Congrats, You’re Now Our Panel Solicitor. (Now What?)

Working in-house means you’re the liaison between your company and external solicitors.

Depending on what industry your company is in, it could mean that you deal with them occasionally, or you deal with them A LOT. In the financial services industry, it’s the latter.

External solicitors who have been accepted into our company’s panelship (also referred to as “panel solicitors”) handle the bulk of the legal documentation between our company and our customers. That doesn’t mean we put our feet up and sip iced lattes all day long though.

Because with panelship, there’s a whole new set of challenges. You basically exchange one set of headaches with another. You’d think all those “templates” and “standard documents” would make our lives easier right? Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as that.

Visualize this: Your company decides to accept applications for panelship. A firm applies. They meet the requirements. Your boss approves the application and tells you to issue the appointment letter. You call the firm up and say Congrats. You assign them their first case. #HappilyEverAfter?

Not quite.

Training wheels, first!

The biggest mistake you could make after accepting a firm for panelship is assuming that they can do great work without getting to know your company.

No matter how big or experienced the firm is, the firm still has to adapt to YOUR company to produce great results. How your company does things is always different than how other companies do it.

• Company A does X and Y before doing Z.
• Company B does X and Z before doing Y.
• Your company does X, Y and Z and then wraps it up with H.

How can they adapt if they’re not given an opportunity to get to know your company?

Enter: ONBOARDING.

Onboarding is a process where new hires are integrated into the workplace so that they become fluent in the company’s products, services and way of doing things.

“Let’s get you onboard.”

For the Legal department, it makes sense to help new firms get their bearing before they start doing work.

Because without onboarding, it’s a lose-lose situation.

• The firms will have to manage uncommunicated and unfair expectations placed by the company and screw up something.
• The Legal department will lose face and screw up their KPI when the firms don’t perform.

I’m not saying that new firms are so incompetent that they need to be hand-held for the entire duration of the panelship. That’s definitely NOT what onboarding is about.

But what I’ve seen again and again is that uncommunicated expectations will start a chain reaction of I WANT TO COMPLAIN TO YOUR CEO.

A clearer example:

• New Firm is appointed to panelship of Big Company.
• Big Company assigned New Firm their first case, i.e. prepare legal documents for Angry Bird Sdn Bhd.
• Angry Bird Sdn Bhd wants things done FAST. Like, done 2-weeks-ago kind of fast.
• The management of Big Company also wants things done fast. (But maybe just 1-week-ago kind of fast.)
• Big Company’s policy is that A and B must be done for all cases. This is not written down anywhere for New Firm to refer to.
• New Firm doesn’t do A and B because they’ve never had to do those things before with their other panelships.
• The Legal department checks New Firm’s work. Surprise, surprise — they didn’t do A and B.
• Legal tells New Firm to go back and do A and B.
• Angry Bird Sdn Bhd is now very angry because they expected that the legal documents should all be complete by now.
• Angry Bird Sdn Bhd complains to the CEO.
• Legal is expected to answer for New Firm and chase New Firm to meet the deadline.
• New Firm’s reputation tanks in Big Company.

If you were in the position of the Legal department, you’ll be considering two different scenarios.

ONE. If the New Firm failed to do something which was reasonably expected of them as legal professionals, then it’s Strike One against the firm. Fair.

TWO. If the New Firm failed to do something which objectively may not have been necessary considering industry practice and standards, then it’s something for YOU to caution yourself with in the future.

In my experience, it’s mostly Scenario Two. The devil is in the details. Even small differences such as the period of validity of a bankruptcy search can lead to vastly different outcomes. And it’s the Legal’s job to communicate what those differences are, and why they matter, to the panel solicitors.

You gotta ask for what you want.

What you need to create a simple onboarding process (in my opinion)

At my company, we have a rudimentary onboarding in place, which I think could be improved with time and energy. (Two things that are in short supply.. But I’m optimistic!)

