Transforming the global timekeeper rate review process with Vandana Dhamija and HARMAN International, our 2017 Legal Procurement winners.
We did it! To those of you who came to the Legal Procurement EMEA Conference a big thank you! We expanded the legal procurement horizon with analytics, panel discussions and new contacts to fortify those of you in the procurement trenches. To those of you who couldn't make it, I will do a recap in next week's mailing, so stay tuned.
HONORING ADVANCES IN LEGAL PROCUREMENT
The Legal Procurement Awards are a beacon for best practice in Legal Procurement. Award winners set the benchmark for work within the sector and showcase the best legal Procurement has to offer. Have you applied yet? The deadline is Friday, June 29th.
In Part III [here link to Part I & II] of our Interviews with the 2017 Legal Procurement Award winners, we talk with Vandana Dhamija who collaborated with HARMAN International to successfully transform its global timekeeper rate review process. By incorporating data analysis into the decision-making, in addition to extensive training and support, they developed detailed supporting guides, templates, dashboards, and reports, and managed to strike a balance between enforcing policy and maintaining cordial, positive relationships.
This ensured quick and successful implementation of the new process. The project was developed and implemented in only three months on a very small budget, despite its global reach of 190 firms.
2017 AWARD for PROCESS IMPROVEMENT: Vandana Dhamija with HARMAN International
Why did you apply to the 2017 Legal Procurement Awards?
I wanted to assess where my three-year-old consulting practice Legal Operations
Consulting, LLC placed amongst my peers. Third party validation carries weight
in any business. Awards and other recognition offer a compliment which sounds
much better when someone else says it. A win has given a seal of approval to my activities.
Where did the inspiration for the project come from?
The inspiration for this project came from a cost containment initiative at HARMAN.
How did you come up with the solution?
Experience from having successfully executed Global Rate Programs at other
organizations, and some additional steps in this process were:
Instituting a Rate Review Committee.
Conducting meetings with internal HARMAN legal team to get an understanding of the current process.
Performing analytics on the current legal spend.
By designing proposed solution with Senior Director of Legal and Compliance. Created Power Point analysis and presented recommendation to Rate Review Committee for review and sign-off.
By creating and executing a strategic plan to implement the solution listing timelines and other specifics.
How did you go about solving the issue?
Solving the issue was in implemention of the following:
Project Management – Maintained an up to date status of the milestones achieved and ensured project completion on the date set.
Communications – A weekly one hour call scheduled with internal resource and four calls with the Rate Review committee.
Project deliverables – A detailed list of project deliverables that is used as a guide to evaluate and mitigate any risks.
Project Evaluation – Direct feedback communicated during the calls.
Who was involved?
HARMAN's legal leadership team were involved in the Global Rate Review Program.
All practice area heads were kept in the loop via regular communications.
What were the main challenges you faced during the implementation?
To name a few challenges:
Cleaning the data set to make it usable for data analytics.
Having to schedule meetings around two major holidays (Thanksgiving and Christmas).
Building a consensus around a decision.
What do you wish you would have known before you started the project?
We accepted some late rate submissions and this leads to slowing down the
planned process. In the future, I will add a bigger buffer for this scenario on the project
plan.
What would you do differently now?
I would follow the same process and make sure that we have our billing
team prepared to handle any follow-up questions.
Do you have recommendations for others facing a similar issue?
Plan and prepare ahead of time. For those who are embarking on this journey for
the first time please document and follow a simple process, focus on top 10 – 20
firms first, bring on an expert (this will pay-off in the long run), and use benchmarking
reports in your decision making.
VIDEO: RATE & TIMEKEEPER MANAGEMENT with Jake Hills
The purpose of Rate and Timekeeper Management is to reduce lawyer administrative time and to separate rate conversations from the overall relationship management. By centralizing work to an invoice processing team with clearly defined roles and an objective approval system, outside counsel rates and -- equally important -- proper staffing can be maintained. Watch our two minute video and download the Legal Spend Management Primer at www.buyinglegal.com/LSM
In this brief video, Jake Hills of Elevate Services explains how we can arm ourselves with the data that is already in our backyards for a more in-depth analysis.
DON'T MISS IT: LEGAL LESSON
Our Legal Lessons help close any legal knowledge gaps: 60-minute webinars on a variety of legal topics and legal systems that will help you become a better, more sophisticated buyer of legal services.
Join us for our next webinar on Wednesday June 20th with Jennifer Sandberg (Fisher Phillips) who will give us an INTRODUCTION TO U.S. EMPLOYMENT LAW. Please click here to see the time of the call in your region.
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Legal Services Sourcing Manager (Johnson & Johnson), Pricing Analyst (Foley & Lardner), Category Manager-Legal (GSK), Legal Operations (Hearst Corporation): Read about it on our Careers page.
