The pressure is on legal departments to control outside counsel spend and take a disciplined and strategic approach to using their resources. But which steps should in-house lawyers take? Should they tackle outside counsel guidelines or work on rate and timekeeper management? How about a firm convergence project?

In-house lawyers trying to make these tough decisions may benefit from picking up a new legal spend management primer released Monday from the Buying Legal Council, an international trade organization for professionals involved in legal procurement. The primer outlines some of the most common legal spend management initiatives and provides a “matrix” that rates these initiatives to give legal departments a better idea of where to focus.

“Whoever takes the first step, always needs the most convincing,” said Silvia Hodges Silverstein, the executive director of the council. “Once people believe that so-and-so and this other company is doing [an initiative] as well, then everyone becomes more adventurous and willing to embrace things. If we look at the same matrix in a couple of years it will have shifted.”

The initiatives were chosen by legal consulting and technology firm Elevate's managing director of legal business solutions and consulting Matt Todd and director of legal business solutions Peter Eilhauer, who co-authored the primer, based on their experiences with clients. Each initiative is positioned on the matrix based on its benefits and the time it takes to make an impact. The primer also accounts for change management requirements, which measure how much political or technical resistance a department may face when implementing a given initiative.

Silverstein said whether or not a legal department engages in a new strategy is often ”based on how much resistance there's going to be.” For example, “Panel/Convergence Strategies” are ranked as the most intensive for change management, because some in-house teams may not want to hurt long-standing relationships with firms that wouldn't make the cut.

The initiatives with the least amount of resistance and quickest turnaround, according to the primer, are “Refine Outside Counsel Guidelines and Implement Invoice Review,” “Law Firm Selection and Management” and “Rate and Timekeeper Management.” These yield smaller returns than most of the longer-term strategies.

“Matter Level Budgeting and Project Management” is ranked in the middle of the matrix for time to achieve benefits and change management, and it's also ranked as one of the most effective initiatives. But each department should start with the initiative that best meets their needs.

“I have seen folks approach [these initiatives] in a number of different ways. It depends on the level of maturity of your organization,” Eilhauer said.

“Because depending on the shape of your spend, it may make sense to do a panel convergence first. If you've shaped your firms and know who your preferred firms are, then it's less of a priority for you,” he added.

In late April, Eilhauer will present the matrix at the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium's annual institute in Las Vegas. He'll be going through how in-house teams can apply the matrix to their own decision-making on spend initiatives, even if they're not considering something on the primer.