To some, outside counsel guidelines (OCGs) may seem like administrative minutia—too boring to care about. That may have been true in the past, when both law firms and corporate law departments (CLDs) were small, and before e-billing made a "scientific" approach to outside counsel management possible. Since that time, CLDs and law firms alike have grown exponentially, creating an opportunity for in-house counsel to manage OCGs in a way that can generate a level of compliance and savings that is anything but boring. In addition to saving millions, OCGs are a way to improve both law firm billing practices and the underlying behavior they represent.

Here are three best practices to help organizations get the most out of their guidelines.

Ensure the guidelines are received and understood by the right person at the law firm. It may seem obvious to say billing guidelines must actually be read in order to be followed, but the reality is they often go unread. To remedy this problem, organizations must first figure out who at the law firm is in the best position to receive, understand, and implement the guidelines in question. A partner who works 12 hours a day at $800 per hour simply isn't going to spend 45 minutes reading your OCGs. The person who will undertake that task is different at each firm, but could include folks with titles like billing manager, account manager, billing coordinator, legal project manager, etc.