Author Archive
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-10-24
Posted by: | Comments- ABA eLawyering Task Force's best practice guidelines for legal information providers here http://bit.ly/dv3ye0 #
- NJ medical marijuana regulations handed down – growers are banned from being sellers http://bit.ly/djIUoL #
- Pop singer robot video – it sings, dances and looks almost human, while backed by human dancers http://bit.ly/91Ju26 #
- Groundbreaking CAPTCHA case cleared for NJ trial, Wiseguy ticket brokers charged under Computer Fraud and Abuse Act http://bit.ly/drDDp7 #
- Sports Law: NBA bans spring loaded sneakers designed to make you jump higher – video and article here http://bit.ly/bA7ej5 #
- NYC consolidates all its users under 1 Microsoft contract, moves much of software to cloud based computing http://tcrn.ch/a5DI6v #
- New company lets you upload your likeness and personality into an artificial intelligence avatar http://bit.ly/9rH8tT #
- Earbuds that stay in your ears when exercising http://nyti.ms/cmZuNR #
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-10-17
Posted by: | Comments- Analysis of new Pennsylvania ethics opinion approving virtual law offices http://bit.ly/9V5DKH #
- Wall Street Journal explains how to remove your personal information from major marketing directories http://bit.ly/dng2x7 #
- Fascinating article on how sports agents pay college players (at their behest) & how sports contracts business works http://bit.ly/aB74yh #
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-09-19
Posted by: | Comments- Giant diagram of the Pentagon's complex contracts procurement system – mystifying but hard to not stare at http://bit.ly/aHXhYc #
- French senate passes law banning Muslim women from wearing veils http://yhoo.it/b29IXn #
- "We really have to follow this memo. Especially since we just got a memo saying we really have to start following memos." – Better Off Ted #
How Do You Measure Procurement Performance?
Posted by: | Comments
I think one key method of evaluating who the high performers are within a procurement organization is to use contract metrics. It is important to be able to determine the quality of deal provisions for key procurement concepts over and above simple savings measurements. This approach provides a much better picture as to who is truly excelling in their work. Provisions to measure that immediately leap to mind are:
- Budget Certainty Pricing
- Implementation Deadlines
- Price Growth Controls
- Escalator Clauses
- Compliance with Specifications
- Deal Cycle Time
- Apples to Apples Comparisons (i.e., for the same type of legal service performed in the past, measure the cost savings on a per project basis)
Individuals who consistently excel in these areas are of tremendous value to a company.
Master Contracts to Maximize Profits – Contact Us Now Here
requests(at)whichdraft(dot)com (973) 457-1186
Law Practice Should Be Tribal
Posted by: | Comments
Debra Baker raises a provocative point over at Law Transitions. She notes:
“Organizations shouldn’t work in teams, they should work in tribes. In a tribe, there is a chief and a circle of senior elders . . . The chief’s job is to help make the elders successful in doing their jobs. In this way, the chief will be more successful than a captain trying to lead a group of functional equivalents. This paradigm shift from team to tribe got me thinking about law firms. Partnerships often struggle with organizational dynamics and decision making because of the flat hierarchical structure.”
This is a terrific point. I’ve always thought the flat hierarchy of the legal world is a major challenge to increasing productivity. This is especially the case in thinking about cycle time in transactional law. Clients would love to see deals close quickly, but lawyers spend enormous amounts of time negotiating contracts. Much of this is due to a slow contracting process that has numerous end points, with each individual lawyer on each side’s attorney team capable of grinding negotiations to a halt. A tribe, with a chief who has authority and accountability to constantly move forward within the contracting process, would be a much more effective model for driving a negotiation to conclusion and quickly concluding a high quality agreement. And this is just as true in the corporate legal environment as it is in the law firm arena.
Master Contracts & Maximize Profits – Contact Us Now
requests(at)whichdraft(dot)com (973) 457-1186
Are Legal Services Products?
