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Altman Weil Survey Finds CLOs Do Not Like Legal Service Delivery Models

Summary: Altman Weil released a new survey this week that found close to half of all chief legal officers do not care about the delivery service of law firms.

A new survey from Altman Weil has found that almost half of chief legal officers do not care about the service delivery model for a law firm so long as the right results are produced, according to The Legal Intelligencer.

At the same time, just four percent said they are satisfied with how law firms provide legal services.

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“The fact that you saw only 4 percent [who were] content is that tension between getting cost-effective legal services” said Altman Weil principal Daniel J. DiLucchio. “The law firms’ economic objectives and the objectives of the company and the general counsel are never going to be aligned. So I think that 96 percent is saying, ‘Look, we’d like to see some changes.'”

The survey, which is the 15th annual Chief Legal Officer Survey, found that 43 percent of the respondents did not care about the delivery model of the firm as long as the wanted results came.

The survey also found that another 42 percent of respondents said they would rather work with a law firm that has an innovative delivery service model.

Nine percent of respondents to the survey said that they actively look for law firms that use innovative delivery services.

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On a scale of 1 to 10, chief legal officers gave a 3 rating or below when asked about how serious they felt law firms were about changing their delivery model. On the scale, 10 was the most serious answer.

“Let’s say you have 10 lawyers and you could move 10 percent … of each of their work to a paralegal,” DiLucchio said. “You have effectively added a lawyer to your staff without the cost associated with it. So there is always that opportunity to allow lawyers to off-load some of the work.”

The survey also asked chief legal officers how often procurement professionals are involved in selecting the outside counsel for a company. The responses were as follows:

  • 75 percent of CLOs said procurement professionals do not help in the process.
  • 6 percent of CLOs said procurement professionals always take part in the process.
  • 3.6 percent of CLOs said procurement professionals were usually involved in the process.
  • 16.6 percent of CLOs said procurement professionals were sometimes involved in the process.

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Image Credit: Reuters

Jim Vassallo: Jim is a freelance writer based out of the suburbs of Philadelphia in New Jersey. Jim earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications and minor in Journalism from Rowan University in 2008. While in school he was the Assistant Sports Director at WGLS for two years and the Sports Director for one year. He also covered the football, baseball, softball and both basketball teams for the school newspaper 'The Whit.' Jim lives in New Jersey with his wife Nicole, son Tony and dog Phoebe.

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