Advisory Services for In-House Counsel, Legal Procurement & Legal Operations
Tim Corcoran has been navigating the intersection of law departments and law firms for over 30 years. In his years climbing the corporate ladder, he led sales, marketing, product development, and strategic planning for legal technology companies, delivering several “first to market” offerings to help law firms and law departments communicate and collaborate more effectively. As a fast-moving business person, he encountered multiple instances where closing a sale, or striking a new supplier relationship, or launching a product in a timely manner was thwarted, or at least slowed, by a “Department of No” that seemed intent on eliminating all business risk, despite knowing little about the business.
When he eventually served as CEO or general manager of several multinational businesses, including a publicly-traded legal technology company, Tim was an important “internal client” of his corporate law departments and panels of outside counsel. Seeing the business from this vantage point helped him better understand how many well-intentioned opportunities posed unacceptable business risks, either due to their inherent risk or the aggregate risk of multiple low-risk ideas pursued simultaneously. It’s true that not every sale that’s good for a salesperson is good for the business… but it’s also true that a business uncomfortable with taking any risk will not be in business very long. This is where he developed the idea of business velocity — the speed at which the business is prepared to move to achieve a competitive advantage, and the level and types of risk the business is willing to take to maintain this position.
During these roles, Tim also had responsibility or significant influence over the organization’s legal budget. The first time his year-end bonus was cut — because of a large internal cross-charge, for legal services rendered more than 6 months prior, that was recently invoiced because it suddenly was very important to outside counsel to collect fees before year-end, and that reflected a significant increase over the budgeted amount, with no warning whatsoever from in-house counsel in three quarterly financial reviews — was not a happy day for everyone involved. This happened nearly contemporaneously with the 2008 global economic crisis, and catalyzed Tim’s commitment to reshape the in-house law department from an internal law firm operating as an island within the business, not subject to budgetary constraints or supplier oversight, run by well-intentioned lawyers who knew little about the business but evidently knew everything about avoiding risk, into a business unit that was accretive to the business, that maintained financial rigor, that managed its supply chain based on quality metrics rather than brand strength, that required inside and outside counsel to learn the business from within the business, and that operated at the speed of business.
It’s with this perspective that Tim launched his consulting practice, advising both law departments and law firms on how to reengineer to improve business velocity — generating more profitable results for the business and for outside counsel.
Selected Writings (additional links here and here)
Why CEOs Love Procurement — a chapter in the first edition of Buying Legal: Procurement Insights and Practice, published by Dr. Silvia Hodges, founder of Buying Legal Council, the association for legal procurement professionals, and republished multiple times since as a chapter in The Legal Procurement Handbook
The Changing Definition of Value — cover article of the ABA Law Practice magazine describing what matters most to in-house counsel
Partner Compensation & Its Impact on Pricing — a chapter in the book Mastering Legal Pricing published by Global Law & Business, emphasizing the need for law firm leaders to fully grasp how poorly-aligned partner incentives complicate pricing in a client-friendly manner. In-house counsel should also learn how to distinguish between partners specifically paid to work against the client’s interests and partners paid to serve the client’s needs.
Legal Budgets & Corporate Budgets — Why Predictability Matters
Advisory Services
Law Department Retreat Presentation: What is Business Velocity and How Do We Achieve It? A look under the covers of what business executives want from their legal advisors
Law Department Retreat Presentation: How are Law Firms Adapting to the Changing Needs of In-House Counsel… or Not?
Law Department Preferred Panel Retreat Presentation & Workshop: Continuous Improvement in Collaboration Between In-House and Outside Counsel. Presentation and hands-on workshop held at annual or bi-annual preferred panel retreats. Optional: We will assist in planning the event and serving as emcee for the event
Business Velocity Assessment: Multi-faceted inquiry into the prevailing legal needs of the business and how well these needs are known, operationalized, managed, and funded. Output is a “Business Velocity Scorecard” to be used as the basis for periodic evaluation on the value delivered to the business by the Law Department and Outside Counsel
