Outsourcing: Outrage or Opportunity? Presentation by Jean O'Grady and Ron Friedmann at Ark Library Conf Feb 2011

8/22/2019 Outsourcing: Outrage or Opportunity? Presentation by Jean O'Grady and Ron Friedmann at Ark Library Conf Feb 2011

1/12

Best Practices & Management Strategies for Law

Firm Library & Information Service Centers

INTRODUCTION

Thursday, February 24, 2011 New York, NY


2/12

Demographics

Number of Attendees

Law Firms: 45 Providers: 24

Law Firms AttendingAlston & Bird

Baker & Hostetler

Bingham McCutchen

Borden Ladner Gervais

Cahill Gordon & Reindel

Cassels Brock & Blackwell

Connolly Bove Lodge & Hutz

Cravath Swaine & Moore

Debevoise & Plimpton

Dechert

DLA Piper

Finnegan Henderson

Fish & Richardson P.C

Fox Rothschild

Fraser Milner Casgrain

Harris Beach PLLC

Howrey

Ice Miller

King & Spalding

Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel

Manatt Phelps & Phillips

Maples and Calder

McKenna Long & Aldridge

Nossaman

Pitblado

Schulte Roth & Zabel

Schwegman Lundberg

Stikeman Elliott

Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan

Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease

WilmerHale

Winston & Strawn

Skadden Arps

Weil Gotshal

Paul Weiss


3/12

Best Practices & Management Strategies for Law

Firm Library & Information Service Centers

Outsourcing: Outrage or OpportunityJean OGrady, DLA PiperRon Friedmann, Integreon

Thursday, February 24, 2011 New York, NY


4/12

Preface

Good to great companies focus on

what to do

They also put equal focus on what not

to do and what to stop doing

Jim Collins Good to Great


5/12

Whats Outsourced Now

&

&

&

Banks

Law Firms

&

&

(

)

/

&

&

&

IT


6/12

Practical Considerations

Outsourcing is not all or none

Master service agreement

Metrics

Service Level Agreement (SLA). IT example: Average speed to answer

Wait time in queue

Total call abandoned

Average talk time

Insurance and risk management

Protecting client confidences

Average handling time

First call resolution

Resolution time

Customer satisfaction reviews


7/12

Framing the Question

What kind of support do lawyers need?

Which library functions are core?

Place versus service

How should firms provide lawyer support? In-house v. outsourced (owned v. 3rd party)

Centralized v. de-centralized

Onsite v. offsite

Take the managing partner or COO view


8/12

Varieties of Outsourcing

Centralization or insourcing

Vendor sourcing

Targeted outsourcing

Complete outsourcing


9/12

Whats Centralized Now?

Should firms centralize library

resources?

Can we justify a library in each office

What is the theory of centralized v. de-centralized operation?

Pro central: better economics and

management Con central: potentially lower service level


10/12

Vendor Sourcing

Shift inefficiences back to the publishers that

generate them Demand billing and publication practices that

reduce internal workload

Digital billing/spreadsheets Precoded invoices

Charge publishers for the cost of inefficiences

No one should be loose-leaf filing in the 21st

Century! Where are the legal e-books!


11/12

Survey Whats Core?

0 5 10 15 20 25 30

Shelving books

Loose-leaf filing

Bill coding and processing

Library system (ILS) maintenance

Cataloging resources

Serials check-in/routingManaging serials subscriptions and

Document retrieval

Inter-library loan

Management of technical services

Cite checkingAcquisition of resources

Legal Research - fact checking

Business and other research - fact

Docket monitoring

Contract/licensing negotiation

Custom news monitoring/alertsLegal Research - complex projects

Business and other research -

Research training for lawyers

Management of research services

Core

Non-core


12/12

References Vendor Sourcing: thinking the unthinkable as an alternative to outsourcing

(Jean OGrady,, Dewey B Strategic Blog, Feb 16 2011.

A Better Strategy for Law Firm Librarians (Above and Beyond KM, 26 Jan2011) Testing Your Law Library Strategy (Geek Law Blog, 25 Jan 2011) Future-Proofing the Library (SLA blog, Steven Bell, 24 Jan 2011) Law Firm Librarians Defend Operating Costs (ABA Journal, Patrick Lamb, 18

Jan 2011)

LPO Predictions for 2011 (Fronterion, Dec 2010) Law library outsourcing (Library Technician Dialog, Karen Sawatzky, 9 Dec

2010) Librarians and "Business Values (Geek Law Blog, 19 Nov 2010 Does It Pay to Hire a Law Firm Librarian? (ABA Journal, Patrick Lamb, 17

Nov 2010) Outsourcing Legal Information (Slaw.ca, Karen Sawatzky, 24 Aug 2010) Law Libraries Transformed (Eleanor Windsor and Ron Friedmann,

LLRX.com, 4 July 2010)

Documents

Outsourcing: Outrage or Opportunity? Presentation by Jean O'Grady and Ron Friedmann at Ark Library Conf Feb 2011