This past week members discussed outside counsel guidelines and more. Jump to the “Something Extra” section for ILTA and outside resources on mind mapping. Explore curated sources on these topics including some from ILTA’s treasure chest.
Outside Counsel: Guidelines and Relationships
Guidelines established between a firm and a client should be the jumping off point to further the discussion and a collaborative relationship. The Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC) has industry guidelines outside counsel can adopt but each organization has distinct needs based on the size of their legal department, their industry, matter types, etc. In the last twelve months, several ILTA volunteers told the story of the “Life Cycle of a Matter” through blog posts to highlight steps often included in outside counsel guidelines. The specific topics include new business intake, matter management, records disposal, staffing (written from the corporate legal department perspective), the importance of closing and legal project management and pricing. Security plays a key role in client guidelines. For an overview of the security expectations of law firms, watch the webinar “Client Mandates: Manage Your De Facto Regulations.” From this year’s LegalSEC Summit, review the recording of “New Mandates and Drivers Forcing Changes to Firm Security Practices” which also discusses General Data Protection Regulation concerns.
Responsiveness to guidelines and an understanding of the business needs of outside counsel are integral to a law firm’s success. At ILTACON 2016, Brian Koepke of Avis Budget Group, David Rueff of Baker Donelson and Chris Emerson of Bryan Cave, spoke about better business outcomes that extended beyond pricing in “A New Approach To Aligning the Objectives of Outside Counsel, In-House Legal and Corporate Business.” Recently Rolf Provan of Qualmet interviewed Sylvia Chen, Patent Counsel, Head of Patent Operations at Google about the key to developing strong relationships between law firms and the client in “Value Drivers: Google’s Patent Counsel, Sylvia Chen, Fosters Transparent Law Firm Relationships to Improve Performance.” Provan then interviewed Michelle Knight of Young Basile Hanlon & MacFarlane, P.C. about her experiences interfacing with Google and “implementing its outside guidelines in her firm.”
SOMETHING EXTRA – Mind Mapping
Recently a member asked about mind mapping software. First let’s step back to understand the need and process in Greg Cimmarrusti’s on-demand webinar, “Mind Mapping for Project Managers.” Now you too may be interested in the software options. A few weeks ago, PC Magazine reviewed “The Best Mind Mapping Software of 2017.”
As ILTA’s content curator, I’m always monitoring the discussion forums to discover what topics are top-of-mind among the members. Each week, I focus on a few areas that spark your interest, and I provide some curated resources to assist your own information-gathering on the topics. If there are specific topics you would like assistance exploring, please contact me at joanne@iltanet.org