A Call to Action

The Association of Corporate Council's (ACC) Value Challenge Law Firm Committee has joined forces with the Legal Marketing Association. The new committee, LMA-ACC Advisory Council, will continue to focus on helping the ACC align value and cost for legal services in the marketplace.

Last year, when ACC closed its rating system, the Value Index, (only a few years after it was launched), many asked, “Is ACC moving away from the Value Challenge as a focus?” We caught up with the LMA-ACC Advisory Council co-chairs, Kristin Sudholz and Felice Wagner, to answer the question. “Quite to the contrary, ACC is committed now more than ever to the Value Challenge,” according to Ms. Wagner.

“In fact, ACC has created an exciting new program titled Value Champions,” added Sudholz. The Value Champions program is designed to identify, celebrate and publicize successful law department initiatives and law firm/client collaborations to drive value in legal spending. The Value Champions program will work in concert with many of the other resources available on ACC's website and educational programs.

ACC has stated that when the Value Challenge began, the focus was on client/firm engagement to find ways to reconnect the cost to the value of legal bills. Under the banner of “Meet. Talk. Act.”, in-house counsel and law firms identified ways to improve efficiency and predictability. Three years later, as the ACC Value Challenge hits its stride, ACC is focusing on “actions” and tangible results by way of:

• Metrics ' because “what gets measured gets done.” We invite law department leaders to adopt aggressive targets to continue to reduce costs, improve predictability of spending, and achieve better legal outcomes, according to ACC.
• Celebrating ACC Value Champions ' the leaders in law departments, and in the firms with which they work, who have implemented value initiatives to achieve outstanding results against these key metrics.

Like most recognition programs, the winners will be chosen through a nomination process. You don't need to be a member of ACC to participate. All in-house counsel are encouraged to self-nominate or submit a joint nomination with their outside counsel. So, it's time to team up with our clients in a new way, and share our success stories of collaboration ' be sure to meet the deadline of March 15, 2012.

To learn more about the nomination criteria, judges, and application details visit www.acc.com/valuechallenge/valueChamps/.

A member of this newsletter's Board of Editors, Beth Cuzzone is Director of Client Service and Business Development at Goulston & Storrs. She may be reached at 617-574-6525 or via e-mail at [email protected].

The Association of Corporate Council's (ACC) Value Challenge Law Firm Committee has joined forces with the Legal Marketing Association. The new committee, LMA-ACC Advisory Council, will continue to focus on helping the ACC align value and cost for legal services in the marketplace.

Last year, when ACC closed its rating system, the Value Index, (only a few years after it was launched), many asked, “Is ACC moving away from the Value Challenge as a focus?” We caught up with the LMA-ACC Advisory Council co-chairs, Kristin Sudholz and Felice Wagner, to answer the question. “Quite to the contrary, ACC is committed now more than ever to the Value Challenge,” according to Ms. Wagner.

“In fact, ACC has created an exciting new program titled Value Champions,” added Sudholz. The Value Champions program is designed to identify, celebrate and publicize successful law department initiatives and law firm/client collaborations to drive value in legal spending. The Value Champions program will work in concert with many of the other resources available on ACC's website and educational programs.

ACC has stated that when the Value Challenge began, the focus was on client/firm engagement to find ways to reconnect the cost to the value of legal bills. Under the banner of “Meet. Talk. Act.”, in-house counsel and law firms identified ways to improve efficiency and predictability. Three years later, as the ACC Value Challenge hits its stride, ACC is focusing on “actions” and tangible results by way of:

• Metrics ' because “what gets measured gets done.” We invite law department leaders to adopt aggressive targets to continue to reduce costs, improve predictability of spending, and achieve better legal outcomes, according to ACC.
• Celebrating ACC Value Champions ' the leaders in law departments, and in the firms with which they work, who have implemented value initiatives to achieve outstanding results against these key metrics.

Like most recognition programs, the winners will be chosen through a nomination process. You don't need to be a member of ACC to participate. All in-house counsel are encouraged to self-nominate or submit a joint nomination with their outside counsel. So, it's time to team up with our clients in a new way, and share our success stories of collaboration ' be sure to meet the deadline of March 15, 2012.

To learn more about the nomination criteria, judges, and application details visit www.acc.com/valuechallenge/valueChamps/.

A member of this newsletter's Board of Editors, Beth Cuzzone is Director of Client Service and Business Development at Goulston & Storrs. She may be reached at 617-574-6525 or via e-mail at [email protected].