A law firm's drive to bring in revenue and a legal operations function's goal to reduce outside spend are not necessarily opposed to each other and law firms should get to know the values of the business they are hired to do work for, according to a panel of experts at the 2019 Legalweek on Wednesday at the Midtown Hilton in Manhattan.

The panel consisted of Kevin Iredell, director of business development at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan; David Cambria, global director of legal operations at Baker McKenzie; and Eric Armstrong, client service manager at Fenwick & West. The panel was moderated by Joe Calve, chief marketing and business development officer at McGuireWoods.

Armstrong said one of the biggest steps Fenwick is taking to establish an alignment of values with clients is feedback interviews.

"When I go out and talk to clients I produce a report on that interview and make sure that is disseminated to the team so they are aware of what the client's values are," Armstrong said.

"You talk about increasing revenue and cost control; I think they can exist in the same world," said Cambria, who previously worked as the director of global operations at Archer Daniels Midland.

Cambria said cost control is not really about getting advice at the lowest price. Rather, it is about understanding whether a client's money is being spent efficiently to meet the goal of the business.

"I've seen a lot of scorecards that peers of mine have done and a lot of them are very good, but a lot of them miss the mark in terms of tying activity to value or tying activity to efficient behavior," Cambria said.

For now, he said there is a disconnect between the values of legal departments and their law firms.

"If you have a very strong diversity and inclusion program; that's very important. But at the end of the day, does it really get to a compelling business need that I'm trying to get to? I think it doesn't," Cambria said.

Iredell said one of the mistakes he sees is when people hear legal operations they assume it is about price.

"It's really about knowing the business," Iredell said. "Yes, you have to show value, yes you have to show return on investment, but I think it's equally as important to show return on objective."