HelixLegal Provides the Expertise to Evaluate

HelixLegal provides consulting services to General Counsel, Companies and Institutions to review their legal processes, improve their legal cost efficiency and provide concrete solutions to legal operating issues.  Working with the General Counsel, Legal Department, Internal Auditors or Audit Committees, HelixLegal benchmarks performance, legal costs, risks and internal processes related to the provision of legal advice to the organization.

Legal Department Performance

 

Every Legal Department regardless of its size or scope must be aligned against the requirements of the business and provide flawless legal service. Legal Departments attempt to discover their performance through internally generated surveys and interviews. Too often this does not result in a true picture of performance because clients are hesitant to make any negative comments about people with whom they work. HelixLegal creates an environment where latent and undisclosed issues are discovered. This process provides all of the information needed to objectively evaluate the performance of the Legal Department.

 

We review all facets of the Legal Department, including the:

• organizational structure;

• staffing levels and where work is done;

• mix between use of inside and outside counsel; and

• alignment of business needs against those services provided by the Legal Department.

 

Through this review critical insights are obtained into:

• the performance of the Legal Department;

• operational issues;

• structural issues; and

• management issues;

 

which will enable the proactive improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the Legal Department.

 

 

Legal Department Process and Cost Control

 

Legal Departments dramatically affect risk and spend material amounts of an Organization’s budget on internal and external legal costs. Historically, Legal Departments and legal processes have not been reviewed due to their technical nature, however, General Counsel, Audit Committees, Management, Internal and External Auditors are now reviewing Legal Department processes and costs to ensure:

• there are appropriate legal process controls in place;

• the retention of external counsel is both defensible and competitive; and

• a major area of organizational risk is independently reviewed.

 

These reviews help to improve legal cost efficiency and reduce legal risk and costs. The outcomes can include:

• understanding the internal and external costs of the Legal Department with recommendations for reducing costs through:

  • strategies to manage outside counsel;

  • alternative structures and billing methods to control costs, including use of alternative legal suppliers;enhanced process for improving effectiveness and efficiency; and

  • consolidating the use of external counsel;

• understanding what financial and risk controls exist and recommendations for additional appropriate controls;

• recommendations for a robust and defensible RFP process for the purchase of external Legal Services; and

• understanding the source of risk from legal matters and methods for mitigating it.

 

HelixLegal can help deliver immediate savings by redistributing the workload to the most efficient supplier, including internal resources, external counsel and alternative outsourced legal suppliers. Typically this can produce savings upwards of 20% on current spend.