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It used to be so simple for in-house lawyers. If anything came up, just call whichever Biglaw firm spawned your GC boss and no one would ever be mad. Unfortunately, that approach might cost the firm a lot more money than necessary for the task at hand and there was no objective way to know whether the firm could actually do the job right… but it was easy.
Companies no longer enjoy that luxury. The higher-ups keep squeezing the budget and the firms keep raising the rates. But how do in-house lawyers balance finding the right-sized (read: cost) firm for the job without jeopardizing the company’s position? They used to say, “No one gets fired for hiring Cravath.” In 2024, legal departments exist like Schrödinger’s Cat trapped in limbo between being fired for spending too much and fired for spending too little.
It’s Legalweek here in New York, and that means product launches. And one of the first announcements out of the gate seeks to assist in-house counsel navigate these troubled waters.
Priori Legal isn’t new to the space. Priori’s marketplace of outside counsel has helped in-house teams match the right firms with the right work for a while now, having built up a client base including Fortune 50 companies and hosting thousands of outside counsel from firms large and small and across tons of practice areas. But Priori is now offering a, for lack of a better term, “Lite” version to in-house legal teams to get a taste of what they’re missing.
Beginning on February 15, users can get six months of free access to Priori’s newest features. The new “Features Lab” includes:
The newly launched features will empower legal teams to send requests for proposals (RFPs) to their own trusted law firm networks directly through the Priori platform and leverage structured reviews and scorecards to better track and maintain knowledge about their preferred firms’ performance over time.
Importantly, legal teams will also have the option to receive proposals from Priori’s global legal marketplace of vetted law firms, lawyers, legal operations professionals and ALSPs to compare side-by-side with quotes from their own trusted law firm network, helping them select the right talent and drive cost savings when hiring for new matters.
What this sounds like to me is a clean, streamlined package that should get law departments hooked. For any in-house team still clinging to the old ways and grabbing representation from the same handful of lawyers that have served the company for decades, the Features Lab lets them use Priori’s tool to hire their old lawyers and, oh by the way, you can benchmark that against what the marketplace offers. There doesn’t seem to be a good argument against taking Priori up on this offer.
Folks can sign up for the Early Access Program here on the Priori website.
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
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