Monthly Archives: September 2017

How Timing Can Impede Contract Negotiations

By Michael Feit | Best Practices , Contract Negotiations

Is your library budget ready?

By Michael Feit | Budgeting , Modern Law Library

Budget season is here. Are you ready?

Budget season is here, and 2018 expense is right around the corner. While no one enjoys the necessary number-crunching of budget preparation, annual budgets are an important tool of modern-library metrics. The library budget, a microcosm of projected expense within the larger organization, should be meaningful by helping you to understand how you spend firm dollars. Your budget, broken down by categories of material, or service, or major vendor, should allow you a framework to monitor expense.

When preparing the budget, utilize all tools at your disposal. Annual budgeting should never be done in a vacuum. Talk to Finance to get a better idea of the firm’s strategy for the upcoming year. What is the firm’s fiscal goal for the new year, and what does that mean for the library? Is this a year of zero-based budgeting? Are there plans for a new office or strategic downsizing firm-wide? Is the firm planning to right-size practice groups? If so, then performing an office-copy audit becomes a valuable tool of budget preparation. Addition or deletion of attorneys and staff affects library spend and seat licenses, so make sure you are proactive in understanding what the firm is planning. If you have an Electronic Resource Management (ERM) tool in place, pull usage reports, and analyze user data and actual ROI of electronic subscriptions helping to support renewal or cancellation decisions. Don’t forget to survey your user population to make sure their needs have not changed and the firm is subscribing to the right content. Make sure you are current on legal-vendor offerings and haven’t overlooked new vendors with the same content but a better value.

The Modern Library requires individuals to change their mindset from maintaining the status quo to becoming open to new ways of doing things. Consider how you will shape your budget to reflect new solutions that you want to present to your organization. Whether it is new software to improve workflow or hiring a consultant for upcoming contract negotiations, the budget should reflect the library’s needs and projects for the upcoming year. If you are proposing something new, consider adding a business case as a supplement, providing the needs assessment and ROI derived from the new solution. For the law firm administrator that is often a numbers person, hard-budget data turned into informative charts and graphs will tell your story in a visual way that is powerful beyond just numbers. The law library budget should be well thought out and reflect your needs and expenses for the upcoming fiscal year.

Innovation and Value: The Modern Library

By Michael Feit | Modern Law Library , Surveys

Cutting-edge… State-of-the-art… Unconventional… Using the most up-to-date techniques, technology and metrics…

While all these ideas are traits of the Modern Library, the first step to modernization really starts with you, the administrator. Flexibility and an openness to change are necessary traits. Ask yourself: How can I change my habits to actually facilitate change? How can I move out of my mindset of “but we have always done it that way“? What can I do differently to steer the law library team in a new way? Can I provide the space/opportunity for the law library team to innovate and transform?

While law firms have always depended on library and information professionals to support the research needs of their lawyers, the Modern Library is undergoing a paradigm shift. Success now depends on the library taking a more active role in the organization to help support the day-to-day business of law. The law-firm administrator is instrumental in paving the road for that new role.

It is no secret that the legal sector is in flux and change, which is the only constant in our organizations. There are changes we can forecast, and there are those we must be able to react to in order to function as a fiscally responsible unit in our organizations. The Modern Library, a business within a business, is not passive in its approach, but rather utilizes metrics and analytics to forecast, predict and analyze data as changes occur.

Rather than be a target of downsizing or outsourcing, the Modern Library is innovative and forward-thinking. Librarians have a variety of skills that can be utilized in innovative ways such as:

• Conflicts support for new business intake
• Partnering with marketing to provide competitive intelligence to support the RFP process
• Partnering with IT to identify and beta-test software
• Driving Knowledge Management

Allowing the law library to collaborate with other departments is a win-win for the library and the firm.

The Modern Library is a trend-setter, evaluating and embracing new techniques, ideas and technology to help support business processes. It strives to carve out new roles within the organization while showcasing the value of resources and staff.

Feit Consulting is interested in learning how modern you see your law library, and what obstacles stand in the way of modernization. Click here to get started on our 10-minute survey.

