Reengineering the Law Firm

Seeking to help clients manage vast volumes of commoditized legal work, Eversheds partners Stephen Hopkins and Diana Newcombe (pictured)—the latter now an executive at the North Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency—in 2007 conceived what the U.K.–based firm calls its Global Account Management System (GAMS). The bespoke online platform allows general counsel of clients such as The Boeing Company, Smiths Group plc, and Severn Trent Water to approve the scope and fees of each matter before lawyers start working on it. The platform provides real-time updates on progress and costs once they do. The system enabled one client, Tyco International Ltd., to consolidate its legal services portfolio for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa—some 1,000 live matters across 70 countries—into a single, $15-million-per-year contract with Eversheds. By slashing its legal advisers from over 280 local law firms in the region to just one, Tyco says that it cut its legal spending by 52 percent.

Boies took a calculated risk when he left the partnership of Cravath, Swaine & Moore in 1997. Perhaps it's not surprising then that sharing risk with clients has become a hallmark of the firm that Boies has led since leaving Cravath. As other Am Law 100 firms began experimenting with alternative fee arrangements, Boies, Schiller & Flexner was already weaning itself off the billable hour—drawing more than half of its revenues from alternative fees in 2010. (Granted, the firm's nonhourly fees were bolstered by a reported nine-figure contingency fee from a successful antitrust suit filed on behalf of American Express Company against Visa Inc., MasterCard Incorporated, and eight banks.) Of course, Boies and his firm are in the enviable position of being able to charge clients up-front "engagement fees"—sometimes more than $10 million—to take them on. The calculated risk-taking at Boies Schiller extends even to associates. Junior lawyers who work on contingency fee matters at the firm can opt to either share in the potential upside or simply have their hours counted toward traditional bonus thresholds.