For many law firms, and perhaps yours, the legal research subscription is a necessary resource. High quality, comprehensive legal research information is a critical asset for an effective legal staff. On the other hand, these services are a significant line item cost, often absorbed as overhead by the firm.
Keeping a close eye on your legal research expenses is a key priority for your law firm. As consultants working with numerous law firms and their legal research providers on a daily basis, our team is intimately familiar with the service challenges our clients face. Here are five of the most common challenges our clients encounter with their legal research service provider.
1. Subscription Renewal
There’s no getting around it. The subscription renewal process can be onerous for the unprepared. Many law firms choose not to negotiate renewal terms, but the consequence can be costly, impacting prices you pay, the services you receive and the quality of delivery. Why concede a significant line item cost to your firm by cutting corners?
Tackling the Challenge:
Preparation is your key in renewing the services you need at a fair price. Allow 12-15 months prior to your renewal deadline to prepare. Why such a long period for preparation? The better prepared you are, the stronger your negotiation position when discussing renewal.
A free resource that can help you with the necessary preparation is 21 Questions You Must Answer Before Renewing Your Next Legal Research Service Contract. This guide will help you prepare for renewal negotiation so you get the resources your firm needs at the right price. It contains questions to ask yourself, your sales representative, and the attorneys and staff at your firm. The answers will have a tremendous impact on the results you obtain.
2. Subscription Renewal Pricing
Are you overpaying for the services you receive? Our experience shows that law firms may be overpaying by as much as 50% for their legal research subscription. Buyers of legal research services often don’t realize they are paying a different amount than others for similar services. The amount you pay depends on your success in negotiating to achieve a target subscription price.
Tackling the Challenge:
To identify a fair price for your circumstances, you’ll need to know the answer to two key questions. First, what legal content does your firm need and use? A frequent issue is firms paying for content that they don’t need or use. Perhaps your practice doesn’t typically handle certain types of case work. Or perhaps unneeded content was bundled into your package by your provider. Second, consult with a legal services expert familiar with current market pricing. Request a complimentary, no-commitment assessment to determine up front if they believe your rates are spot on or too high. You then decide how best to leverage this information when you negotiate your firm’s subscription renewal.
3. Licensing & Contract Changes
Did you know that the terms of your current subscription license may have recently changed? Is your firm tracking the changes? It’s amazing that these changes get through, but your existing contract is often linked to add-on terms and conditions. These changes can impact the fees you pay or critical terms and conditions. A recent example is where one provider changed the cancelation clause for automatic renewal from 30-days to 60-days. Customers were notified, but it is hard to keep up with these changing T’s & C’s when it’s not a priority for your firm.
Tackling the Challenge:
Tracking licensing and contract changes is frequently outside a legal firm’s core competency. For little or no cost to your firm, engage an outside expert who has the licensing information ‘top of mind’, knows the vendor’s business and understands the latest contract amendments. It’s much easier to pick up the phone or send a quick email to your advocate to find out what is changing and how those changes impact your practice. Let your staff focus on your core business while leveraging the proficiency of a single point of contact to manage your research service.
4. Customer Support & Training
Legal research providers are downsizing and customer support is taking a big hit. We continually see and hear anecdotal evidence of cutbacks in customer service, impacting your billing, service delivery, training, and product support. As an example of this shift, Westlaw announced significant cutbacks to retool their business. For more on this, read Navigating Westlaw’s Business Retooling: What Do the Changes Mean for Your Firm?
Tackling the Challenge:
If you haven’t done so already, consider having one individual in your firm as a central point of contact for all legal research vendor topics. Navigating a vendor’s ever-changing organizational chart can be at best cumbersome and at worst, frustrating. By using a central point of contact, the experience gained can be an important resource in the future. Again, a part-time external consultant who specializes in this area can be a huge timesaver. One quick phone call to your consultant is often all that’s needed get your staff in contact with the right vendor resource.
5. Content Scope and Utilization
Are you paying for what you don’t need and not getting what you do need? Do you know if you’re going outside your plan and by how much? Or you may have changed your practice areas, added/subtracted attorneys and have not updated the scope of your service contract to reflect those changes.
Tackling the Challenge:
Start by looking at your recent usage reports to determine if and where you’re going out of plan. While your vendor representative can provide these reports, we often recommend customized reports that give you a clearer picture as to how and what legal content your firm actually uses. Armed with this information, you’re in a much better position to understand your firm’s actual legal content needs.
Managing your online legal research subscription can be a significant challenge and business distraction. As your subscription is an important resource for your firm and attorneys, there’s no question that successfully handling this asset is an important part of your business operation.
For little or no cost to your firm, consider engaging an outside expert who knows legal research firms inside and out. Let your staff focus on your core business while leveraging the proficiency of a single point of contact to manage your research vendor.
Your outside expert will help you identify the packages/services your firm uses and those that are ignored. They will know how to quickly identify and engage vendor resources that you need for sales, training, support, billing, and more. They will alert you when critical contract changes occur, such as changing the cancelation clause for automatic renewal from 30-days to 60-days. And most importantly, they will position you to renew your next subscription at a fair price, often lowering your overall costs.
At Legal Counsel Consulting, we specialize in helping law firms navigate the complexity and confusion of legal research. Visit our contact page to request and schedule a short complimentary consultation.