Editor’s Note: D. Casey Flaherty, corporate counsel at Kia Motors America Inc., developed and administers an in-person, technology competency audit for his outside counsel. (Read more about it here, here, here, and here.)
MINI AUDIT
Here is a single topic, mini audit that in-house counsel can administer remotely.
- The ask: Request that outside counsel provide you with a budget estimate for a common task, such as an opposition to a motion for summary judgment. When counsel respond that they are unable to construct a budget for a content-free hypothetical, ask that they merely provide you a range of costs for a final budget. If they supply that range, ask how they developed it, and what data it is based on.
- What’s being tested: Whether your firms use the large quantities of time data they collect for anything other than sending bills to clients.
- Why: Most law firms are religious about recording attorneys’ time. Time is the key metric in how they bill their clients. Many law firms purport to know, with a high degree of certainty, how much time was required to accomplish a specific task and how much the client owes the firm for that work. Yet, ask for a budget for a prospective task and you typically are fed a word salad about uniqueness, idiosyncrasies, contingencies, etc. In short, you are subjected to most lawyerly of all phrases: "It depends."
