Tag Archives for " leverage "

Leverage in Contract Negotiations

By Michael Feit | Feit Consulting , Resources

What leverage does your firm have going into contract negotiations?

Many firms wait until around three months prior for legal information contract expiration to come top of mind. However, if a firm can allocate more time for planning and evaluating its legal information resources’ value, the extra time creates a huge leverage for the firm. Firms that obtain market knowledge to compare their contract pricing, coupled with key metrics to assess contract resources’ value, will gain significant leverage in legal information contract negotiations.

Planning ahead with the right tools and knowledge is not only critical but absolutely necessary for success. Key leveraging points may include change in size of firm, ample time to make certain contracts co-terminus, firm-wide interest in the sole-provider option, usage and value of each legal information resource, to name a few. A multi-year plan allows one to know ahead of time what the firm’s goals are going into contract negotiations.

Feit Consulting’s latest report, Optimizing Legal Information Pricing, provides market intel to compare your firm’s contract pricing, as well as key leveraging points to utilize in your upcoming legal-information contract negotiation. This resource shares tactics to achieve optimization. It also shares how to optimize your legal-information pricing and terms with Lexis, Westlaw, Wolters Kluwer, BBNA, and other products.

Get ahead of the vendor’s strategy and timeline. Don’t wait to prepare. Optimizing Legal Information Pricing is a tool that will help your firm prepare in time with the essential leveraging tools to achieve success. Learn more here.

How Timing Can Impede Contract Negotiations

By Michael Feit | Best Practices , Contract Negotiations

Time is money. Leverage it wisely.

By Michael Feit | Best Practices , Contract Negotiations , Pricing , White Papers

What leverage does your firm have going into contract negotiations?

Many firms wait until around three months prior for legal information contract expiration to come top of mind. However, if a firm can allocate more time for planning and evaluating its legal information resources’ value, the extra time creates a huge leverage for the firm. Firms that obtain market knowledge to compare their contract pricing, coupled with key metrics to assess contract resources’ value, will gain significant leverage in legal information contract negotiations.

Planning ahead with the right tools and knowledge is not only critical but absolutely necessary for success. Key leveraging points may include change in size of firm, ample time to make certain contracts co-terminus, firm-wide interest in the sole-provider option, usage and value of each legal information resource, to name a few. A multi-year plan allows one to know ahead of time what the firm’s goals are going into contract negotiations.

Feit Consulting’s latest report, Optimizing Legal Information Pricing, provides market intel to compare your firm’s contract pricing, as well as key leveraging points to utilize in your upcoming legal-information contract negotiation. This resource shares tactics to achieve optimization. It also shares how to optimize your legal-information pricing and terms with Lexis, Westlaw, Wolters Kluwer, BBNA, and other products.

Get ahead of the vendor’s strategy and timeline. Don’t wait to prepare. Optimizing Legal Information Pricing is a tool that will help your firm prepare in time with the essential leveraging tools to achieve success. Learn more here.

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.

Is Sole-Provider the Best Option?

By Michael Feit | Sole Provider , White Papers

The sole-provider option is not for every firm, and largely depends on your firm’s legal practices, recovery rates, contract pricing, and usage. While the option may not be the right decision for every firm, an evaluation of the sole-provider option is necessary for law firm administrators.

The idea of transitioning to sole-provider can be daunting, considering the many individuals and processes that might be impacted. There are a great number of elements to examine, from contracts to content, not to mention the strong reactions of users to fundamental system changes.

Whether or not a firm chooses to go sole-provider, the evaluation in itself provides an opportunity for a firm to review, revise and refine its legal information strategy and potentially save significant money. In a secret pricing market, knowledge is power. Knowing to what extent the sole-provider option is viable for your firm can serve as great leverage in contract negotiations.

Feit Consulting’s Sole Provider Viability Decision Guide walks legal information administrators through the pre-decision process, and lays out the groundwork necessary for informed decision-making. Learn more about this resource here.

Is it smart to go co-terminus?

By Michael Feit | Contract Negotiations , Pricing , White Papers

This question comes up often. Most often the answer is yes. Making contracts co-terminus can be an excellent strategic tactic for contract comparisons and creating negotiation leverage. It can also be advantageous to have multiple products expire at the same time to simply better align resources. Having several products in play during a negotiation cycle typically allows the firms to strategically approach negotiations from multiple angles. Additionally, the more a firm is purchasing at one time from a vendor, the greater that firm’s purchasing power.

To make your firm co-terminus, you may need to extend existing contracts. But before extending, it is important to understand fully what the extension entails. What is the cost/benefit of extending? Make sure it is worthwhile based on your firm’s legal information strategy and cost ramifications.

Learn more about preparing for your upcoming legal information contract negotiations with Feit Consulting’s white paper, Optimizing Legal Information Pricing.