Tag Archives for " negotiation tools "

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 Impacts Your Legal Information Pricing

By Michael Feit | Contract Negotiations

Negotiating an expensive legal-information contract requires more than a few conversations with the vendor. If you want the most value for your buck, allocate the appropriate amount of time to evaluate your resources. Assess usage, content redundancies on other vendor products, practice group or firm size changes–to name just a few.

Many firms give themselves just three months or so to work on their next round of legal-information contracts. Whenever possible, however, it is best to allocate more time for planning and evaluating the real value of legal-information resources. The vendors will have their own timeline. However, your timeline should be much longer to account for resource evaluation prior to the start of vendor negotiations.

With 3+ year contracts, the deadlines can seem to immediately appear without realizing the time left to prepare. 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 can help your firm navigate the complexities of these important vendor negotiations. Feit Consulting partners with firms to strategize and obtain optimal contract pricing and terms. Learn more about our consulting services here.

Resources Offering ROI

By Michael Feit | Legal Information Trends , Resources

In 2016, Feit Consulting launched the Market Trends Legal Information Series. The Series is composed of white papers and survey results on pertinent topics in the legal information arena. The Series was launched with our report on Westlaw & Lexis: Path to Commoditization discussing the historical pricing and strategies of these vendors, and detailed insights to where the legal information market is heading.

Another hot topic is the sole provider trend. In January 2017, Feit Consulting released The Sole Provider Playbook and the Sole Provider Viability Decision Guide. These resources provide more than a high-level discussion about the trend. These resources can be used by firms and organizations as how-to guides, walking them through the process of evaluating, assessing, and implementing change. Out hope is that more firms will take on a proactive approach to evaluating the option, not waiting to the last minute when their hands are tied by the vendor. We want to provide firms and organizations with tools, concrete steps for making the best decision for their legal information strategy and bottom line.

This past summer, Feit Consulting released Optimizing Legal Information Pricing. A unique resource offering Feit Consulting’s view of pricing in the market. This is an excellent resource for getting a general sense of how your firm or organization’s contracts measure up. Feit Consulting can also conduct personalized benchmarking for your firm or organization.  This is highly recommended for anyone who has not received a Lexis or Westlaw price adjustment since 2008.

In developing these reports, we utilized surveys and conducted one-on-one interviews with experts in the field to provide comprehensive resources. What we heard over and over again from firms and organizations who purchased these reports has been how impressed they are with the wealth of knowledge and detail provided.

Whether you have unused funds for 2017, or want to get head of the game for anticipated 2018 projects, the Market Trends Legal Information Series provides a wealth of knowledge, guidance and processes for ROI of your legal information portfolio. Contact Feit today for year-end special pricing. Click here to learn more about all the reports and surveys we offer.

How Timing Can Impede Contract Negotiations

By Michael Feit | Best Practices , Contract Negotiations

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.

Don’t Be a Hostage to Your Vendor

By Michael Feit | Contract Negotiations , Sole Provider , White Papers

Perhaps your firm or organization has always operated with both Lexis and Westlaw. The option of eliminating may seem foreign. For other firms or companies, perhaps the idea of eliminating a vendor came up to close to negotiation deadline.

There are options! You don’t need to be a hostage to your vendor if you have enough time to evaluate the options. The evaluation process in itself can prove fruitful, sharing pertinent information that can be used in the negotiation process.

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. Lexis and Westlaw have both successfully infiltrated law firms’ cultures and infrastructures over their many years of service.