ARTHUR ANDERSON ENTERS THE BLG MARKET

Arthur Andersen is a great accounting and consulting firm. I am thrilled that they are in the BLG market of providing legal affairs management to law firms and corporate counsel departments. However, our approaches are not identical. Arthur Andersen is looking to support corporate counsel departments in their efforts to control legal cost. They also make themselves available to law firms to develop more cost-effective methods to deliver legal services.

My approach is to work with businesses that don't have a corporate counsel department but have legal issues and expenses that need controlling. Arthur Andersen uses words like practice management, organizational structure and management, technology systems planning, case strategies, financial analysis, and information management repository. This sounds good for a Fortune 100 company, but isn't going to help the mid-market company that doesn't have an in-house legal staff but is spending more on legal fees than it feels appropriate.

The BLG approach has four steps to manage legal affairs. 1) Find the right lawyer, 2) Develop the right strategy for the problem, 3) Create a realistic budget, and 4) Manage steps 2 and 3 until the desired result is achieved. BLG clients are result and value oriented.

Main Page	General Counsel Role	What is Legal Affairs Management?
Who's In Charge?	The Selling of Billable Hours	I Found the Right Lawyer