CMS Camerons: Act II

The Lawyer reported additional details on the CMS Cameron McKenna outsourcing arrangement with Integreon. The piece reported on some of the internal issues that are arising with such a massive outsourcing initiative that will potentially touch all aspects of Cameron’s support functions.

The article highlights the importance of change management, which is a critical component of a successful legal outsourcing engagement. While most LPO deals do not constitute such a monolithic decision and to date all LPO deals have been supporting legal professionals and rather than transferring law firm staff to an LPO vendor, proper change management functions are a must.

Key issues include engaging an appropriate number of stakeholders both within and outside of the organization as well as designating a champion role in the initiative. We do applaud Camerons, and more specifically Tony Wright, for positioning himself as a senior, respected figure within the firm to champion the engagement.

We will continue to watch this deal with interest as it goes forward through the due diligence phase. The ability to discern core from the non-core and strategic from the non-strategic issues is at the heart of every outsourcing engagement. As noted in the article, Osborne Clarke found certain functions to be better retained internally. More details are available in my book Implementing a Successful Legal Outsourcing Engagement where Osborne Clarke is featured as a case study. The core vs. non-core decisions will be unique for every organization and, undoubtedly, Camerons will come to their own conclusions.

One thing is certain, you can’t outsource change management and you can’t outsource effective governance.