From ACC Boston: “”we’re going to evaluate law firms” and “controlling outside legal spend top concern”

There have been two major press releases issued by the ACC during its annual meeting here in Boston.  (They were included in our registration packet but there is so much to cover we overlooked them).

The first:  the Association of Corporate Counsel will launch what it calls the ACC Value Index. According to a press release from the group, the index “will allow members of ACC to share ratings of law firms based on client satisfaction so that they can better meet company demands.”  For the story from law.com click here.   We are actually sitting in a session right now as they go through the criteria being used.

The second:  a study by the ACC has found that for the first time in three years, controlling the costs spent on outside counsel is a top priority for in-house legal chiefs.  The collaborative survey between the ACC and Serengeti Law found that compliance concerns are second to cost concerns, a sign that the economic downturn has affected how in-house counsel do their jobs.  

Almost 70 percent of in-house respondents offer up specific suggestions to outside counsel on how to increase the value of their services. While hourly billing rates remained the norm for outside lawyers, use of alternative fee structures rose to 61 percent of in-house counsel and fixed fees about 38 percent. Project retainers (15.4 percent) and contingency fees (10.5 percent) were also increasingly popular alternatives, states the ACC report.

For the background story on the release  click here.  We picked up a copy of the study here at ACC and we will report further later this week.