You struggle through traffic into the office and you are a double espresso short of kick starting the week. The weekend at home disintegrated as you worked on a Joint Venture Agreement for Pete – an old friend who was an entrepreneurial business development director in one of the company’s subsidiaries. The “It will take only an hour or so” had crept remorselessly into the usual mix of eight or 10 hours of calls and drafting – depending on whose time-keeping you believed, yours or your wife’s or the kids’.
Another Monday morning. At least you thought it was, until you are called into the finance director’s office. “Dud,” he says. “I know I’ve only been here for a month and this might be coming from left field, however I had a call over the weekend from O, S & D Legal law firm offering to outsource the whole legal function on a ‘pay-as-you-go’ basis. They provided the same service at my old company. I’ve got to take it seriously. Everyone has said that the legal function does a good job – now is the time to prove it. Could I have your business plan showing where you add the greatest value by the end of the week? Sorry to drop it on you suddenly – but you lawyers are always prepared.”
