| | December 20148CIOReviewGlobalization and technology are forcing unprecedented change in the legal profes-sion. These forces, catalyzed by the reduced demand for legal services following the 2008 recession, have triggered a cascading set of changes through the legal industry. Competent legal services are available offshore at a fraction of the cost of home grown talent. Electronic discovery has replaced the legions of associates who once poured painstakingly over scores of documents as part of a litigation team. Sophisticated software tools can create basic contracts. Other tools analyze contracts, locate relevant content, convert contract terms into data and subject that data to sophisticated analytics to help drive business decisions. Work that was once unquestionably the province of highly-educated and highly-paid attorneys, is now being delivered by lower-cost providers who approach the work differently, more cost-effectively­and often better.What does this mean for general counsel and those of us who work in corporate legal departments? It is tempting to look outward, to ask what additional value we can demand from our outside counsel­whether in alternate or fixed fee structures, less expensive staffing models, or the use of technology solutions. And, indeed, these are questions we must be asking. But we must turn the same lens on ourselves as we are turning on our outside counsel. The disruption of the legal industry will inevitably force fundamental changes within law departments just as it has to the traditional law firm model. We must look at ourselves and question the way we have traditionally delivered legal services. As one of the most expensive support functions in a corporation, law departments are under increasing pressure to reduce costs without sacrificing their quality or output. As risk managers, we are also sometimes viewed as a function that slows or impedes the business. At the same time, there is now widespread recognition that legal services can be "unbundled" or "disaggregated" into discrete components along a value continuum and that, across that continuum, legal work is more or less susceptible to the use of a rapidly expand-ing array of alternative legal service providers and technology solutions. At the top of the value continuum is the highly complex, high risk or strategic work that lawyers will continue to perform, and where general counsel will continue to consult high-priced outside counsel. But moving down the value continuum from that point, it makes less and less sense to use the highest-priced talent­in-house or outside­to perform aspects of legal work that can be done more cost-effectively by others. Alternative delivery models often can provide cheaper, faster and more consistent outcomes for this lower value work. Law departments interested in beginning the transformation journey should consider the following foundational steps:opinionin myLaw Department Transformation:Embracing Change to Deliver New Value to the BusinessBy Joanne Schehl , VP & Deputy General Counsel, Fannie Mae"There is now widespread recognition that legal services can be "unbundled" or "disaggregated" into discrete components along a value continuum | | December 20148CIOReview
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