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Tender mercies
Posted 30/09/2008 by John Malpas
Talk about saying the wrong thing.
The reaction of a bunch of in-house lawyers to a law firm partner’s advice on how to improve the tendering process was telling. “Sometimes,” the partner had observed, “legal departments send invitations to tender to the wrong people at our firm, which makes it difficult for us to respond properly.”
The room – a breakout session at last week’s Legal Week Corporate Counsel Forum – fell silent. Eventually, one of the in-house lawyers responded, to nods of approval: “Surely that’s your problem, not ours.” Cue back-peddling from said partner.
Actually, I have quite a bit of sympathy for the partner. For me, this little episode throws light on the unequal relationship that often exists between well-resourced law firms and over-stretched legal departments.
Of course it doesn’t matter how and to whom you send your tender invitation, if you are prepared to pay a premium to those firms that are able to clean up after your incompetence. On the other hand, if your objective is to get good value out of your existing and potential advisers, then it is probably worth doing a bit of leg work to ensure that your invitation to tender reaches the appropriate person.
This brings me to another little episode. At the same session an in-house lawyer spoke in admiring terms of an outside lawyer who said it was his job to make the in-house lawyer ‘look good’. Funnily enough, I’d heard the exact same scenario recounted by an in-house lawyer at a similar gathering several years ago. Except on that occasion the in-house lawyer regarded it as an insult to be told that he needed someone else to make him ‘look good’. That’s the spirit...
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- The party’s over — can I sell you an aspirin? 3/10/2008
- Tender mercies30/09/2008
- Heller’s familiar fate25/09/2008
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Comments
If the law firm hasn't got the competence and organisation to deal properly with responding to a business opportunity, how can I rely on them to deal with probably more complex legal matter?
Such an excuse wouldn't pass muster in a non legal Tendering process.
Posted by Anonymous | 3/10/2008
The majority of in-house lawyers would, I suspect, take offence at being called incompetent for having got lost in the morass of responsibilities held in law firms between the average blue-chip firm's marketing function, client relationship function, business development function, and/or management function.
I thought law firms were providing a service- surely the onus is on the provider, not the tenderer, to ensure that any misdirection is smoothed over?
Posted by Anonymous | 3/10/2008
Having worked at the well-resourced law firms you refer to and now running an overstretched in-house department, I find the idea preposterous that not knowing the exact addressee for an invitation to tender within a sprawling law firm should be regarded as incompetence. If the firm is an existing services provider to my company, then the invitation should go to the client partner. If it is not, then the invitation should go to the marketing department or to the managing partner. That's all I need to know and all I should need to know, otherwise the firm is unlikely to be in a position to make my life easier (which is what I hire them for).
Posted by Anja Siebel | 1/10/2008