If you follow the automotive industry (I was in-house counsel at a car company), you follow Toyota (usually the top selling automaker in the world). If you study process improvement (I am a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt), you study Toyota (the Toyota Production System is the precursor of Lean). If you are interested in sourcing (like Toby, I wrote a chapter in the Legal Procurement Handbook), you are interested in Toyota (posterchild for deep supplier relationships). I do not pretend to be an expert on The Toyota Way. But I have been convinced that a strong-arm approach to strategic supplier relationships is a sub-optimal strategy over the long term.

I already told the story of how experience with stellar outside counsel changed my outlook on the inside/outside counsel relationship. But the most influential narrative in the evolution of my scholastic understanding of supplier relationships comes from automotive industry after the SUV bubble popped in the late 90’s.

For the first time, the Big 3 experienced the Japanese automakers as an existential threat. In studying their competition, the Big 3 found that the supply base was a substantial source of the Japanese cost advantage. The Big 3 sought to mitigate this advantage by leaning on their own suppliers for cost reductions, which they got—just not enough. The Big 3 also had to deal with the fallout from the rapid transformation of their supplier relationships. This fallout included inferior quality parts and a depleted, antagonized supply base, many of whom went bankrupt in the Great Recession.

The Big 3’s cost savings were insufficient because the Japanese automakers responded with cost reduction targets of their own. In addition to lower costs, the Japanese also mandated quality improvements. The Japanese automakers achieved both reduced cost and improved quality while emerging with an engaged, profitable supply base, which included many American suppliers. The distinguishing feature in the Japanese approach is that the Japanese assisted their suppliers in hitting their targets.

Consulting teams were dispatched to strategically important suppliers with the sole purpose of helping the suppliers achieve the twin mandates of cost reduction and quality improvement. The effort was not only about developing better processes at the suppliers but also better integration of the suppliers into the overall economic value chain. The objective was more than just better performing suppliers, it was deeper supplier relationships, which are founded on a commitment to coprosperity.

It is hard to imagine a well-regarded law firm run by smart lawyers going bankrupt (well, not that hard to imagine). And not even I am arrogant enough to entertain the notion of inside counsel telling outside counsel how to run a law firm (which has always struck me as akin to herding drunken cats). But I have first-hand experience with how structured dialogue, clear expectations, and collaboration can benefit both sides of the relationship. Law firms can do better. So can clients. It is much easier to pursue better together.

In my next post, I will discuss how, even in an environment still dominated by the billable hour, improved quality and reduced costs for clients can result in higher realizations and profits for law firms.

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Casey Flaherty is the founder of Procertas. He is a lawyer, consultant, writer, and speaker focused on achieving the right legal outcomes with the right people doing the right work the right way at the right price. Casey created the Service Delivery Review (f.k.a., the Legal Tech Audit), a strategic-sourcing tool that drives deeper supplier relationships by facilitating structured dialogue between law firms and clients. There is more than enough slack in the legal market for clients to get higher quality work at lower cost while law firms increase profits via improved realizations.
The premise of the Service Delivery Review is that with people and pricing in place, rigorous collaboration on process offers the real levers to drive continuous improvement. Proper collaboration means involving nontraditional stakeholders. A prime example is addressing the need for more training on existing technology. One obstacle is that traditional technology training methods are terribleCompetence-based assessments paired with synchronous, active learning offer a better path forward. Following these principles, Casey created the Legal Technology Assessment platform to reduce total training time, enhance training effectiveness, and deliver benchmarked results.
Connect with Casey on LinkedIn or follow him Twitter (@DCaseyF).
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Photo of Casey Flaherty Casey Flaherty

I am the co-founder and chief strategy officer at LexFusion, the go-to-market collective of legal innovation companies (tech and services). I am also the co-founder of Procertas (competency-based tech training). I was a BigLaw litigator and then in-house counsel who went into…

I am the co-founder and chief strategy officer at LexFusion, the go-to-market collective of legal innovation companies (tech and services). I am also the co-founder of Procertas (competency-based tech training). I was a BigLaw litigator and then in-house counsel who went into legal operations consulting before one of my BigLaw consulting clients hired me full-time to help them build the biggest and best legal project management team in world. A Lean Six Sigma black belt, I tend to think in terms of scalable systems that properly leverage people through process and technology. I am deeply experienced in legal operations, legal tech, strategic sourcing, process improvement, systems re-engineering, and value storytelling, in addition to spending over a decade in the legal trenches as a practitioner. I’ve long served  as a mesh point between law departments and law firms to promote structured dialogue that fosters deep supplier relationships (read about that here). I am a regular writer and speaker on practical legal innovation.