Leveraging Outside Vendors in a Changing Legal Landscape

April 2010

Abstract

Due to economic realities, in-house counsel are being forced to address greater risk exposure and mounting legal requirements, using notably reduced resources. In the drive to do more with less, in-house counsel are changing their relationships with their outside counsel and leveraging a number of innovative strategies to deliver high-value legal services to their organizations. With the upcoming implementation of the Legal Services Act, in-house counsels based in the UK have more options than ever to meet their legal needs. One of the most compelling options is leveraging outside and offshore vendors for legal and legal support services. A number of other innovative alternative delivery models are also becoming increasingly popular.

Authors

Michael Bell c/o Jane Foley

Founder and managing principal, Fronterion, USA

Michael D. Bell is the founder and managing principal of Fronterion LLC. His expertise covers the full spectrum of legal outsourcing advisory services. Bell was instrumental in Fronterion’s pioneering undertaking as the first firm to take a highly structured approach to the evaluation of the legal outsourcing vendor marketplace. Bell is the author of the first book and comprehensive professional reference guide on outsourced legal services entitled; Implementing a Successful Legal Outsourcing Engagement (www.fronterion.com/book). His work has been published in bar journals and referenced in research publications on the legal outsourcing industry. He is also the author of LPO Source blog (www.LPOSource.com).

Richard Reade

General Counsel, Coats Group, UK

Richard is General Counsel at Coats Group plc and oversees Legal, Company Secretarial, Compliance and Insurance. He has extensive experience of managing international legal teams. At Coats he leads team from the UK, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Pakistan and which, collectively, serve over 50 countries across six continents. He has a passion for cultivating excellence within teams, which has been recognised by team members achieving award winning results. Prior to joining Coats, Richard led legal operations outside of North America for Weight Watchers International and prior to that he established the UK legal team for the largest company you’ve never heard of, ISS A/S. He is trained in leadership from Henley and Warwick business schools and from the British Army (having served for three years). He has particular interests in psychometric testing, psychology and mental health, and coping with adversity and preventing burn out.

Companies

Fronterion

Fronterion is an international management consulting firm exclusively focused on advising law firms and corporate counsels on outsourced legal services. Fronterion clients include a variety of sizes and practice specialties. As the first company to bring a highly structured approach to the assessment of offshore legal outsourcing vendors, Fronterion has helped clients tackle an array of outsourcing challenges and achieve transformational benefits through outsourced and alternative delivery legal services.

Coats Group

Coats is the world’s leading industrial thread company. Headquartered in the UK, they have a workforce of 17,000 in some 50 countries, across six continents around the world. They provide complementary and value-adding products, services and software solutions to the apparel and footwear industries. They also operate in areas like personal protection, telecoms, energy, transportation, and household and recreation. Every three hours Coats makes enough thread to go the moon and back.

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