WHY WE SUCCEED

Resource Allocation and Capacity Management

MWAccel helped the legal department of a large manufacturing company with realignment of an internal team. MWAccel diagnosed sources of capacity issues within a leanly staffed commercial in-house legal team, recommended solutions for right-sourcing the work then helped build a project plan to execute recommendations.

To accomplish this, MWAccel assessed many facets of the department to inventory resources, workloads, skill gaps and duplicative work. MWAccel and the client created a detailed risk-impact landscape of the corporate legal work to align with the strategy and goals of the wider enterprise. This approach provided a comprehensive view and analytical reasoning to assist in redeploying and restructuring resources for maximum efficiency and impact.

By working with each member of the legal team and fostering an environment of collaboration and trust, MWAccel helped the client redesign the team to manage a larger workload efficiently and effectively without adding resources, and revamped processes to shed lower-value work, allowing the legal team to focus on higher-value work for attorneys, paraprofessionals and others.

Following this engagement, other areas within the legal department requested a similar process so they could be more proactive and strategic and add value to the broader enterprise.

Legal Department Integration Following Merger/Organizational Structure Analysis/Realignment

MWAccel consulted with multiple clients challenged with integrating legal departments following a merger. The MWAccel team worked with leaders of the legal departments to assess staffing roles from both legacy departments and existing skill sets, to propose organizational structures that aligned with the needs and goals of the combined companies.

By focusing on the skills, roles and responsibilities necessary to operate the combined departments efficiently and effectively, as opposed to analyzing the contributions of individuals, the exercise resulted in redesigned reporting structures, revised job descriptions and new positions organized to support the strategy of the new, combined entities.

Strategic Alignment of Legal Operations, Legal Department and Wider Enterprise

MWAccel worked with the legal operations group of a large financial institution to align its strategy with that of the entire legal department and help the legal ops team support what was most important to the legal department. The MWAccel team and legal ops leaders examined the legal department’s strategy and identified ways to shift from an ops-focused approach to one that integrates into the legal department’s broader business strategy.

By understanding the company’s overall objectives and the legal department’s strategy, the legal operations group pinpointed key areas on which to focus its efforts and add value to the business decision-making process.

Outside Counsel Consolidation Advice

MWAccel assisted a client with the outside counsel consolidation process. The client had operations in more than 20 states and used about 100 law firms for representation in myriad practice areas.

MWAccel designed a review process that looked at numerous factors, including geography, practice area coverage, law firm expertise and legal department needs. The process helped the legal operations group assess opportunities to consolidate spend into fewer firms.

By utilizing fewer firms, the legal department streamlined its vendor/risk management efforts. In addition, the legal department took advantage of better pricing opportunities and volume discounts, which are diluted when spend is spread among too many vendors. To facilitate the review, MWAccel developed templates for assessment of law firm coverage and legal spend dashboards.

Legal Department Strategy Formation

MWAccel helped the new general counsel of a fast-growing renewable energy company establish a department strategy. The GC was challenged with increasing demands in support of the growing business, a leanly staffed legal department and a lack of defined direction.

The MWAccel team facilitated a department off-site meeting with legal and key C-suite leaders. The off-site meeting included sessions on identifying key legal risks facing the company; creating a legal risk management framework; outlining the department’s processes for contract review; keeping up with regulatory developments; educating the lines of business on such developments; and managing a fully remote and geographically diverse team.

By involving key company leaders outside of the legal department, the GC created a strategy that supported the goals of the broader company.

Tech Stack Consulting/New Product Implementation

MWAccel helped legal departments conduct audits of existing legal technology to identify tech gaps or overlapping/duplicative systems. In some instances, such audits focused on a single system, such as document management, e-discovery tools, contract life-cycle management software, project management tools, legal spend and outside counsel management, e-billing and other digital resources. In other instances, the audit was more comprehensive and assessed technology inefficiencies, outdated systems, underutilized tools and areas lacking necessary tech coverage.

The audit process helped legal departments understand their technology gaps and consider a multiyear approach for technological enhancements. Often, audits uncovered opportunities for legal departments to leverage enterprisewide systems and avoid legal-specific tools that increase spend. In addition, MWAccel advised clients implementing new systems by looking at best practices, data hygiene and workflow automation.

Maturity Model Self-Assessments

MWAccel guided clients through a maturity assessment of their legal departments to understand the state of operational effectiveness and opportunities to improve. MWAccel often refers to the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium’s 12 Core Competencies Reference Model, which outlines key areas CLOC identifies as defining the robust and mature operation of a legal department.

Rather than focusing on all 12 core competencies simultaneously, MWAccel worked with clients to identify competencies most critical to legal department strategy. By focusing on a few areas, MWAccel and the client dug deep into the assessment and crafted recommendations for increasing maturity in those areas.

Process Improvement/Automation Consulting

MWAccel worked with clients to critically assess and identify inefficiencies and reengineer relevant processes. This comprehensive and in-depth endeavor touches three crucial facets — people, processes and technology. Among other things, these processes have included matter intake, end-to-end contract review and report creation to determine opportunities for automation and workflow improvement.

By focusing on people, processes and technology, MWAccel holistically examines and refines workflows and functions of a legal department, helping it become more efficient, agile and strategically aligned with the business. The end result is not just process improvement, but an enhancement of the entire legal operations function.

­Legal Operations Professional Partnering

MWAccel assisted legal department leaders in identifying when work is appropriate to delegate internally and/or to outside counsel, preparing the business case for changes to the organizational structure, including potentially adding headcount and strategizing on how and when to grow the legal department.

MWAccel helped new legal operations professionals prepare for executive-level communications by identifying the level of detail appropriate for the audience, framing the content for easier understanding by executives and noting questions to anticipate in response to the communications.

MWAccel also worked with legal departments and legal operations leaders who are new to launching legal operations functions to help identify initial strategic priorities, resource needs and connectivity to the broader business of the legal department and the enterprise.