How to avoid frustration and approach legal RFPs with partnership in mind
Legal RFPs are among the most common outside counsel management tools legal departments employ. According to a survey by legal procurement association Buying Legal Council, over three-quarters of legal departments use RFPs as part of their outside counsel management strategy—and for good reason. They help in-house counsel and legal operations professionals understand their options for a given matter or project, get insight into different legal strategies and determine which provider offers the most value.
However, legal RFPs can also be a source of frustration, particularly between in-house teams and their outside counsel partners. An average law firm or legal services provider might receive hundreds of matter-level RFPs throughout the year and will have a dedicated team that handles responses and decision-making around the RFP process. An ALM survey showed that law firms spend about 47 hours on an average RFP. Given the effort that providers put into RFP responses, it's understandable that opaque or poorly run RFPs can leave them with a sour taste in their mouth.
Good RFPs are a two-way street: They benefit both legal departments and the providers in-house teams work with. In addition to the benefits for legal teams outlined above, from the provider side, RFPs offer an opportunity to showcase capabilities, win work that might not have otherwise been available and deepen relationships with important clients.
With this in mind, what are some of the ways that legal departments can embrace this partnership and make the legal RFP process a positive one for themselves as well as their providers? Here we highlight a few elements of the RFP process and how they can improve outside counsel relationships for in-house teams.
#1 Cut Your Legal RFP Recipients List Down (As Much as Possible)
Deciding how many and which providers to send an RFP to is a delicate balancing act. You want to include enough providers so that you can make a worthwhile comparison, but, if you include too many, you can negatively impact your relationships with the providers who respond.
It might be tempting to include a wide array of providers to get as much information as possible, but this creates two potential issues: It puts more stress on your team for the administration and evaluation of RFPs and it could make the providers you've asked to respond feel like their time spent isn't valued. While providers always have the option to not respond to an RFP, the best practice is to only send your RFP to providers who you think could actually win the work. In this same vein, another way to avoid damaging relationships over this type of issue is to use our next tip:
#2 Legal RFP Feedback Goes a Long Way
Following up with providers for after-action feedback can be critical to maintaining good relationships with outside counsel after a legal RFP. It's not a good experience for a law firm or legal services provider to spend dozens of hours crafting and sending an RFP response, only to get a short note back saying they didn't get the work (or, worse, no communication at all).
As much as you're able to, take the time to explain to a provider why they didn't get the work—what the rubric looked like, how they scored well and where they were weaker, or any surprising or creative options you received that made other responses stand out. Providers will be more than happy to debrief an RFP process with you and tell you what worked well and what didn’t. It shows your outside counsel partners that they are valued even when they didn't win, improves your processes and helps elicit more tailored responses to future RFPs.
#3 Avoid Duplicative or Already Known Questions in Legal RFPs
One of the common pet peeves for providers in the legal RFP process is being asked to respond to boilerplate or templated questions that legal departments already have the answers to. It makes sense to reuse questions across RFPs to save your team time, but you should closely audit these questions for each RFP to ensure you’re asking the right questions. If you over-request and providers over-respond, you end up wasting everyone’s time.
Going along with being thoughtful about using canned questions, also check for duplicative questions that ask for similar or the same information. Again, the time saved with these efforts benefits both parties—you don't have to spend time reorganizing data you already have and providers don't have to spend time providing redundant information.
#4 Allow Reasonable Time for Legal RFP Questions
No RFP is going to be perfect, so another important point for law firms and legal services providers responding to your RFP is the ability to ask questions and receive responses in a timely fashion. Ideally, there would be time built into your RFP process specifically for questions and answers. And if significant questions come up, or you need time to substantively respond to questions, consider extending the response deadline.
Additionally, it’s a best practice to share the questions you've received during the process and your answers to all of the providers responding, regardless of which provider asked. You might even consider hosting a conference call with providers to go over your company, the RFP details and any questions that have come up. Both in-house teams and providers want everyone involved to be as informed as possible and for proposals to be submitted on a level playing field.
#5 Be Clear About Outside Counsel Guidelines in Legal RFPs
Requirements to comply with outside counsel guidelines can sometimes be blockers for firms and providers responding to RFPs. Usually, these take the form of broad or difficult-to-predict requirements like refusing to provide advance waivers, indemnity provisions or coverage for affiliates and subsidiaries. For example, if guidelines for a multinational corporation state that representation covers affiliates and subsidiaries, there are many potential variables that are either going to create conflicts or make the management of conflicts unwieldy.
While it may not be possible to make exceptions to your outside counsel guidelines, being transparent and having a conversation with your law firms or legal services providers about concerns can go a long way. In some cases, the perspective may help you refine them!
These five tips only scratch the surface of the legal RFP process. For more ways to improve your RFPs and outside counsel relationships, download our eBook: "The ABCs of RFPs: Best Practices for Effective Legal RFPs." And if you're curious how in-house teams use Priori RFP, our software solution that streamlines the RFP process, to enhance their outside counsel management strategy, schedule a demo.
