LeftFoot - Fresh Conversations on the Business of Law

Nicole Giantonio

A podcast for corporate lawyers and in-house counsel on the business of law.

  1. 04/09/2019

    122: Innovators Behaviors with Michele DeStefano

    This month the LeftFoot Podcast features Michele DeStefano; her recent book Legal Upheaval provides the backdrop for a conversation focused on innovation in today’s legal environment. Through her work and research for her book, Michele confirmed that clients are looking for a new type of collaborative service disguised in their request for innovation. Along with lawyers that know their practice area, can guide and have a point of view; using business language to convey it; clients want lawyers that express the behaviors of innovators – asking different questions, listening and applying a different approach to problem finding and problem resolution. Let’s look at an example.  A bank was struggling to show they had complied with a consumer-facing compliance request.  In this circumstance, an advisor would typically help the bank show and communicate that they’re in compliance.  The alternative response included talking with and hearing from consumers.  This bank didn’t have a compliance problem, they had a communication issue, once contacted the consumers noted that they didn’t understand the process employed. The result was education for consumers – and proof of compliance for the bank. Recognizing the disconnect between what customers ask for and what lawyers deliver; this is an example of the culture change occurring within in-house legal and firms. They’re working jointly, investing in partnerships, and sharing risks to advance the industry. Michele DeStefano is a lawyer, professor at the University of Miami, and guest faculty at Harvard Law School’s Executive Education program.  In her book Legal Upheaval, she provides evidence that collaborative innovation is the new value equation in law.

    28 min

  2. 03/05/2019

    Episode 121:  Beyond the Big Bang with Jeff Pfeifer of LexisNexis

    Capitalizing on Incremental Improvements   On Episode 121 we talk with LexisNexis, VP and Chief Product Officer, Jeff Pfeifer.  Jeff is responsible for product strategy having established his organization as a leader in legal analytics and data-driven law. Jeff begins our discussion by noting that access to big data and incremental tech development is resolving legacy problems within the legal industry.  That in-house counsel is increasingly forward-thinking, using data to inform their responses, and looking to firms to use data in their recommendations.  This data is validating a path forward and supporting what is likely to happen. An additional challenge brought on by the proliferation of data is the need for a different skill set to access the data and make data-based recommendations.  Helping organizations be change ready is where the opportunity lies. There’s a real need to build in-house teams in support of these initiatives including identifying team members who are not intimidated by tech and the advantages it brings. There was agreement that both firms and in-house departments are in the early days of this new data, process and technology driven model.  Examples exist where workflows are undergoing reconstruction, and engagement of outside counsel is being radically modified.   An opportunity exists to break down and understand processes so that we can rebuild and better align with today’s environment. This is less big bang and more incremental process improvement. It’s about 100s or 1000s of small improvements applied over time.   The time has come to stretch out in innovation labs, to take a serious look at iterative thinking, and failing faster within legal.

    29 min

  3. 01/22/2019

    120: Diversity Lab's OnRamp Fellowship and Mansfield Rule 2.0

    Diversity Embraced It’s 2019 and the Diversity Lab remains front and center in the conversation on Law Firm and In-house Legal department diversity.  Late last summer we sat down with On-Ramp Fellowship Managing Director, Jennifer Winslow and the Mansfield Rule initiative leader, Director, Lisa Kirby.  The Mansfield rule supports the diversification of law firm leadership, and the OnRamp Fellowship is the largest re-entry platform for female lawyers and other professionals. An outcome of Diversity Lab’s 2016, Women in Law Hackathon, the Mansfield Rule has been moving the needle increasing awareness around diverse candidates for leadership and the transparency on who should be considered for leadership.  For Mansfield Rule 2.0 the program has expanded to include LGBTQ+ leadership candidates as well as measurement of inclusion and engagement in formal pitches.  The program which initially launched in 2017 with 44 firms, today has 65 firms participating in Mansfield 2.0.    Today, clients are looking for and confirming that they are benefiting from the value of diverse teams/diversity of thought. The OnRamp Fellowship program started in 2014to alleviate concerns specific to work breaks and provide access to experienced lawyers looking for opportunities.   Ever since the OnRamp programming has been replenishing leadership pipelines with experienced lawyers alleviating concerns specific to work breaks; while providing access to experienced lawyers looking for opportunities.  Those applying for the program are typically unemployed or underemployed doing part-time or contract work.  Most are empty nesters with their eyes wide open.   Challenges include technology – whether you’ve been out 2 years or 20 the technology has changed.   The positives include resilience and problem-solving skills that only come through experience. Looking back measurement and accountability was a missing element in many diversity programs.  By bringing challenges front and center the Diversity Lab has prevented programs from fading or ‘fizzling out’.  Today, information sharing; data; and accountability remain a significant part of the Diversity Lab’s success.

