Another term for managing contracts. Vendors want to differentiate themselves so in-house counsel confront another acronym: ''contract and commerce lifecycle management (CCLM) utilizes contracts as the core system of record and drives value across the entire enterprise.' The 'flywheel' image that adorns the article confounds this reader! Click here for the full text Agiloft.

Practice areas where in-house work may climb. At the start of an article on RFPs, the author lists some incipient boom areas. 'However, in certain practice areas of law, RFPs are flourishing even though law firms are laying off business development staff and lawyers. Obviously, some areas of litigation are continuing to move ahead, even though a lot of the courts have shut down and are not hearing cases. This area promises to build after the pandemic subsides. In fact, one company I spoke to said that we will see a tsunami of litigation, post-pandemic. The same is also true for insolvency. Employment and labor is impacted amid travel bans and immigration sanctions, and cases are mounting to protect the health and safety of employees particularly in instances of COVID-19 workplace outbreaks. And of course, everyone is concerned about privacy and cybersecurity due to so many professionals having to work remotely from non-traditional locations with new operational procedures.' Click here for the full text from NL Watson's Nancey Watson.

Ask clear questions about pricing in RFPs. As with all questions in RFPs, think about how you will analyze likely answers, and then sharpen your questions! '[B]ecause pricing is such a big factor for in-house legal departments - asking the right questions about fees is an area of weakness in a lot of legal RFPs that I have responded to. The questions are vague and there is often not a place where the law firm can explain the math.' Click here for the full text of the interview with Nancey Watson.

An example of a law department benefitting from a firm's design thinking. Here is a bit of specificity. 'David Wright Tremaine (DWT), applied Design Thinking to better understand its clients' needs. In particular, this method ensured that DWT could effectively serve Microsoft, one of its longtime clients. In this case, Microsoft asked to capture data about the work to improve the system of negotiating and executing procurement contracts. DWT met this need by establishing "service-level agreements to set target response times" and implementing "contract analysis" to identify which provisions caused the greatest deal friction. Experienced lawyers might have predicted which provisions were the hardest to negotiate, but intuition is no substitute for hard data.' Click here for the full text from Maryam Salehijam.

Inaccurate accrual data from law firms. <'On average, there is a 23% variation between monthly accrual estimates and what law firms actually invoice. If your current electronic billing system does not have an accrual accuracy report, you'll have a hard time planning your budget.' What stands out in this piece is its many criticisms, directly and with specifics, of other matter management systems. Click here for the full text from SimpleLegal's Lauren Lee.

Invoice relief law departments might explore. Law departments should consider these asks. '[T]here are a number of alternative ways to help clients through this period of uncertainty without resorting to discounts. These include offering deferred payment terms, billing credits towards existing bills or future work, or potentially changing matter scope to reduce legal expenditure. For those who feel they need to make immediate financial concessions for a client, as a minimum, ensure that any form of client-specific investment are agreed on a time-bound basis (e.g., for next three months, or for the duration of matter, whichever is shorter).' Click here for the full text from Positive Pricing's Stuart Dodds.