Posted by: | Comments
I think you’re on the right path if you position legal services as products. This is especially so as we move towards flat fee and alternative fee arrangements. One area where I think firms miss out is knowledge management. I find it odd that knowledge management is not positioned front and center as part of a law firm’s business development activity. Having been in-house counsel at a Fortune 500 company, I was always on the lookout for a firm that could meet our needs while selling itself as the most productive and efficient provider in particular practice areas, but I never found one. As a result, and given how few law firms do this, I think there is an excellent market opportunity to distinguish one’s firm in the competitive landscape by focusing on speed and excellence through proper use of knowledge management, and making this focus clear to potential clients as a driver of quality improvement and reduced cost.
Master Contracts & Maximize Profits – Contact Us Now
requests(at)whichdraft(dot)com (973) 457-1186
Sales Contracts 101
Posted by: | Comments
What’s the most important lesson for non-lawyers working in sales? I find that many salespeople think they’ve closed a deal when they actually have not. I’d want them to learn that they need to come to agreement with the customer as to:
1. Goods/Services: What is actually being sold? Do we have a clear description on paper?
2. Cost. What is the fee? Have we worked out the payment schedule, expense reimbursement, and invoice issues?
3. Timing. When does the good/service need to be delivered and completed?
4. Customer Work. What does the customer need to do to allow you to be successful?
By establishing clear expectations as to these issues up front, you can speed up cycle time and close more sales deals faster while ensuring a long term, happier customer for future repeat business.
Master Contracts & Maximize Profits – Contact Us Now
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Transportation Procurement
Posted by: | Comments
What should you care about in negotiating transportation procurement deals? Typically, these arrangements involve working with a big vendor (such as UPS or Federal Express) using their paper, so you are behind the negotiating “8 ball” from the start. An important issue is to think about the contract clauses on pricing. It’s a good idea to analyze the standard positions transportation vendors take on these issues and formulate your negotiating position in response. If you include along with your price per distance stance your position on escalator clauses, payment schedule, insurance, expenses and liabilities, then you can have a much better idea as to how hard it will be to ultimately strike a deal, and speed up your cycle time to close more savings in your current fiscal quarter. Without such an approach, I’ve routinely seen transportation deals take many months to close after people thought they had concluded price negotiations.
Master Contracts & Maximize Profits – Contact Us Now
requests(at)whichdraft(dot)com (973) 457-1186
Contract Cycle Time – Key KPI for Procurement
Posted by: | Comments
Procurement Professionals has asked, “How do you evaluate the performance of a purchasing department? What are the key performance indicators that you are using to evaluate the procurement performance?”
While measuring savings is the first priority when evaluating the success of a purchasing expert, it’s also important to measure contract cycle time. There are many strategic sourcing managers who think that the deal has been struck and they are finished once they’ve exchanged a spreadsheet or powerpoint presentation with a vendor, and then leave the contract negotiations to others. Alternatively, managers may create a good deal of inefficiency in contract negotiations, further slowing down deal closure. As a result, by not measuring cycle time you may miss poor performance by a manager who otherwise has good savings, but could have produced significantly more savings with a speed contracting process.
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-08-29
Posted by: | Comments- Did Germany's economy outpace the UK's because it tolerated copyright infringement? Wired disagrees here http://bit.ly/9diYYK #
- UK law firms are taking business from US law firms http://bit.ly/d6USOE #
- Drinker Biddle creates Chief Value Officer position to drive business development – http://bit.ly/d764MK #
- To raise revenue, NY tax collectors reinterpret law to charge bagel sellers back taxes http://bit.ly/bX4LOI #
- NASA meeting on how to advise trapped Chilean miners, situation very similar to enclosed quarters of space travel – http://bit.ly/cnFdsV #
- Psychology experiment shows that most people dislike unselfish self starter team members, raises the bar too high http://bit.ly/b65Faf #
- FAA seeks record civil fine against American Airlines for safety violations http://bit.ly/d7EtxO #
- Sarah Palin's speaking contract requirements here – http://bit.ly/9vvdKE #
- Japanese death chamber revealed – capital punishment by hanging http://bit.ly/aXmxCM #
- 9th Circuit rules that police can put a GPS tracker on your car sitting in your driveway – without a warrant http://bit.ly/a2oeej #
- Cincy Reds prospect throws 105mph fastball http://yhoo.it/9LbO1G #
- Ghost train hunter killed by real train – http://bit.ly/cIfdOJ #