    32 min

  4. 12/11/2018

    119: Creating Conditions for Change

    Enabling Collaboration Through Tools On episode 119 we talk with Mo Zain Ajaz, the 2018 Legal 500 Individual of the Year for Legal Operations.    Mo is accountable for operational excellence across National Grid’s Global Legal Function. Having understood what is important to its business (including a 25% efficiency goal), the legal operations team at National Grid helped build a 3-year strategic program. They started by gaining visibility to their external spends. The introduction of an e-billing system and a new panel of outside counsel provided an opportunity for improved scoping of work, matter budgeting and stronger alignment with firms.  To manage risk and drive efficiency, National Grid prioritizes and right sources legal work; matter profile and risk thresholds underpin decisions specifically what should be done in-house and what should be outsourced with the goal being to drive value and reduce cost without increasing risk. With the addition of data and standards for outside engagement, the next step involved enabling change using lean and design thinking models including legal project management data-driven decisions, visual management; real time information. Through these models including the Hines Model for change National Grid ensured that their strategic road map remained on track.  The Hines model highlights the key conditions required for effective change and more importantly the consequences when a key condition is missing. This and other lean models can be used to take an audience from current state to future state.  A lean tool that National Grid uses for stakeholder engagement is 3C.   Using 3C stakeholders are asked: What are your concerns with the current way of doing things? What is the cause of these concerns? What would be the counter-measure to this concern? The project sponsor using 3C model puts counter-measures in place to address the concerns and create greater solution ownership from stakeholders.   Creating the conditions for change and collaboration with law firms is the role of in-house teams.   National Grid holds quarterly Operational Excellence Workshops with their firms to address relationship or process concerns through collaborative design thinking workshops.  The internal team and a panel of outside counsel work to resolve issues by problems solving, sharing best practice and building a plan of deliverables for the next quarter. Topics addressed at these workshops include a technology audit of the law firms National Grid uses to optimize the use of technology on National Grid matters and decision trees to right source work.  The next frontier for National Grid is obligations tracking within a contract lifecycle.  Data suggestions a 10% savings on procurement spend when post-negotiation obligations are well managed.  Working with a broad team of stakeholders in the industry they are looking to partner and take on this challenge.  That’s what legal operations and executing change is about solving big hairy problems with your partners in the ecosystem. Mo Zain Ajaz is the Global Head of Legal Operational Excellence at National Grid.  He has responsibility for legal function strategy, operations, embedding performance excellence, technology, as well as panel firm appointment and delivery. Mo is also engaged in a not for profit program called LExOpenSource.com, which is a platform where a number of other...

