Panel-beating for beginners – Managing strategically
How you procure a panel is not as important as why you do it and how you manage it. My first article in this series covers the why… now let’s talk about the managing.
Although we usually refer to legal ‘panels’, some general counsel prefer to use the term ‘network’. ‘Network’ better reflects the needs of an organisation and the many ways the different legal resources work in collaboration. That means the internal and external resources, people and process, technology and culture all coming together in a single, integrated unit to achieve the best outcome in the most efficient and effective way.
Legal issues never exist in a vacuum – they always sit in the wider context of the business and are rarely single-issue problems. Management is the ongoing dance of using those resources to maximum impact throughout the life of the network. The best configuration at the start of a network’s tenure is rarely the same as at the end of it, so build a flexible network. Recognising how and when to flex it, is good management.
Managing the panel strategically
In choosing external resources, it’s important to develop a clear understanding of why you are doing it, that will tell you what you need it for. Skills, obviously, are critical, but only if you deploy them in a way which is helpful to you, at an affordable cost, and in conjunction with your overall strategy. Working in house is often a matter of rolling up your sleeves and getting stuck in. In house lawyers (rightly!) pride themselves on this attitude. If the general counsel has to review the deal-critical NDA as a one off because they are the only person available, that is to be applauded. If the general counsel finds themselves doing this regularly, that is not a strategic or valuable use of resources. It is all too easy to slip into inefficient habits through expediency and then fail to recognise when you need to make a change. A good network ensures that doesn’t happen.
Quality of legal advice is an entry level requirement these days, a network must give you much more. Look for proactive communication, flexibility, value for money and ability to collaborate (cultural fit). These things make the difference in how effectively you can deploy your network of resources day to day. Imagine that during the lifetime of the network the organisation decides to execute a large acquisition changing the character of the legal work entirely. Perhaps the target company is a failing business bringing months of wrangling a difficult debtor portfolio that is important high-risk, but low-complexity work. Perhaps there are underlying ‘unknown unknowns.’ When Carillion acquired Mowlem in 2006, the OFT conducted a dawn raid the next day. Launching a lengthy competition investigation that no-one saw coming in spite of very thorough due diligence. The network had to flex to manage the new legal landscape for the business and very quickly. A network with good communication, a built-in talent for collaboration and the ability to scale up or down in different areas makes all the difference in these scenarios.
Everything the external adviser does impacts on the reputation and credibility of the organisation, you personally (if you are the general counsel) and the legal team as whole. Legal advice must be delivered in a way that the organisation can utilise, rely on and incorporate; if that doesn’t happen, it may be ignored. Which is both risky and wasteful
Getting started
The first thing to get right is setting expectations. Ensure the network understands:
what is expected of them,
how they are to accept instructions (and from whom),
how and what they should report, and
how they get paid.
Brief people not only on the practicalities, but the priorities, culture and working methods of the business. Brief the legal providers and train your business colleagues in the same processes. Reducing friction from both sides of the relationship makes your work easier. It gives you early visibility for when the network needs to flex, the direction in which it needs to flex and give greater value to the organisation.
Part of this involves setting a transparent framework to measure:
how the network performs,
how they are regarded by the legal team and the business,
how they behave, and
what impact their advice has.
If it’s possible to apply the same measures to the work of the in-house team, that is even more impactful. Virtually all businesses measure their operations and the performance of their service providers against defined benchmarks. If legal can do the same, the reputational benefit is significant.
I’ve written before about benchmarking and KPIs for internal and external resources here if you want to know more.
And so back to panel-beating…
Panel-beating, in the automotive context, is not about applying brute force and hoping to achieve a seamless result. Likewise, in the legal world, it is not about beating up the legal supply chain in the hope of achieving cheaper or quicker outcomes. Rather, it’s about applying skilled resources in the most effective and efficient way to give the best result in timely fashion. It needs skill, patience, and above all a strategic approach to ensure not only that the right resources are available, but that they are deployed, managed and leveraged to best effect.