Mattern Announces Strategic Partnership with Research Contract Consultants

USA/Canada News

26
Jan
2022

Editor

Leading law firm operations consultancy, Mattern, announces the company has formed a strategic partnership with Research Contract Consultants, the legal research contract evaluation, negotiation and implementation experts. 

The strategic partnership provides firms with unbiased expertise to help them make informed decisions regarding their legal research contracts to significantly reduce costs and optimize content sources.  Mattern and Research Contract Consultants (RCC) will co-host a Mattern LIVE! Coffee Break on Wednesday, February 9th with mutual client Miller Johnson. Click here to learn more and register.

With cost recovery for legal research under scrutiny, firms are increasingly absorbing the costs of their legal research platforms. In 2021, library services experienced the third highest increase in overhead expense in 2021 with a 4.6% YoY increase over 2020 according to Thomson Reuters’ 2022 State of the Legal Market Report.

Firms are challenged to make informed decisions to control the costs of their legal research contracts and proactively manage their content subscriptions.  An industry-wide lack of transparency in legal research pricing practices due to built-in confidentiality clauses and increasingly complex subscription bundling prevent firms from accessing market rate information to ensure competitive rates and optimized content. 

As a result, duplicative content, significantly overpaying market rate, and underutilized resources are just a few of the common but problematic issues information services professionals face. 

Founded on decades of expertise, Research Contract Consultants (RCC) provides law firms unique insights into the favorability of their research contracts.  Prior to any engagement, RCC provides all firms an analysis of their current contracts to determine 1) how their contract compares to market rates 2) whether there is a realistic opportunity to reduce costs and, 3) If so, what those renegotiated rates should be.  Once engaged, RCC negotiates directly with the vendors to develop a comprehensive proposal that includes the correct content based on the firm’s needs at the most favorable price.

Company President, Rob Mattern, comments: “We are thrilled to offer Mattern clients this valuable, new service. We have been helping firms understand the financial impact of recoveries in legal research for some time, and this partnership is a natural extension of those conversations.  We look forward to adding even more value to our clients through this service offering.” 

RCC Principal, Ken Purce, adds: “We are very excited to partner with Mattern in our effort to provide law firms the insights and analysis necessary to determine if their legal research contracts are truly priced appropriately and beneficial to the firm.  Mattern’s reputation as an unbiased advisor aligns perfectly with RCC’s mission to provide firms the objective analysis needed to make informed, fact-based decisions.”