The Modern Library Defined

By Michael Feit | Librarians , Surveys

Cutting-edge…state-of-the-art…unconventional…using the most up-to-date techniques, technology and metrics…

While all these ideas are traits of the Modern Library, the first step to modernization really starts with you, the librarian. You need to be flexible in your approach and meet change head-on. Ask yourself, “How can I change my habits to actually facilitate change? How can I move out of my mindset of but we have always done it that way? What can I do differently to offer value to my organization and make them see me and my library in a new way?” While law firms have always depended on library and information professionals to support the research needs of their lawyers, the Modern Library is undergoing a paradigm shift. Success now depends on the library taking a more active role in the organization, to help support the day-to-day business of law.

While librarian skill sets remain the same, the methods used to apply those skills are vastly different from those of the past. The Modern Library is a nexus for interdepartmental support, including, but not an exhaustive list:

• Embracing new roles in Conflicts Support for new business intake
• Partnering with Marketing to provide competitive intelligence to support the RFP process
• Partnering with IT to identify and beta-test software
• Driving Knowledge Management

Be enthusiastic about new ideas. The Modern Library is a trendsetter, evaluating and embracing new techniques, ideas and technology to help support business processes.

It is no secret that the legal sector is in flux and change, which is the only constant in our organizations. There are changes we can forecast, and there are those we must be able to react to in order to function as a fiscally responsible unit in our organizations. The Modern Library, a business within a business, is not passive in its approach but rather utilizes metrics and analytics to forecast, predict and analyze data as changes occur.

Preparing and monitoring annual budgets and working with Finance on cost and recovery of client-related research are important fiscal initiatives. With the cost of resources continuing to rise, data-analysis tools such as Electronic Resource Management (ERM) are invaluable in analyzing usage, preparing for contract renewals and general collection development. No longer a nice-to-have tool, ERMs are essential as the Modern Library moves away from print towards virtualization.

Rather than be a target of downsizing or outsourcing, the Modern Library is innovative and forward-thinking. It strives to carve out new roles within the organization while showcasing the value of resources and staff.

Feit Consulting is interested in learning how modern you see your law library and what obstacles stand in the way of modernization. Click here to get started on our 15-minute survey.

One of the largest law firms goes sole-provider. Does this foretell the Wexis monopoly demise in the largest segment?

By Michael Feit | Sole Provider , White Papers

Today, over 50% of large law firms retain only Lexis or only Westlaw. Within large law, 21% of firms with over 500 attorneys have gone this route. However, recently White & Case shared their success with one provider for their legal information research. Does this change your view on considering the option? How does this shape your legal information strategy?

How should you proceed?

2) Whether or not your firm or organization has favorable pricing, this alone does not predetermine whether you should keep both vendors. It is worthwhile to assess the viability of sole-provider option. Develop a business case. If needed, check out this resource, the Sole Provider Viability Decision Guide.

3) Execute and implement. Consider hiring a consultant if you decide to make a change.

Regardless of the outcome, exploring the sole-provider option is a healthy step in revising your legal information strategy and can provide intelligence to enhance your tactics for upcoming negotiation. If you choose to do it alone, these resources are an advantage to legal information decision-makers toward which steps and considerations to include in the process.

How Feit Benchmarks

By Michael Feit | Contract Negotiations , Feit Consulting

Feit Consulting has legal-information market intelligence dating back to 2001. Each year, Feit Consulting conducts law firm interviews, audits, and surveys. In the last twelve months, we have connected with more than 200 firms, gathering a large array of intelligence to fine-tune our market view. Feit Consulting utilizes an observed median derived from these learnings when developing our benchmarks. The median is our opinion of the mid-mark data point by which half of the market is above and half is below.

Data is continually monitored and benchmarks are recalibrated by Feit Consulting’s Legal Information Research Team. Benchmarks will be tweaked when pertinent market changes take place, influencing the relative strength of each vendor. Pertinent market changes would include a significant new competitor, product features, content, changing preferences, and/or compelling pricing.

Feit Consulting does not disseminate firm-specific information, and is compliant with all signed non-disclosure agreements. Feit Consulting adheres to third-party consultant non-disclosure agreements, and in accordance, does not utilize nor aggregate client information.