Tag Archives for " benchmark "

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.

The Power of a Successful Contract Negotiation

By Michael Feit | Contract Negotiations , White Papers

Contract negotiations not only set product/vendor pricing for the next contracted term, but can also determine the pricing path your firm will be on for years after. We all know the story–3-5% increases year over year. Once you lock in at a price and terms, this becomes your new baseline for future negotiations. Vendors will only want to increase over your current price.

Not to fear, price corrections can be made at your next contract negotiations. Feit Consulting sees about 15-20% of the large law firm market paying substantially higher than the market mid-point. Firms that fall into this category won’t be able to reach the market mid-point in one contract cycle; it could take several cycles to price-correct.

There are two secrets to securing optimal pricing in your next legal information contract negotiations: planning and market knowledge.

Allocating enough time to plan for negotiations is one element. Waiting until close to contract expiration is one of the worst mistakes a firm can make. Start the process early. Market knowledge is the other essential tool for achieving optimal results in the negotiation process. This allows one to gauge whether your firm’s current contracts are on par with the market, or above or below. Having this intel affects your leverage in negotiations. Due to secret pricing, no one firm can truly know whether their contract is exceptional or fair without outside knowledge.

Get the tools you need NOW in order to successfully negotiate and optimize your firm’s legal information resources and pricing. Working with a consultant is one option to obtain the market knowledge for benchmarking your firm’s contracts. Another option is Feit Consulting’s Optimizing Legal Information Pricing. Learn more here.

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.

Secret Pricing Published

By Michael Feit | Pricing , White Papers

With 15-25% of the law firm market substantially overpaying for Lexis or Westlaw, Feit Consulting seeks to empower law firms with the knowledge necessary to achieve reasonable and mutually beneficial pricing. For too long, pricing has been kept secret. No firm knows whether their contract is truly “excellent”, which the vendors often claim with each new renewal.

Until now, only Feit’s clients received this intel. In our next white paper, Optimizing Legal Information Pricing, Feit Consulting will be disseminating our benchmarks on what is reasonable pricing historically, current, and projected, with supporting data and rationale.

Why share this privy information? By publishing our unique market view, firms that are trapped in bad contracts will obtain the necessary context to take the first step towards corrected pricing. Having this market knowledge is only one element to achieving successful contract negotiations. Feit Consulting is here to advise firms at all stages of vendor contract negotiations and overall legal information strategy.

Act now! Have up to five of your firm’s legal information contracts benchmarked against our data. Sign up here.

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.