that inspires and guides your team. At Morae Global, we have many years of experience developing and communicating a cohesive vision and strategic plan for the law department. Having a clear vision and a solid plan for implementing it is vital during times of change. Our proven framework for developing transition plans, such as during a new general counsel’s first 90 days, can help lay a solid foundation and minimize disruption to the team. For the longer term, we help formulate multiyear strategic plans to design, communicate and produce the changes that will optimize the law department’s effectiveness. Our vision and strategic planning support ensure that your team is aligned around common objectives and all rowing in the same direction.

Building the law department of the future

Law departments must continually evolve to keep up with business objectives and legal requirements. At Morae Global, our experts have hands-on experience leading and implementing transformative change. We understand the dynamic environment in which you operate and serve as both thought partners and change-enablers for law departments of all shapes and sizes. Our comprehensive approach, which integrates strategy, people, process, technology and data, results in improved client partnering and satisfaction scores, lower attrition rates, greater employee engagement, reduced spend, improved productivity and measurable progress toward the law department becoming the most effective and efficient function within the organization.

Building a responsive operating model that delivers value

Law departments perform best when they are organized to deliver maximum value. We leverage our deep experience to design and refine the organizational structure to align with enterprise objectives. Key considerations in designing the operating and service delivery model include how the enterprise is structured, risk tolerance and business complexity, scalability, cost, talent development and succession planning. Whether you are restructuring your department to achieve cost-cutting goals or combining departments as part of a merger, we help ensure your organization is purpose-built to meet your current and future business needs.

First who, then what

For a law department to achieve its own goals while supporting those of the enterprise, it must attract, grow and retain the best available talent. We leverage our team members’ in-house expertise, together with our decades of consulting experience, to design and implement recruitment and retention programs that will equip you to attract, retain and develop the best and the brightest.

The right resources doing the right work at the right cost

For law departments to perform like a business, they need to focus on higher-value work and reposition the lower value work to alternate sources, processes or technology. Once prioritized, the work itself must be performed as efficiently and effectively as possible. Our holistic approach to resource allocation takes into account the risk and complexity of the portfolio, expertise required, ideal sourcing strategy (including “alternative” providers) and talent development for in-house counsel. We disaggregate your workload and re-assemble it with a customized resource strategy designed to ensure you have the right resource doing the right work at the right cost.

Creating value by building trusted relationships

Proper management of a law department’s relationships with outside counsel is often the single biggest factor in controlling spend and delivering outstanding service. At Morae Global, we believe building relationships based on value is the key to maintaining quality and containing costs. We help you create a strategy to drive effective procurement of legal services and lay the groundwork to manage such relationships throughout the process life cycle. From identifying the right firms and establishing terms all the way through service delivery and evaluating performance, we can build a customized outside counsel management program for you. Our methodology includes reviewing the services delivered to the business, defining the relative value and price point and clearly outlining the sourcing strategy. We routinely deliver cost savings of 15 to 40 percent, while strengthening both the level and predictability of outcomes delivered by outside counsel.

Doing more with less

Law department spend management can best be defined as an optimized sourcing strategy for a clearly defined portfolio of work. Our spend management programs identify and implement the tactical steps that enable greater control, predictability and certainty over legal spend. The result is a measurable impact on the company’s bottom line. Our professionals have delivered hard savings in the range of 15 to 40 percent.

Holistic portfolio management with attention to value and outcome

Successfully managing a litigation portfolio requires attention to a variety of elements, all of which must be properly balanced to deliver the desired results. At Morae Global, our experts will help you disaggregate the components of your litigation work and re-assemble them into a comprehensive litigation management strategy. We will work with you to implement a programmatic, project-oriented approach that includes setting case strategy, optimizing resources, handling discovery efficiently and defensibly, managing documents and fully utilizing supporting technology. The end result will be to lower costs, increase predictability and improve the odds of success.

Aligning information management with the business

Successful implementation of information management policies and procedures requires their integration with business processes and systems to realize operational benefits and achieve high levels of compliance. Our information management experts employ a scalable approach leveraging advanced technologies to analyze workflows and assess the criticality and value of information for ongoing business operations, while complying with information governance policies and procedures. Our discovery management experts similarly focus on developing or transforming litigation processes to align with the information governance structure to improve operations and significantly reduce cost and risk.

Being a better business partner

Understanding and partnering with your business colleagues are essential to building and designing a law department that provides maximum value to the enterprise. Our Voice of Customer survey uses a comprehensive top-down and bottom-up approach that provides you with a better grasp of your clients’ needs. The result is actionable items for strategic long-term planning, as well as support for short-term decision making to improve departmental operations and risk management. You’ll be appreciated for seeking this input and positioned to put the information to use in becoming a more responsive and value-added business partner.

What gets measured gets done

To demonstrate value as a proactive business partner and to develop a culture that promotes transparency and accountability, law departments must clearly align their goals – both departmental and individual – with company goals. We help you set up a performance management program that defines your objectives, identifies the right metrics to measure effort as well as results and establishes a framework for recording and tracking departmental and individual performance. The result is an agreed-upon set of performance measures – and a unified system of gathering and updating those measures – to drive your team’s performance and demonstrate the value added to your business colleagues.

What’s in it for me?

The key to success for any initiative is having a change management and communication plan that results in acceptance, buy-in and adoption. To do that, communication efforts must answer the question of “what’s in it for me?” By helping our clients design and execute plans that move stakeholders through the “commitment curve” of awareness, understanding, commitment and advocacy, our team members deliver measurable, sustainable change in the form of increased understanding and adoption.

Get in touch with us to learn more.

Law Department Operational Improvement

Law Department Operational Improvement Services

Benchmarking

Law Department Assessment

Vision and Strategic Planning

Law Department Transformation

Organizational Design and Restructuring

Talent Management

Workload and Resource Optimization

Outside Counsel Management

Spend Management

Litigation Management

Business Process Design and Integration

Voice of Customer

Metrics and Performance Management

Communication and Change Management