D. Casey Flaherty / ACC release free book: Unless You Ask

Global News

30
Jun
2016

Editor

A Guide for Law Departments to Get More from External Relationships

Procertas founder and principal D. Casey Flaherty (former in-house counsel Kia Motors America) authored a free book laying out how and why law departments and law firms should weave continuous process improvement into the fabric of their relationships.

Written by Flaherty in partnership with the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) Legal Ops Section, Unless You Ask is a practical guide to structured dialogue. It provides concrete guidance on the kinds of data-driven conversations that law departments and law firms should be having and how to go about them.  

Flaherty comments: “This is Version 1.0 of the book. We worked hard to get it out before last week's stellar ACC Legal Ops Conference. It isn't complete. It won't ever be complete. If the book ends up being read and the ideas get implemented (two big ifs), then we will continue to update the volume with new ideas and upgrades of existing ideas. Towards that end, I look forward to comments, criticisms, and suggestions to improve on what we've got so far.”

Flaherty continues: “At its core, Unless You Ask is about conversations. How to start them and what you can get out of them. You may not get everything you ask for. But unless you ask, you are almost guaranteed to get none of it.”

Unless You Ask is presented as a menu, divided into three sections:

• Value-Plus Services. If clients ask, clients can get value from external expertise that extends beyond legal advice on discreet matters. The volume provides explanations and guidance on working with external providers on secondments, training, CLE, advice hotlines, alerts, and pro bono.
• Value Enablement. Client inattention to firm infrastructure has resulted in under investment. Clients have a role to play in asking, and caring, about how their firms leverage their legal expertise through process and technology. The volume provides tools to engage firms in structured dialogue and weave continuous improvement into the fabric of the dept/firm relationship on topics such as staffing, project management, knowledge management, billing hygiene, and the use of analytics.
• Why. Most law departments do not currently put much emphasis on systematically obtaining value-plus services from their external providers or working with their external providers to improve value enablement. Even with concrete guidance, the ideas presented will be new. Most lawyers do not respond well to new. Presented in FAQ form, the Why section will explain the reasoning behind the practical advice in order to enable change agents to respond to concerns raised by internal and external skeptics.

Download a free copy of the book here.