Best Practice #6: Better Business Communications
Background: Connection participants spent considerable time discussing the need for better business communications.
Best Practice: Both inside and outside counsel need to implement a series of steps to improve business communication.
- Connection general counsel will institute a policy that assignments to outside counsel should be accompanied by a specific deadline to prevent law firms from treating all assignments as needing immediate turnaround.
- If an in-house lawyer does not specify a deadline, outside counsel will ask when the deadline is, instead of assuming it is needed as soon as possible. Outside counsel’s request for clarification will be viewed as a component of excellent service.
- Many of the deadlines communicated by in-house lawyers stem from pressures from their in-house clients and supervisors. Connection general counsel will encourage in-house lawyers’ clients and supervisors, to set real deadlines.
- Connection general counsel want to support flexible schedules—but cannot do so if they do not know about them. They therefore encourage outside counsel to be open about their schedules—they consider this part of effective business communication. That said, they respect the privacy right of every attorney to decide if and when to discuss this matter with clients.
- Connection general counsel will set up channels of communication to enable outside counsel to provide feedback about whether lawyers in their departments are supporting flexibility and work-life balance, consistent with business needs. Promising approaches include:
- An annual meeting between the general counsel or designee and the managing or relationship partner, at which the general counsel asks whether the department has met its goals of supporting diversity and flexibility.
- or legal departments that conduct periodic surveys of law firms, questions about whether their departments have met the goal of supporting diversity and flexibility will be included.
- Connection general counsel who track whether outside counsel is assigning matters to diverse attorneys will also track whether matters are being assigned to flex- and part-time attorneys.
