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The goal of outside counsel guidelines is to make the corporate/law firm transaction process more transparent and efficient. And their use is only growing—Altman Weil’s 2018 Chief Legal Officer survey found that 79% of legal departments provide guidelines for billing, expenses, matter staffing and matter management, and 66% are actively enforcing those guidelines.

But are OCGs actually effective? Corporate legal department surveys seem to think so, but one new survey is hoping to receive more answers from the opposite side of the equation.

The Association of Legal Administrators and timekeeping software company Bellefield Systems announced today that they’re launching a survey aimed at measuring the impact of outside counsel guidelines, e-billing and billing compliance on law firms. The survey looks to help bridge that gap between corporate expectations and reality for law firms, providing figures on OCGs by practice area, firms’ level of compliance, partner/lawyer involvement in OCG compliance, and more.

Bellefield president Gabriela Isturiz told Legaltech News that the impetus for the survey is the frustration a lot of her clients and ALA members have had keeping up with these ever-more complex guidelines. “When you go into the law firm side, what happens is every single law firm is extremely frustrated,” she explained. “And not only are they extremely frustrated, they are losing a significant amount of revenue because of the challenges to comply with that.”

Indeed, she noted that in her anecdotal experience, law firms have to comply with around 20 new guidelines a month. Especially given all that goes into these guidelines, including metrics as wide-ranging as cybersecurity and diversity, she said that law firms “don’t really have the time to sit back, think and optimize. They’re really in reaction mode.”

When it comes to what the modern OCG entails—well, that sometimes is not an easy thing to parse, Isturiz said. The process of vetting an OCG involves a number of parties that often don’t come into contact: “For example, you have the risk manager, who is never going to talk to the billing manager. Then you have H.R., because there are diversity clauses you need to meet, but H.R. is never going to talk to the conflicts manager.”

But many law firms—Isturiz estimated around 80% of the ones she speaks with—are not even doing that level of research. OCGs often run by the desk of the client’s supervising attorney first. And as she explains, “They are so desperate to win the business. They receive this contract, and they are going to do everything to comply and agree to these. So there is not much pushback.”

That makes standardization potentially a pipe dream for OCGs as long as this competition exists. But understanding in the form of a survey could be a first step towards at least some optimization of the process. And that could mean cost savings for law firms when they realize what’s at stake with non-compliance.

“For one practice leader, it could be $20,000,” Isturiz said. “For another practice leader, it could be $30,000. But when you have 50 of those, it adds up.”