Law firms aren’t just law firms these days. And I don’t mean those firms that are crypto-lobbyists destroying the world for fun and profit… I mean law firms also doing useful stuff.
Hanging out in the exhibit hall at last week’s Corporate Legal Operations Consortium Global Institute, where the rapidly expanding field of Legal Ops professionals showed up to grow their craft and maybe buy some sweet tech for the legal department on the side, I couldn’t help but notice the curious sight of a few law firm representatives milling about. Legal Ops may be taking over in-house departments, but selecting outside counsel is still a GC role, right?
It sort of depends on what a department is looking to to get from a firm. Because whether it’s tech, human resources, or consulting, it’s possible to get a lot from a known law firm brand.
Allen & Overy’s Fuse is a tech innovation space where the firm leverages its assets and expertise to partner and build legal tech solutions. For its sixth cohort, the program welcomed 16 companies, its largest iteration yet and a testament to client interest in the program.
Shruti Ajitsaria, partner and head of Fuse commented: “We’ve had an incredible amount of interest this year with over 130 applications from technology companies based in 25 countries. The quality of these applications is a sign that we remain attractive to the LegalTech ecosystem and that the legal sector continues to be ripe for disruptive transformation. We feel immensely proud that Fuse serves as a key focal point in uncovering and supporting these new technologies.”
But building out new legal technology to serve clients is only one of the firm’s outside-the-historical-law-firm-box services designed to deepen the A&O relationship with clients at a time when the competition among outside counsel is more fierce than ever.
Late last year, the firm launched Peerpoint in the U.S., an extension of the firm’s international “flexible resourcing platform.” At an abstract level, Peerpoint offers temporary and interim lawyers… but it’s not a standard contract lawyer program, having grown out of the firm’s efforts to retain A&O trained talent that otherwise planned to leave Biglaw. Amie Davidson, Head of Peerpoint in the U.S., explained the value proposition is delivering A&O quality on a flexible basis. The program has expanded beyond just retaining A&O lawyers, but the firm continues to vet its Peerpoint attorneys to the firm’s standards.
In a world where rocketing firm salaries make in-house hiring a more difficult proposition, the option to get an A&O level attorney basically seconded to the legal department for a while would be an attractive option.
Catie Butt, an Executive Director in Allen & Overy’s corporate and legal function transformation business, sort of brought all these strands together. A&O’s consulting arm is there to help clients approach innovation — the same problem Fuse is looking to solve building tech options and Peerpoint is solving through flexible human resources.
Butt explained that when it comes to clients, “what they’re talking to me about is implementation.” It’s one thing to buy a contract lifecycle management solution, it’s another to set it up to serve the client’s needs. Some CLM options provide a bunch of data the client doesn’t need. Others don’t provide the data it does need. Ironically, one of the most difficult options is when a vendor provides a blank slate and asks the client what they want. That seems the most accommodating, but lawyers are better editors than creators and they’re definitely not natural engineers — they could use a good jump start. A&O’s bringing the expertise to bridge the gap between the product and the client’s ideal implementation with people who’ve implemented this stuff for years.
Clients don’t have to use all three of these prongs… but they’re all right there for the taking.
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
