Tyco and Eversheds: in Depth (Part I)
May 27, 2008 | Filed Under Law 2.0, New Services
I talked with Stephen Hopkins and Diana Newcombe of Eversheds last week; they are two leaders for the firm on the Tyco legal services team (the new agreement’s details are here). Also participating was Martin Hopkins, who oversees Eversheds’ relationship management strategy and deployment for US-based clients.
Some of the major points follow here, I’ll give some of my perspectives Thusday.
Two things impressed me from the outset:
– The Big Picture: This process has been a real learning experience for the firm, and consistently drives home the importance of closely linking legal services and a client’s corporate goals. This is often talked about by law firms in the abstract, but is hard to quantify in practice.
– The Building Blocks: Tyco is certainly a custom-built arrangement, but components of it are finding favor with other clients. Indeed, the approach and the technology involved make it more “modular” than initially thought. A client can pick a few features to start with, and go from there.
A few other items of note:
– The Need for Speed: Getting the right technology in place, FAST, is key, one that facilitates client needs and the control of the arrangement. You can’t always know what it’s going to be like to get matters formerly handled by 250 + firms into a process now being overseen by one until you do it. Indeed, it seems without Eversheds’ Global Accounts Management System, this type of service model simply can’t work. And it’s not something you can go out and buy off the shelf.
– What Quality Really Is: Legal work is about many things: not just the product itself, but when it is delivered, how useful it is for the client, and of course, the cost. The system that tracks such things also gives the ability to measure. These can then be analyzed, forming the basis for an upgraded agreement, which refines the allocation of risks and rewards.
– Innovation Forces Change: The Tyco services agreement is changing how Eversheds is organized and presents itself to the market. The firm can’t help but re-evaluate how matters are staffed and work is sought, sourced, and serviced.
– Alignment is a Motivator: The Tyco experience has pushed people inside the firm (at all levels) to do something new that tangibly (and measurably) helps a client. Having a challenge that requires teamwork and has the interests of the firm and client aligned is invigorating for Eversheds’ lawyers and staff. It also helps extend and enhance diversity initiatives already under way.
– One Firm of Many: since Eversheds will retain other firms to help on matters in certain countries, it has forced a level of consistency and cost control across the EMEA region that is rare when such matters are traditionally “referred out.” Indeed, not all firms want to (or are able to) work with Eversheds this way. They payoff for some firms that agree to work with Eversheds on Tyco matters is a chance to work for a high-visibility international client that they might not have been able to land before.
– Less Work Can Lead to More Work: things like preventative law and litigation avoidance are clearly new opportunities for legal services that are often seen by many firms as putting sources of future work at risk. When incentives for these are combined with more traditional work, you are getting closer to win-win. From this newer perspective, the traditional billable hour model is more like pay-pay.
Part II comes your way on Thursday.
Tyco and Eversheds, version 2.0
May 19, 2008 | Filed Under Law 2.0, New Services
The best way to sustain a competitive edge is to improve on something that’s already innovative.
Tyco and Eversheds announced today an expansion and upgrade of their multi-jurisdiction legal services agreement. The initial agreement caught the attention of many in January 2007 when Tyco took work done by 250 law firms in many countries and entrusted it to one firm, Eversheds.
I covered the first version here, and did an update earlier this year.
The new deal finds Eversheds adding new work to the mix:
During the next phase, Eversheds will continue handling high-end Tyco work such as the recent multi-jurisdiction Ancon business divestiture and the major restructuring of Tyco businesses in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). Additionally it will bring new performance-based efficiencies to its regular commercial and compliance work.
There are some new wrinkles and Tyco-driven metrics as well:
Of equal significance, the new phase of the engagement provides Eversheds with substantial bonus incentives to meet pre-specified client satisfaction and diversity targets and achieve proactive litigation avoidance - in other words, promoting and encouraging behaviours that are counter-cultural at many traditional law firms.
Many lawyers aim for perfection and certainty, whether due to training or native disposition. What I find intriguing here is that Tyco and Eversheds are clearly learning on the go, working through issues that always arise when you are creating a template instead of copying one.
UK publication thelawyer.com has more.
Stay tuned, later this week I hope to bring forward some additional insights.
Tyco + Eversheds = Sea Change
January 22, 2008 | Filed Under Law Firm Trends, Technology, New Services
An innovation is by definition notable. Revisiting it one year on can be very instructive.
Thelawyer.com has just such a review of Eversheds’ landmark deal last year with Tyco. I covered the initial announcement here, calling it “Convergence Like a Laser Beam.”
You’ll recall the jaw-dropping nature of the deal: Tyco replaced 175-200 law firms with one, Eversheds. Other clients such as Samsung and Azko Nobel have climbed aboard the E-train.
