A few highlights form Stephen Embry's summary of the panel session, which he found "fascinating":
- The survey itself offers important insights, but the panel discussion stood out for what they chose to highlight in just 45 minutes and how they interpreted the data made it a fun (think Steve Harvey meets State of the Industry) and engaging conversation with the audience.
- The panel itself was a diverse group consisting of:
- Kevin Clem, Chief Growth Officer, Harbor Legal;
- Lauren Chung, Practice Group Leader, Harbor Legal;
- Farrah Pepper, Chief Legal Innovation Officer, Marsh McLennan; and
- Oyango Snell, Executive Director, CLOC
Planned technology implementations
- AI did not crack the top 5 for tools already in use but 54% say they will implement it in the next year. Frankly, that sounds like a low number given all the discussion and promise of AI.
But Clem suggested that lots of departments are waiting to see what the tools they already have can do with the addition of AI functions and to see what the overall business AI goals and implementation plan are. He believes there will be lots of movement here in the next year. Pepper noted that AI tools will be integrated more and more in tools already being used to make them better and enhancing their functionality. As she put it, in house legal “will not be asking for AI tools but expecting it to be integrated in other products.”
Top outside counsel management initiatives
- The top five results:
- More consistent use of matter planning and budgeting (50%)
- Structured review of annual rate increases (48%)
- Use of alternative fee arrangements (47%)
- Tougher enforcement of outside counsel guidelines (45%)
- Keeping more work in-house (41%)
- Again, the panelists had lots of insights on these numbers. Chung suggested that the findings indicate that in-house legal is demanding more visibility and transparency in their relationships with outside counsel. For example, a key theme is more structure and governances to things like rate increase requests. Pepper added that use of the team guidelines should be changed to policy, procedures, or processes to reflect that need for alignment of business interests with outside counsel.
- Finally, Clem brought up an interesting point: rates may continue to go up but not as a matter of rote. Rather rates will increase based on value that a lawyer can provide. More routine work will be done by AI tools and thus the time spent doing work that AI can’t do will be more valuable. To obtain a rate increase, value most be documented. By way of example, Clem informally surveyed the audience: the highest hourly rate requested the past year was $2,850 an hour which represented a 30% increase over the past year.
This is an excerpt of an article originally published by Above the Law.
- AI
- Benchmarking
- Legal operations
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