LEGAL SERVICES MANAGEMENT

Legal services for international clients, particularly in the professional marketplace of the sophisticated financial centers in major common law jurisdictions, have become a readily available commodity that increasingly requires a specialized body of discriminating current knowledge and experienced judgment typically not readily available in an objective and disinterested form to many in-house counsel or executives even at substantial overseas clients not thoroughly familiar with law firm and judicial economics. Managing lawyers is not something taught in business school nor is it a skill commonly developed during the course of a financial career. Lawyers are "different" and seem to defy control.

There are now numerous providers of consulting services to law firms on all aspects of their practice, yet it is somehow assumed that the best advice clients can get on dealing with their own lawyers comes from those very same lawyers. That traditional notion is obviously flawed.

Acting as advisory counsel, our firm does not perform litigation or other typical tasks of local counsel but rather offers overseas clients “legal advice on counsel”. In this specialized capacity, the firm acts as guardian of the client’s best interest as it pertains to the selection, instruction, assessment, cost control and many other aspects of successful cooperation with sophisticated local counsel, effectively managing many details of the client’s relationship with local counsel. In that capacity, our function forms part of sophisticated risk management: managing the risks and cost associated with local counsel.

Far from just adding just another layer of cost to international commercial litigation, our firm strives to contribute substantial value by actually reducing cost through elimination of sometimes unnecessary work or justifiable but not cost-effective efforts, cross-cultural misperceptions and misjudgments, and, most importantly, by minimizing the dangerous potential for misguided choices in selecting and managing local counsel by suitability to task. Such assessment made solely from the client’s home perspective frequently result in significant misallocation of resources, particularly in the management of international litigation or of major transactions.

To minimize the potential for any conflicts of interest, our firm typically does not engage in litigation, except in white-collar fraud cases or in cases where we are a party. We eschew default solutions such as “preferred local counsel”. In purely advisory as well as adversarial matters, each decision is developed solely on its individual merits, involving professionals and services determined by independent case-by-case research and proprietary analysis to be best suited for certain tasks under the circumstances of specific situations.

Upon an in-depth understanding of the client’s task and objectives, our firm provides

• advice on strategic and tactical case planning and case management
• advice on the selection of local counsel
• team selection defining the role of senior attorneys
• continuous interaction with and review of local counsel
• use of temporary professional staff
• legal operations analysis
• use of advanced technology and records management
• case budgeting and financial case management
• resolution of interpersonal problems and perceptions with professionals
• crisis management