    26 min

  5. 11/27/2018

    118: Necessity is Bringing Change to In-house Legal, with Walmart’s Alan Bryan

    Move Beyond Being Risk-Averse As part of our Executing Change series, focusing on in-house legal award winners and the changes they’ve implemented within their departments, we welcome back Alan Bryan, Wal-Mart’s Senior Associate General Counsel.  Alan was also a guest on LeftFoot Episode 68. Walmart had an opportunity to change; to centralize, to change firm engagement, and increase legal dollar spend value through leverage – and it worked.  Walmart saw immediate value through the implementation of uniform engagement letters with uniform terms and rates; eliminating tens of thousands of agreements including agreements with different terms and rates with the same firm. Uniform engagement letters set the stage for what was next.  In a legal department where the majority of matters are litigation; Walmart turned to data; matter-by-matter RFPs and reverse auctions to create fixed fee and phased fee proposals.  Dashboards and access to data remain critical parts of the program today, a process that began with data cleanup and the assembly of an analytics team to manage the data and data access. From the outset, the Walmart Legal operations team had buy-in from the top and executed a detailed communication program with intended outcomes of the changes they were implementing.  Communicating the plan for change and ultimately the impact the programs were having they were surprised by the acceptance and willingness of their outside partners to assist. Becoming more predictive with data, including data from their stores is part of Walmart’s future; specifically the use of artificial intelligence in e-discovery and reporting at the outset of a matter; to save time and money. We concluded our Executing Change discussion with Alan’s advice to legal professionals on change; move beyond being risk-averse; change your mindset specific to change; be creative, innovative; think strategically, holistically.  Today’s legal world is changing, and change is a necessity. Alan Bryan, Wal-Mart’s Sr. Associate General Counsel, transitioned from law firm partnership to in-house counsel managing litigation for the world’s largest retailer.  Today, his office oversees his company’s relationships with all outside counsel measuring performance and cost with a focus on data and the use of time-saving technology.  The recipient of an ACC Legal Operations Professional of the Year Award; a 2018 Buying Legal Council Award winner for Process Improvement in corporate procurement; Alan recently accepted one of the 2018 ACC Value Champion Awards for Legal Operations on behalf of his team.

    30 min

  6. 11/06/2018

    117: Replacing the Abstract with Data

    We chat with Matt Galvin of Anheuser-Busch   Over the last three years, Matt Galvin has executed change and embraced the use of data in decision making as the Global Vice President for Ethics and Compliance at Anheuser-Busch InBev.  Following a significant global acquisition, Matt talks with us about both the volume of compliance matters and the risk factors associated with the newly combined organization. To fulfill their compliance mission, Matt and his team created a living-breathing model to access risk quickly and educate the business about future risk.  Focusing on the data associated with potential compliance risk and the risk of the relationships present as the most efficient way to deal with the hundreds of millions of transactions of the combined organization. Their initiative started with a pilot where they looked at data in terms of sets and systems and determined where the data sets were that represented the most risk.  They would then focus in and filter up and down in search of other risk factors.   Pleased with this approach they quickly determined that training someone to do this could take months and would require an audit layer and additional oversight.  To address this concern they took the project a step further creating 12 workflows and visuals to attach the model to different systems and situations. Now armed with data and responding with full transparency to the business, a project that started as a compliance project is now a transparency project.   By risk scoring– every transaction, every vendor, every investigation – the business is taking notice where compliance risk is being identified.  Access to this information has also allowed for faster decision making.  Risk profiles are used to investigate related issues more thoroughly. In evaluating compliance matters, lawyers typically look at the same facts over and over in the abstract.  By accessing multiple data sets, pulling the data from different data sources to build a compliance model, AB-InBev is relying on the truth of the data present.  Creating a compliance model based on real data versus the abstract the data sets and systems will get smarter as will our teams. Matt Galvin, Global Vice President for Ethics and Compliance at Anheuser-Busch InBev, is skilled in Corporate Social Responsibility, Economic Sanctions, Anti-corruption, Dispute Resolution, and Big Data Analytics.

