Regular readers of Zen know that one thing I never miss is a good in-house counsel panel. Who can skip the opportunity to listen to the clients of our clients tell us how to do our jobs better and what matters to them at this very moment?
With some heavy hitters on this year’s panel at the Legal Marketing Association’s Annual Conference, I knew I wouldn’t be disappointed. On the panel, we had:
Connie Brenton, Chairman of the Board for Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC) and Senior Director of Legal Operations for NetApp, Inc.
Jeffrey Franke, Chief of Staff to the General Counsel and Senior Director of Global Legal Operations for Yahoo, Inc.
Steve Harmon, Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, Legal Services at Cisco Systems, Inc.
George Milionis, General Counsel of Petersen-Dean, Inc.
Moderator: Richard Caruso, Vice President of Legal Media at ALM LLC
The panelists were charged with considering the rapidly changing legal buying cycle and what law firms and vendors (I prefer the term “service providers” actually) need to do to respond. The description of the program said:
Corporations are constantly evaluating the way they do business and how this impacts their bottom line. Expectations of legal service providers are also shifting, along with budgets. During this panel, you will learn from General Counsel and those most closely involved in legal services purchasing decisions how the buying criteria is changing.”
If we’re honest, the “shift” in expectations and changing buying criteria isn’t news – it’s a continuation of the shift that we’ve seen in the industry since 2008. But there were a few interesting themes that came out of this year’s session that you’ll want to pay close attention to (opportunities for firms abound), from pricing pressures and staffing to technology considerations.
Read more: http://www.zenlegalnetworking.com/2017/04/in-house-counsel-panel-the-rapidly-changing-legal-buying-cycle/
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