intappRisk Update

Outside Counsel Guidelines — Managing the Client Terms of Engagement “Treadmill” (Sponsor Spotlight)

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In this month’s sponsor spotlight, Intapp calls out a recent article from its consulting partner Aurora North, who shares their perspective on best practices for managing OCGs, framed with a client case study in: “Taking Control of the OCG Treadmill: From Technology Potential to Practical ROI” —

  • “In recent years, outside counsel guidelines (OCGs) have expanded so much in scope and complexity that law firms often find themselves in a treadmill of playing ‘catch up.'”
  • “Many firms still lack a central repository for clients’ OCGs and other client engagement terms — and even the ones that do often find it challenging to track every component. We often hear from firms that negotiating and managing OCGs and enforcing compliance can feel like an “all or nothing” mountain to climb, but it doesn’t have to be.”
  • “This article explores how firms can start small in building more systematic OCG compliance, drawing on the experience of an Am Law 100 firm that has been successful in taking an iterative approach and demonstrating clear ROI along the way.”
  • “In the case of the Am Law 100 firm we worked with, the Finance and Risk teams started by defining critical questions they wanted to address:
    • How can we share knowledge and distribute information on OCGs and client terms within a firm with over 1,000 attorneys?
    • How can we monitor OCG compliance internally and fix any issues quickly — before a problematic invoice reaches the client and results in write-offs?”
  • “The firm’s key priority initially was to take steps that would immediately help reduce write-offs — so we agreed to focus our efforts on improving the visibility and enforcement of client billing restrictions. In other words, the firm decided from the outset to take a more focused approach that would demonstrate ‘quick win’ results.”
  • “Another project we worked on focused on making client-specific staffing restrictions more visible to lead attorneys, to prevent them from assigning first-year lawyers, for example, to a client matter if it was explicitly disallowed per the client’s OCGs.”

Read the complete article here.

Read more about Intapp Terms here and how it helps organizations: “Gain visibility into increasingly complex and demanding client terms of business to promote enforcement with confidence. Intapp Terms centralizes and streamlines storing, categorizing, and approval-routing of client mandates, enabling your firm to effectively deliver on the promises it makes.”