Vice President of Legal Pricing

Our client operates in the Financial sector, with its headquarters rooted strongly in the United States. It has its branches spread to more than 160 countries, providing employment to more than 200k people all over the world. They fall in the Top 15 largest Banks in the United States. Its core business is to provide various Banking and Financial services to its clients. It is known to have one of the biggest balance sheet banks in the world (among others) aiding it to offer 360-degree financial services to its clients.

Role Description:

• Our clients's Global Legal Solutions (GLS) Department is hiring an experienced Vice President of Legal Pricing to provide subject matter expertise relating to all aspects of legal engagements.
• The Vice President of Legal Pricing will report to the Director of Outside Counsel Management within the GLS organization.
• Overall, this role will focus on (i) analyzing various forms of legal fee engagements (i.e., hourly rates, alternative fee arrangements), (ii) supporting and actively participating in fee negotiations with outside counsel and non-law firm legal service providers, (iii) providing guidance and recommendations relating to alternative fee arrangements, (iv) driving competitive tendering activity, (v) maintaining hourly rate arrangements on platforms, and (vi) developing and delivering strategic reporting and other highly-polished correspondence to senior members of the legal organization, GLS, and members of the external legal community in all regions. 
• The Vice President of Legal Pricing will work in close daily collaboration with Attorneys, External Law Firms, Alternative Legal Service Providers, and GLS colleagues at all levels across functions including Finance, Technology, Project Management and Operations, while adhering to GLS program goals and priorities, evaluating complex legal and operational issues and impact to our clients businesses and broader legal organization.

Responsibilities:

Legal Pricing Analysis & Benchmarking

• Research and evaluate historical matter data to understand our client’s position relative market
• Identify relevant benchmarking data to inform potential engagement strategies for single matters and consolidated portfolios of work.
• Respond to specific requests for legal spend and/or productivity data.
• Communicate spend trends and matter activity to key stakeholders within the legal department.
• Document and maintain detailed records of procedures, assumptions, methodologies and sources of information utilized in hourly rate and spend analysis.

Alternative Fee Arrangements

• Develop and recommend tailored alternative and appropriate fee arrangements for select single matters, consolidate portfolios of matters, and repeatable activities handled by our client’s external law firms and alternative legal suppliers.
• Scrutinize standalone fee proposals from external law firms and recommend appropriate counter proposals or responses.
• Collaborate with in-house lawyers and OCM colleagues to develop efficient alternative fee arrangements.

Requests for Proposals

• Draft and facilitate requests for proposals and requests for information related to single matters and portfolios or work covering litigation, regulatory, and transactional concerns.
• Coordinate with in-house counsel and operations colleagues to complete requests for proposals (RFPs) and meet deadlines.
• Liaise with pricing professionals at our external law firms to formalize pricing arrangements.

Timekeeper Hourly Rates

• Maintaining hourly rates and fee arrangements in our client’s e-billing and matter management platform.
• Evaluating ad hoc rate increase requests and recommending an appropriate response.
• Assist with regular and ad hoc rate-setting exercises.

Tracking & Reporting

• Clearly communicate analysis, financial metrics, and budget reports to individual lawyers and management committee members to ensure success of individual attorneys and the department overall.
• Identify budget deviations with attorneys, and lead discussions of corrective actions to minimize cost overruns through change orders.
• Model external legal fee savings associated with potential engagement strategies in support of department-wide targets.
• Coordinate data gathering and analysis for quarterly reporting and presentations.
• Design templates to assist attorneys with budgeting and actively monitor engagements while supplying reports to management.
• Interact with Business Management staff and other administrative departments to ensure data consistency and provide accurate and timely reporting.
• Collaborate with operations, data and technology colleagues to develop various automated reports to increase efficiency.
• Develop standardized processes and procedures to ease of administrative work and data and metrics collection for reporting.

Requirements:

• 5+ years of relevant pricing experience required, preferably working within (i) a mid-to-large global law firm, with experience in areas including but not limited to pricing, legal analytics, business development, and/or legal process management, (ii) a multinational in house legal operations team, or (iii) a global professional services consulting organization with legal sector coverage.
• Practical knowledge of common legal matter progression (e.g., course of litigation, basic procedure, basic corporate or financial transactions).
• Experience in both traditional and innovative law firm or lawyer fee arrangements or pricing methodologies.
• Proven analytical and quantitative skills.
• Experience conducting financial analysis and research.
• Strong ability to analyze and organize data.
• Highly effective project and process management skills. Lean Six Sigma a plus.
• High attention to details, excellent time management and critical thinking skills.
• High social acumen and the ability to collaborate directly, daily and effectively across cultures, geographies, and time zones.
• An ability to lead and influence people across cultures at a senior level using sound judgment, successful execution of strategies, and an understanding of how to operate effectively across diverse businesses.
• Advanced writing and verbal presentation skills required.
• Strong organizational and documentation skills required.
• Exceptional data analysis skills, including advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel.
• Exceptional written communication skills, including advanced proficiency in Microsoft PowerPoint and Microsoft Word.
• Ability to create and publish data visualizations or dashboards in Microsoft PowerBI (or similar tool) a plus.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s / University Degree is required. 
• Law degree or MBA is strongly preferred.