Page 36 - MASTER COPY LEADERS BOOK 9editedJKK (24)_Neat
P. 36
Leaders in Legal Business
important than the client reaching his/her goals. The next section addresses how to go about selecting a consultant
or consulting firm that suits your needs.
5) How to Hire a Consulting Firm or Consultant
In this section, I will provide an approach that works well for most law firm clients.
Initial consultations: When you know you’ve got an issue but you don’t quite know how to define the
challenge yet, or if you know you want to achieve something different from your predecessor but you don’t quite
know how to go about it, it is perfectly legitimate to call on a consulting firm or a solo consultant. You can sound
them out about how they would approach the topic if they were in your shoes once internal resources and the
thoughts by retained advisors are exhausted.
That initial conversation, or even two, should always be free of charge, as the consultant should be pleased to
build a relationship with you. If the problem resolves itself, fine. Undoubtedly you will show your gratitude and
call that same consultant again when the next topic comes around for which external input may be valuable.
Defining a scope: If these informal soundings are not sufficient, it is most effective to develop a short
brief and get input from your consulting firm of choice. If that consulting firm is an expert in the subject matter,
it will be able to assist you in shaping project parameters that help you overcome your challenge or achieve your
goal. As is true for any type of project, you then agree on a scope and a fee basis for the work to be done if it’s a
project (see above), or the terms of a retainer or indeed a combination of the two along with a success fee, as
appropriate.
Defining objectives and scope is critical, no matter how the consulting firm wishes to price the work to
ensure the law firm in the end gets the value it wants.
Consulting fees: Consulting firms often charge by the hour or the day. This is appropriate for work where
the scope cannot be defined easily or if there are too many “known unknowns” in the work to be done. In most
cases, any efforts-based pricing will put the interests of the consulting firm squarely against the interests of the
law firm; the consulting firm will want to maximize days spent, and the law firm will want to minimize the time
spent to save costs.
We posit that in most cases, a clearly defined scope and a fixed fee or retainer, sometimes coupled with
a success element as appropriate, often is fairest to both sides. This is because this approach focuses on the
challenge to be overcome or the goal to be achieved, not the inputs to get there. Our firm prefers charging on this
basis simply because this approach establishes clarity at the outset, allows both sides to plan their cash flows, and
avoids often tedious discussions about why our team needs to involve two or three team members.
This approach does require for both sides to be willing to have early and candid discussions about scope
changes.
Competitive bids: It may be helpful to get input from several consulting firms and to select the firm that
provides the best approach combined with the best price. This approach works so long as the challenge and goals
are well defined. In our experience, we can achieve the best results when the client remains open to changing its
approach, both on how it wants to work with the external firm and on its selection process. Rigidity often provides
a result that falls short of what the firm hopes to achieve. I remember vividly receiving a request for proposal
(RFP) recently to advise a firm on changing how partners are paid; I had to go as far as advising the managing
partner that his partners would likely depose him if he insisted on the methodology provided in the RFP before
we could suggest an alternative approach, the latter of which ended up not only saving the firm money, but also
achieving a high-quality result.
Approach and methodology: We distinguish between approach and methodology that the consulting
firm intends to apply to the work at hand; both are very important. There is a big difference in approach and result
among consulting firms that labor through structured workshops, rely on a lot of data mining, or rely solely on
29
important than the client reaching his/her goals. The next section addresses how to go about selecting a consultant
or consulting firm that suits your needs.
5) How to Hire a Consulting Firm or Consultant
In this section, I will provide an approach that works well for most law firm clients.
Initial consultations: When you know you’ve got an issue but you don’t quite know how to define the
challenge yet, or if you know you want to achieve something different from your predecessor but you don’t quite
know how to go about it, it is perfectly legitimate to call on a consulting firm or a solo consultant. You can sound
them out about how they would approach the topic if they were in your shoes once internal resources and the
thoughts by retained advisors are exhausted.
That initial conversation, or even two, should always be free of charge, as the consultant should be pleased to
build a relationship with you. If the problem resolves itself, fine. Undoubtedly you will show your gratitude and
call that same consultant again when the next topic comes around for which external input may be valuable.
Defining a scope: If these informal soundings are not sufficient, it is most effective to develop a short
brief and get input from your consulting firm of choice. If that consulting firm is an expert in the subject matter,
it will be able to assist you in shaping project parameters that help you overcome your challenge or achieve your
goal. As is true for any type of project, you then agree on a scope and a fee basis for the work to be done if it’s a
project (see above), or the terms of a retainer or indeed a combination of the two along with a success fee, as
appropriate.
Defining objectives and scope is critical, no matter how the consulting firm wishes to price the work to
ensure the law firm in the end gets the value it wants.
Consulting fees: Consulting firms often charge by the hour or the day. This is appropriate for work where
the scope cannot be defined easily or if there are too many “known unknowns” in the work to be done. In most
cases, any efforts-based pricing will put the interests of the consulting firm squarely against the interests of the
law firm; the consulting firm will want to maximize days spent, and the law firm will want to minimize the time
spent to save costs.
We posit that in most cases, a clearly defined scope and a fixed fee or retainer, sometimes coupled with
a success element as appropriate, often is fairest to both sides. This is because this approach focuses on the
challenge to be overcome or the goal to be achieved, not the inputs to get there. Our firm prefers charging on this
basis simply because this approach establishes clarity at the outset, allows both sides to plan their cash flows, and
avoids often tedious discussions about why our team needs to involve two or three team members.
This approach does require for both sides to be willing to have early and candid discussions about scope
changes.
Competitive bids: It may be helpful to get input from several consulting firms and to select the firm that
provides the best approach combined with the best price. This approach works so long as the challenge and goals
are well defined. In our experience, we can achieve the best results when the client remains open to changing its
approach, both on how it wants to work with the external firm and on its selection process. Rigidity often provides
a result that falls short of what the firm hopes to achieve. I remember vividly receiving a request for proposal
(RFP) recently to advise a firm on changing how partners are paid; I had to go as far as advising the managing
partner that his partners would likely depose him if he insisted on the methodology provided in the RFP before
we could suggest an alternative approach, the latter of which ended up not only saving the firm money, but also
achieving a high-quality result.
Approach and methodology: We distinguish between approach and methodology that the consulting
firm intends to apply to the work at hand; both are very important. There is a big difference in approach and result
among consulting firms that labor through structured workshops, rely on a lot of data mining, or rely solely on
29
