In-house authorized groups spend tens, generally tons of, of thousands and thousands yearly on exterior counsel. And but, far too usually, the choice course of continues to be pushed by intestine intuition, legacy relationships, or a colleague’s fast suggestion. Within the newest episode of “Notes to My (Authorized) Self,” I sat down with Basha Rubin, CEO and co-founder of Priori, to discover what occurs when authorized departments substitute intuition with knowledge and the way marketplaces are redefining exterior counsel administration for contemporary groups.
Look At Your Spend. Then Ask Higher Questions.
“The common Fortune 500 firm spends between $100 to $150 million a 12 months on exterior counsel,” Rubin instructed me. “However a lot of that’s nonetheless being allotted with out a structured framework for danger or complexity.” If that sounds acquainted, it’s as a result of many authorized departments nonetheless lack the muscle reminiscence or the mandate to problem their very own assumptions about who they work with and why.
Rubin’s group usually runs a easy however revealing train with new purchasers: they ask authorized departments to map their exterior counsel engagements on a primary risk-complexity matrix. “We actually create a 3×3: excessive, medium, and low danger versus excessive, medium, and low complexity,” she defined. Then they categorize all authorized tasks from the previous 12 months, flag who dealt with them, and examine that in opposition to spend.
The outcomes nearly all the time inform a narrative. A big portion of labor that finally ends up at Biglaw may, and arguably ought to, be dealt with by extra focused suppliers. “That doesn’t imply high-risk work ought to depart,” Rubin clarified. “Large companies are finest at that. However there’s an amazing quantity of medium-risk, medium-complexity work that may be achieved quicker and extra cost-effectively by others.”
Intestine Emotions Are Not Defensible Choices
Think about a litigation matter lands in your desk. It’s medium-risk, in a well-recognized jurisdiction, with a restricted price range. Your subsequent transfer needs to be grounded in knowledge: who has dealt with this subject earlier than? What had been the outcomes? Who carried out finest on metrics that matter: velocity, readability, predictability, consumer satisfaction?
As an alternative, many in-house groups default to the acquainted. “It’s usually based mostly on who you went to legislation faculty with,” Rubin famous. Or possibly somebody sends an electronic mail across the division asking for referrals. Within the absence of a structured system, it’s no shock that authorized groups lean on instinct. However that’s not a method. And in at the moment’s atmosphere, it’s not defensible.
“Authorized is now not immune from a procurement-style mindset,” Rubin mentioned. She’s not flawed. Whether or not or not you want that development, it’s right here. Boards anticipate defensible spend. CFOs need transparency. CEOs need business-aligned authorized departments. That begins with displaying your exterior counsel choices aren’t simply affordable; they’re repeatable.
Design for Repeatability, Not Simply Repute
Rubin and her group at Priori are pushing the business towards repeatable, data-driven exterior counsel choice. They pull from each private and non-private sources to create a searchable database of lawyer expertise throughout companies and jurisdictions. That features litigation historical past, experience tags, range initiatives, and inner critiques from previous engagements. “You may search throughout hundreds of attorneys to establish the 12 who’re finest suited to that individual matter,” she defined.
Which will sound like a luxurious reserved for large authorized departments, however Rubin argues it’s changing into a necessity. “In-house groups are beneath huge stress to do extra with much less,” she mentioned. “Vendor choice is without doubt one of the highest-leverage factors within the division. For those who do it effectively, all the pieces downstream will get higher.”
The very best groups aren’t simply accumulating knowledge. They’re constructing techniques. They’ve frameworks for when to run RFPs. They create scorecards for reviewing distributors after every engagement. They loop in authorized ops early. They tie spend to efficiency, not simply outcomes. And maybe most significantly, they deal with exterior counsel like a part of the enterprise, not a one-time transaction.
Don’t Simply Save Cash. Achieve Leverage.
The authorized division is commonly seen as a value heart. However that notion modifications shortly whenever you present how strategic vendor choice can create value predictability, enhance turnaround time, and ship larger satisfaction to inner purchasers.
This isn’t about reducing corners. It’s about making higher, extra deliberate selections. “Versatile resourcing is now not only a stopgap,” Rubin emphasised. “Increasingly more groups are utilizing it as a long-term technique.” The neatest in-house leaders are constructing core groups that keep near the enterprise and complementing them with exterior sources that flex based mostly on workload, jurisdiction, or subject-matter experience.
If that sounds acquainted, it ought to. That’s how product groups scale. That’s how procurement works. That’s how operations features throughout the enterprise. Authorized doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel. It simply has to discover ways to drive it.
What To Do Subsequent
For those who’re an in-house chief, take a tough have a look at how your group chooses exterior counsel. Begin monitoring the information. Construct a risk-complexity matrix on your previous 12 months of issues. Assessment the place you spent probably the most, and what you really received for it. Then construct the following cycle with intentionality.
Legacy relationships aren’t a motive to keep away from change. They’re a possibility to do higher.
As Rubin put it, “We’re constructing the infrastructure for defensible authorized choices. The query is: will authorized departments use it?”
Now could be the time to cease outsourcing by intuition. Use the information. Design the system. And make vendor choice the strategic benefit it was all the time meant to be.
Olga V. Mack is the CEO of TermScout, an AI-powered contract certification platform that accelerates income and eliminates friction by certifying contracts as honest, balanced, and market-ready. A serial CEO and authorized tech govt, she beforehand led an organization by way of a profitable acquisition by LexisNexis. Olga can be a Fellow at CodeX, The Stanford Center for Legal Informatics, and the Generative AI Editor at legislation.MIT. She is a visionary govt reshaping how we legislation—how authorized techniques are constructed, skilled, and trusted. Olga teaches at Berkeley Law, lectures broadly, and advises corporations of all sizes, in addition to boards and establishments. An award-winning normal counsel turned builder, she additionally leads early-stage ventures together with Virtual Gabby (Better Parenting Plan), Product Law Hub, ESI Flow, and Notes to My (Legal) Self, every rethinking the apply and enterprise of legislation by way of expertise, knowledge, and human-centered design. She has authored The Rise of Product Lawyers, Legal Operations in the Age of AI and Data, Blockchain Value, and Get on Board, with Visible IQ for Legal professionals (ABA) forthcoming. Olga is a 6x TEDx speaker and has been acknowledged as a Silicon Valley Girl of Affect and an ABA Girl in Authorized Tech. Her work reimagines folks’s relationship with legislation—making it extra accessible, inclusive, data-driven, and aligned with how the world really works. She can be the host of the Notes to My (Authorized) Self podcast (streaming on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube), and her insights commonly seem in Forbes, Bloomberg Legislation, Newsweek, VentureBeat, ACC Docket, and Above the Legislation. She earned her B.A. and J.D. from UC Berkeley. Observe her on LinkedIn and X @olgavmack.