    19 min

  7. 10/09/2018

    116: The Iceberg Effect with Cameron Findlay of Archer Daniels Midland

    Creating an In-house Legal Department of Value Cameron Findlay is the SVP General Counsel and Secretary at Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), the largest food processor in the world.  The legal department Cam leads has been recognized as one of ‘Corporate Counsel’s 2018 Best’ for executing change; notably firm convergence, upgraded matter management and insourcing. Wanting the legal department to be a value center for ADM, Cam and his team set out to preserve and affect value where they could.   At the outset current spend and therefore savings goals weren’t clear, but ADM knew they needed to spend less and put better controls in place. Their efforts were less about innovation and more about executing change, applying ideas that had been used elsewhere. When they looked at spend, a key factor was a total spend of which 85% was being spent on outside firms, and 15% was being spent on in-house work.  The iceberg effect was in full force, ADM’s time and effort were being spent managing the 15% above the surface with little time and effort focused on the 85%, below the surface.    By seeing and focusing on the 85% they were able to implement change and achieve real savings. Educating and changing the mindset that a small in-house staff does not equate to lower legal spend; Cam and his team educated their colleagues on a more effective process, showing business leaders that a larger in-house team would create savings.  While the naming of panel firms is a suggestion, not a limitation, and that 100% compliance to matter management is a challenge a hurdle that pays off.  Technology is a great enabler to practicing higher value law, focusing on matters that matter and having the data to better manage matters and matter cost.  We can’t underestimate the impact of technology on the legal profession. Outside counsel guidelines, agreeing to a specific rate structure, and concentrating work with a smaller group of firms in exchange for a value agreement is a culture change.  Budget certainty for in-house teams and volume-based incentives for firms requires communication and culture; as a profession, the legal industry needs to do a better job up front as to what ‘work’ will cost.  Firms add value when they proactively present cost saving and fee arrangement ideas, getting in front of alternatives; that proactive management matters. Cam commented on the rise of activism putting pressure on companies to change the agreements they have with law firms; that every organization will have to do more with less. Today there is an opportunity to disaggregate the legal process to a variety of resources – contract lawyers, non-lawyer professionals, and that opportunity exists to utilize alternative providers. Cam and others are asking firms to understand the spirit in which they are entering into agreements and to come up with innovative ways to provide great legal service at a lower cost. Cameron Findlay has been the General Counsel for three important organizations after a career in private practice and government – which included time as a law clerk for Justice Scalia.  Cameron Findlay Bio

    21 min

  8. 09/11/2018

    115: Authenticity with Cara Hale Alter of Speechskills

    Adjectives that Describe You, Like You Describe You Today’s guest a deep understanding of nonverbal communication and the perception of leadership presence. She’s worked extensively with lawyers and legal professionals, as they look to project the image of how they’d like to be perceived while remaining authentic. Today’s guest Cara Hale Alter has a deep understanding of nonverbal communication and the perception of leadership presence. She’s worked extensively with lawyers and legal professionals, as they look to project the image of how they’d like to be perceived while remaining authentic. Behaviors can lead to very predictable responses from others and lead others to your preferred assessment.   For lawyers and legal professionals, the behaviors that convey strength and leadership include strong posture, a strong voice with optimal volume, and eye contact.  Similar to other professionals, lawyers are often plagued with verbal fillers ‘umm, yes, and like’, and upward inflection ‘valley girl style’ at the end of a sentence. While fillers can be easily replaced with pausing, coming to a complete stop at the end of a sentence; most people are uncomfortable with it.  Adults who came of age before or during the 80s, cascade down at the end of their sentences.   Others can credit “valley girls” with the lightweight style of upward inflection at the end of a sentence.  Removing upward inflection will go a long way in improving presence and credibility. Do you keep your head still while your talking?  This alone is a very high-status behavior.  How about volume calibration issues?  If you get feedback that you need to speak up, doing so will increase your influence.   You can improve your physical presence by pointing your nose at the person your speaking with, and for video and video conferencing have your chin on the level with the camera not raised or down, and strong lighting will put your image in the best light. Cara Hale Alter is the founder and president of SpeechSkills.  She is a sought after trainer and speaker working with a wide range of organizations including Facebook, Google, Caterpillar and numerous AM100 law firms including DLA Piper, Morgan Lewis, and White and Case.  She was a main session speaker at the 2018 CLOC Symposium.

    29 min
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A podcast for corporate lawyers and in-house counsel on the business of law.

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