Fiona Smith, the GC of Severn Trent, another new all-in client of Eversheds, goes on the record:
“Eversheds impressed significantly in the selection process as a firm that would invest time and energy in getting to know our business and as a firm that would be committed to helping us all get the very best advice at a reasonable and transparent cost,” says Smith.
Part of Eversheds’ approach is using something most law firms talk about but few use well: technology applied smartly:
So what is the secret weapon that Eversheds uses to get general counsel salivating with its reasonable and transparent costs? According to Eversheds, it is that cornerstone of business - a computer software package.
The program, dubbed the ‘Global Account Management System’, or Gams as it is known affectionately at Eversheds, is the centrepiece of the firm’s tenders.
Gams (not the most gender-neutral moniker, by the way…) allows clients like Tyco to approve work on a case or transaction before work begins. And that is sweet music to any GC or managing counsel who opens a monthly statement and sees a new matter, running into five figures, that is news to them.
Explains Eversheds energy chief Stephen Hopkins:
“No work on any case or transaction for Tyco can start without its approval,” says Hopkins. “If Tyco hasn’t approved it and we just go ahead anyway, we will not get paid.”
Some firms are no doubt looking at 2008 with trepidation. A few may think that the answer is raising rates or pushing fee-earner utilization (i.e., hours billed) higher.
What Tyco-Eversheds shows is that such firms are not facing squarely what is going on in the global corporate legal services market.
Wake up and take a deep breath…
HireTrade Goes After Avvo?
August 30, 2007 | Filed Under New Services
Lawyer rating site Avvo made a big splash earlier this year. As legal news and as a defendant.
Now lawyer connection site HireTrade steps into the fray. As reported by John Cook of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, HireTrade CEO Neil Sandhu has a few thoughts about numbers:
We think that existing professional ratings systems, including most numerical ratings systems, result in arbitrary values as it is impossible for a numerical algorithm to really capture every single nuance of a professional’s background or decide what is the correct weight to place on different items of information such as experience, education, etc. (not to mention the fact that it appears that some of these systems merely assign higher scores to those professionals who take the time to fill out their profiles in more detail). Thus, meaningful comparisons are difficult to draw from the numerical values that result.
Furthermore, there is very little actual intrinsic value in any number generated by such a system.
Ouch!
Avvo has a bit of a head start as HireTrade builds up some momentum. The former has built up quite a number of rankings; the latter will work to expand on its hourly value concept as it goes forward.
The big part of the market for both seems to be for clients who haven’t had much experience with lawyers. Those who have could use these services for confirming information, but often rely on a personal referral in the first instance.
Avvo Thyself
June 5, 2007 | Filed Under Law 2.0, Technology, New Services
After a 16 months in stealth mode, venture-backed (to the tune of $14 million!) Avvo pulls off the veil. For a long time the home page didn’t say much, beyond this teaser:
However, we can say that we are dedicated to helping consumers better navigate the highly confusing legal industry, and we are building something that no one else has built before.
Drum roll…
It’s a lawyer ratings site. On steroids.
CNET has the details, with a lot of prominent lawyers given some not-so-great ratings. The local Seattle paper has more, including an explanation from CEO Mark Britton. He notes that Avvo goes beyond Martindale-Hubbell, FindLaw and AttorneyPages:
… Britton says there is “no established brand” that attacks the problem on behalf of the consumer. And the 40-year-old former attorney at Preston, Gates & Ellis notes that Avvo is different because it uses a mathematical model — pulling information from attorneys’ Web sites, state bar associations and other public databases — to determine which attorney is the best in his or her practice area.
I want to think about this, and noodle around the site a bit. It’s a beta (Whatever that means anymore).
There will certainly be additional content as Avvo builds out the site. Probably a link to local search, and allowing lawyers to add content. The Avvo blog hints at this. Part of the pitch to the VCs had to be “Zillow for lawyers.”
At first blush, you wonder if legal ratings might be better targeted at the corporate market rather than consumers. Some are working on this now. (And I’ll give a hint that it relies more on real people than math).
Joe Sixpack typically interacts with lawyers in divorce, personal injury, and the occasional will or trust. Do these areas need complex algorithms? Sometimes this works in my area.
People do need help navigating the maze that is the law and in finding lawyers when they need them. They also need help paying for them, which has led to the expansion of pre-paid legal plans.
We learned in the last few years to Google ourselves to see what’s out there on the Interweb. When I Avvo’d myself this morning I was told that it hasn’t yet crawled its way to the Midwest.
Thank goodness.
Good luck to Avvo. I’d like to see more VC money in the legal space.
Update: (Also good thoughts on Avvo from Kevin O’Keefe and Carolyn Elefant).
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