Nathan Cemenska, joined by UBS executives, to discuss law firm outsourcing, hourly rate trends, and annual legal spend
June 14, 2021 — Nathan Cemenska, Director of Legal Operations and Industry Insights for Wolters Kluwer ELM Solutions, will explore critical factors influencing annual legal spend and other billing considerations in a panel session, “Rightsourcing Optimization: Decision Tree-based Approaches,” as part of the 2021 Virtual Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) Xchange conference (XL21). Open to both ACC members and non-members, the one-hour session will take place at 11:30 am ET Wednesday, June 16.
Using information from the LegalVIEW® Data Warehouse, Cemenska will explore opportunities corporate legal departments (CLDs) have to reduce outside legal costs for certain matters by exploring other vendors and alternative legal service providers (ALSPs). By considering a broader range of options, CLDs can create more accurate budgets and develop more competitive and profitable pricing and fee arrangements. The LegalVIEW® Data Warehouse is the largest body of legal performance data globally – it includes more than $140 billion in legal spend and powers ELM Solutions’ artificial intelligence, benchmarking, predictive and analytics offerings.
Joining Cemenska as XL21 session panelists are banking giant UBS executives John Burke (Assistant General Counsel, Corporate Vice President) and Sandra Svärd (Group General Counsel Office, Outside Counsel Management). The legal operations leaders will delve into the groundbreaking framework for their new “smart sourcing” solution, which triages legal work to risk- and cost-appropriate vendors. Following that discussion, participants will break out into groups focusing on the subjects mentioned above and adjacent topics like panel management, knowing the expertise within your own legal department, and trends in insourcing.
“Our LegalVIEW® Data Warehouse data suggests that many law departments, consciously or unconsciously, are not considering every available option, including ALSPs, to help them be more efficient and achieve better outcomes,” said Cemenska. “Some savvy companies are bucking the trend by carefully classifying legal matters based on risk and complexity and sourcing them based on those. If other corporate legal departments followed a similar approach, it could save businesses multiple millions of dollars every year.”
Produced in partnership with ACC’s Law Department Management Network and Legal Operations Section, XL21 offers legal executives, practice leads, and operations professionals the chance to discover best practices and hone the innovation mindset. Sessions are designed to help attendees tackle burgeoning challenges, together with inspired learning opportunities that are practical, interactive, and developed for all legal leaders operating in today’s continuously evolving business environment.
Cemenska, who joined Wolters Kluwer in 2018, is responsible for developing research and thought leadership using data from its LegalVIEW® Data Warehouse. He previously worked in management consultancy, helping GCs improve law department performance, and has prior experience as a legal operations business analyst.
