CHICAGO, June 22, 2012 -The Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) announced today that Morgan Lewis and its client, RBC Capital Markets, have been recognized as 2012 "ACC Value Champions" for their collaboration in making a difference for their organizations through creativity and value-based legal management skills. A component of the ACC Value Challenge, this new program recognized five law departments and seven law department/law firm collaborations that delivered substantial value to their client organizations by cutting spending, improving predictability and achieving better legal outcomes.
"RBC is very proud to be a 2012 ACC Value Champion. We have partnered with Morgan Lewis since 2006, and have increased our focus on improved budget predictability and reduction of legal costs over the past two years," said Todd W. Schnell, Vice-President and Senior Associate General Counsel, RBC, who led the Champions nomination. "Our value-based fee arrangements have resulted in demonstrable savings over the projected fees and this successful partnership has helped us add predictability to our budgets while still receiving excellent legal services."
Emanating from success stories that ACC has witnessed in the continuing effort to ensure that client expectations-not hourly-based legal spend-drive the legal services equation, the 2012 ACC Value Champions nomination process called attention to significant initiatives that improved the cost efficiency of the legal function, both in-house and in partnership with outside counsel.
"We are happy to celebrate RBC Capital Markets and Morgan Lewis for their commitment to flexibly using value-based fee arrangements," explained Veta T. Richardson, President & CEO of ACC. "By developing and implementing value-based services, they have demonstrated how coordination of efforts can be a win/win."
"Not one matter that RBC has assigned to Morgan Lewis since 2010 has been billed on a traditional hourly basis," explained Morgan Lewis Labor and Employment Partner Sari Alamuddin. "Working with value-based fee arrangements has yielded substantial savings over the projected fees for that same period."
ACC accepted nominations from law departments and law firms from November 1 through March 15, 2012. The 61 nominations, submitted by law departments and/or sections within organizations, along with law firm practice groups, of all sizes and from around the world, were reviewed by a panel drawn from the ACC Value Challenge Steering Committee, comprised of Jeffrey Carr, Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary FMC Technologies, Inc., Elisa Garcia, Executive Vice President & General Counsel, Office Depot, Inc.; and Michael Roster, former General Counsel, Golden West Financial and Stanford University. The 2012 ACC Value Champions were selected for the significant results they achieved through management practices that could be replicated by corporate law departments, both large and small.
The complete list of the 2012 ACC Value Champions, along with additional details and specific practices related to the RBC Capital Markets/Morgan Lewis submission, and can be viewed online at: www.acc.com/valuechampions.