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Presentations:Last update: 02/13/09 Established 1993
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Independent Counsel™:
Bridging the Legal Management Gap
One cost of doing business is hiring lawyers to handle the stream of litigation, regulations, transactions, and other "legal" events. Somehow these lawyers have to be selected, their work monitored, and their fees managed. Once the legal budget climbs into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, hiring an in-house lawyer may make sense. In the meantime, however, companies are forced to do without the expertise and independence that in-house counsel would give them, but they are still spending a small fortune on lawyers: Are their legal fees too high?, Are they choosing the right lawyer?, Is the lawyer doing a good job? Without that in-house lawyer in their corner, the answers they get from outside counsel are too often self-serving. There is thus a gap between the point at which a company is spending enough on lawyers to require careful management (say, tens of thousands of dollars each year) and the time at which those expenditures are large enough to justify hiring in-house counsel (say, $500,000 or more each year). Devil's Advocate can fill that gap, cost-effectively, with our Independent Counsel™ service.
Independent Counsel bridges the legal management gap by performing some of the functions of in-house counsel, as needed. As the leader in the fields of litigation and legal fee management, our advice is at least as good as what in-house counsel might provide--we set many of the trends that an in-house lawyer will be following. We are also independent of the law firms we manage, while an outside general counsel (employed by a law firm) usually is not. Our mission is simple: Obtain cost-effective, quality legal services. We expect to pay for ourselves many times over.
Here are some of the Independent Counsel services we can provide:
- Selection of lawyers and law firms.
- Negotiation and implementation of client-friendly billing agreements.
- Creation of legal budgets and plans.
- Case risk and expense analysis.
- Settlement strategy and negotiation.
- Monitoring of work product and performance.
- Bill review and auditing.
- Bill dispute negotiation and resolution.
- Second opinions on tactical and strategic decisions.
This is not a temporary attorney service -- we are not renting you a lawyer. While a "temp" might be appropriate in some circumstances, we have far greater expertise in evaluating law firms and legal bills. Use a temp to perform more traditional legal services, on site. For the services Devil's Advocate provides, however, temps are likely to be more expensive, even for short-term assignments. (Although Devil's Advocate attorneys are admitted to practice law in a number of jurisdictions, Independent Counsel is intended to provide management advice, not legal advice, and is not a substitute for hiring legal counsel.)
Long-term Independent Counsel services are well-suited to monthly retainers starting at $1,000 per month or flat fees. For short-term projects, Devil's Advocate would normally bill by the hour or day. Consult our current billing policy and options for details.
06/04/01