The Association of Corporate Counsel has compiled The Guide to the ACC Value Challenge in Europe  which contains helpful guides from corporate counsel operating in Europe. 

According to Sandra Mora, European general counsel of  The Coca-Cola Company, her company ‘had to identify out legal costs across Europe before we could identify the correct steps to reduce cost. It turned out to be a surprisingly difficult exercise to clarify costs,’ she said in the guide, adding that once the company had ascertained costs, ‘we could prepare and allocate specific and realistic budgets, and that has made a huge difference.’

She said that her obstacles were ‘changing the attitude of the in-house lawyers to work as “owners” of the budget allocated to them' and 'working with the finance department to ensure that they consistently share the relevant information about the allocation of expenses.'

The British Telecom way

Telecoms company BT revealed in the publication that it had undertaken a study of the UK legal team and found that more than half of its work was low complexity transactions with revenues/risks under £10 million. The legal department found that less than 20 per cent of all work was on high complexity/higher risk work with revenues/risks over £50 million. As a result  nearly one-third of all requests for legal support were moved to an LPO.

Lawyers Chris Fowler and David Gribble said that the department were able to shift a number of legal professionals to growth areas where the company required support. ‘We have reduced outside counsel spend on commercial matters, which we can now handle in-house.’