I’m going to list down what I think needs to be improved or developed (not in order):

1. Standard Service Level Agreement (SLA) [existing]. This is what we have now. It comes with our standard appointment letter and sets out how fast we expect the new firms to complete the work. The only thing I’d improve on for our current one is specifying the consequences of not complying with the SLA.
2. Introduction to the Legal Department [future]. Maybe a foreword from our HOD and a short snippet on my colleagues and I (including email addresses and direct line extensions).
3. Legal Document Structure [future]. A diagram that shows our standard legal documents and when we use them. Highlights the templates that we provide and guidelines on using those templates.
4. Policies and guidelines [existing]. Basically, my company has standard T&Cs that all customers must fulfill (like Angry Bird Sdn Bhd). The policies will be on how and to what extent the new firms have to prove that the customers have fulfilled the T&Cs. I think our current one is OK-ish, but we’ll have to work on being specific. Like, extremely specific. This is THE most exhaustive thing to develop for any Legal department (and also the most exhausting).
5. Case Studies [future]. There are a few ‘sticky’ issues that new firms always face and those issues can be turned into case studies.
6. Frequently-Asked Questions (FAQ) [future]. Like I explored in my previous post on FAQs, it’s a great way to anticipate questions without having to answer them again and again with each new firm.
7. Product Details & Standard Collateral [future]. A short description of active products in my company and the collaterals we request from our customers. May help new firms get an overview of what my company offers.

All this can be compiled to form a Welcome Packet. As soon as the firm is appointed, Legal can send it to them immediately for them to study.

“Probation period” and why it matters

When new hires come onboard, they get a probation period. While it’s mostly for the benefit of the employer, it also promotes a sense of tolerance for the new hire as they transition into the workplace.

“Who did this?”

“The new one. She’s still on probation.”

“Oh.”

Probation is not a license to make mistakes. But expecting the new firm to perform perfectly right off the bat is unrealistic, even if you provide onboarding.

Having a probation period also signals to the management that there’s a transition period involved, it’s not going to be 100% perfect BUT it’s all under control.

So if mistakes were to happen during probation, the goal for Legal should be to closely work with the new firm to ensure that the mistakes aren’t repeated.

Here’s what else I think should happen during probation:

• There should be a dedicated person in Legal to monitor the new firms during probation. Or if there’s too many firms to monitor, the task can be divided between several people.
• Whenever there are any issues, the person monitoring should be ready to consult with the new firm and clarify any questions that they might have. Some hand-holding may be necessary here.
• There should be an in-person meeting between Legal and each new firm at least once during probation. We have firms on our panel that we have never ever met and I think it’s detrimental to a good working relationship.
• The new firms should only be assigned a few ‘simple’ cases which will allow Legal to monitor their performance with less risk. Once they’ve graduated probation, they can always be upgraded to more complex cases.
• The person monitoring should conduct a standard assessment on the new firm’s performance at the end of probation to rate their adaptability, attitude and expertise, among others.
• New firms that perform unsatisfactorily can either (a) go through an extended probation, (b) be absorbed as permanent panel but assigned ‘simple’ cases only or (c) have their panelship revoked.

Whew. This all sounds like a lot of work and I have to be honest with you, I’m not even sure if these ideas will be practical. But they‘re inspired by actual problems that my colleagues and I face in our daily rendezvous with our panel solicitors.

I am always deeply appreciative of our panel solicitors for having the patience to deal with our customers AND us. And since they’re out there practicing, I’m always awed by their expertise.

I strongly believe that solicitor management is one of the KEY functions and KPI of the Legal department. Without in-house counsels themselves to lead the way, it’s unfair to put 100% of the responsibility of protecting the company’s interests on panel solicitors.

I hope in time my colleagues and I will be able to develop a strong system that won’t only reflect well on our Legal department, but also inspire excitement in firms out there to work with our company. Fingers crossed!