Category Archives for "Contract Negotiations"

Timing Is Important

By Michael Feit | Contract Negotiations , White Papers

Obviously, the timeline for negotiating is dictated by contract expirations. With 3+ year contracts, the deadlines can seem to immediately appear without realizing the time left to prepare. Allowing for adequate time to prepare for contract negotiations is necessary to achieve optimal pricing and terms for the correct content needed by the firm.

It is recommended to allow for 2+years to develop and execute a well-planned legal information resource strategy. By doing so, there is time for gaining management buy-in, diffusing potential pushback, developing work-arounds for lost resources, conducting trials of new products, and holding ongoing trainings.

Learn more about preparing for contract negotiations to achieve optimal pricing in Feit Consulting’s latest white paper Optimizing Legal Information Pricing.

New Customers Win! Old Customers…?

By Kate | Contract Negotiations , Pricing

If you love Nordstrom (or Target, Starbucks, etc.), being a loyal customer has lots of benefits. Retailing in the 21st century is over-saturated, so many similar brands create a bidding war for consumers. And loyal consumers win the most–discounts, perks, events, you name it–they all await the customer willing to channel more spending toward one brand.

That mentality is so ingrained, it’s easy to think it’s true with your legal information vendors. Sadly, it’s the opposite. Stick with Westlaw and/or Lexis long enough, and chances are you’ll be getting among the worst value.

In legal information, the best deals and offers are reserved for new customers. And who’s funding those great deals? Loyal customers like you.

The new customer is their preferred customer. Loyal customers just pay for it.

Value does not automatically increase 3-5% annually “just because”!

By Michael Feit | Contract Negotiations , Pricing , White Papers

Value does not automatically increase 3-5% annually for every product “just because”! To pay increases annually, it would be expected that the firm is receiving more value, content or features than the year before. Complacency or lack of diligence in managing information resources can have long-lasting unfavorable implications on both processes and costs, thereby hampering overall efficiency.

Feit Consulting’s Optimizing Legal Information Pricing shares steps for evaluating the value of your firm’s legal information resources, and arms decision makers with the necessary knowledge and leverage for negotiations. Feit Consulting’s benchmarks provide context for assessing the favorability of your contracts compared to the market.

Click here to learn more.

Legacy Contracts: The Challenges New Librarians Face

By Michael Feit | Contract Negotiations , Pricing , White Papers

One of the tougher situations a law librarian can encounter is accepting a new position at a law firm and immediately being faced with tight deadlines for negotiating online contract renewals. Legacy contracts are a conglomerate of past points of view regarding what the firm needed in terms of content and the cost the firm was willing to bear at the time of negotiation. The secretive nature of online pricing just adds to the dilemma faced by librarians in this position, because it is impossible to truly know if what is being offered is best in market pricing.

If your legacy contract pricing is way above market, reaching a reasonable benchmark in your current negotiation cycle can be difficult or impossible without any knowledge of market pricing. In many cases, even with market knowledge, it can take several negotiation cycles to achieve contracts closer to market rates.

Feit Consulting’s latest white paper, Optimizing Legal Information Pricing was designed as a valuable tool to guide and assist information professionals through the online contract negotiating process. By providing insight into market metrics for Lexis and Westlaw, along with other key legal information vendors, the report outlines best practices for a contract audit and provides a handy checklist of dos and don’ts for the negotiation process. With a future forecast of what to expect from online vendors, this white paper is an essential resource for preparing for negotiations and successfully navigating the negotiation process.

Click here for more information on this resource.

How does your Spend Per Attorney compare?

By Kate | Contract Negotiations , Pricing , White Papers

Imagine you want to buy a house, but you can’t find out how much any other house on the street sold for. Welcome to the world of Lexis and Westlaw pricing. The secretive nature makes it nearly impossible to know whether your firm has optimal pricing.

Feit Consulting’s latest white paper, Optimizing Legal Information Pricing sheds light on the market by providing our view of the market and, in particular, on the Spend Per Attorney metric.

Additionally, the report provides detailed metrics and market benchmarks on usage, discounts, excluded costs, and recovery. The report also includes guidance for achieving optimal pricing on Lexis, Westlaw, Bloomberg, Wolters Kluwer and other legal information products. Click here to learn more about this report.

Our “Secret Sauce” is Revealed

By Kate | Contract Negotiations , Pricing , White Papers

​In a secret pricing market, how can firms truly know whether their contract is on par with the market without external advisement? Our new white paper, Optimizing Legal Information Pricing, shares benchmarking information for firms to begin to understand how their contracts measure up.

Many may shake their heads, wondering why we would give away this information.

Having knowledge of appropriate metrics and a pricing framework only provides a foundation upon which to build in your contract negotiations. Any negotiation is a give-and-take process, with two sides of the table deciding to collaborate together in order to find a mutually beneficial middle ground. There are still many other elements that factor into the negotiation process including practice areas, size, vendor rep, product/content mix, vendor preference and many more.

We estimate that 15% of the large law firm market is substantially overpaying, a majority of which are AmLaw 100 or based out of New York City. This report serves as a point of reference for law firm administrators and legal information decision makers to initiate the process of correcting pricing for their firm. For the rest of the market, this report brings assurance to how your contracts and proposals for new products compares and takes into consideration multiple variables and parameters.

In May 2017, Feit Consulting will release our next white paper, Optimizing Legal Information Pricing, in which we share revealing benchmarks every firm will need to have in contract review and negotiations. With 16 years in this business, we’ve accumulated a knowledge base unparalleled in legal information; we call it our “secret sauce”.

In sum, Feit Consulting’s Optimizing Legal Information Pricing report reveals valuable, essential information we think every law firm should have. It gets you to a level playing field. Firms that order the report pre-release can have up to five legal information contracts evaluated against our benchmarks. For more information, click here.