SeyfarthLean and the Firm's ACC Blog Series with Wolverine World Wide
Featured in Two Corporate Counsel Articles

SeyfarthLean and the firm's participation in the Association of Corporate Counsel's (ACC) blog series with client Kenneth Grady, general counsel of Wolverine World Wide, Inc., were featured in two Corporate Counsel articles. The first article, "Getting to Know You," was published on August 20, 2010. The second article, "ACC Blog Series Drives to Core of Client-Firm Relationships," was published on August 25, 2010.

 

The "Getting to Know You" article discussed changes in corporate law departments as it relates to cutting budgets, outside legal spending, and alternative billing. The article highlighted how Lisa Damon, Chair of Seyfarth's Labor & Employment Department, and Grady have written several blog posts on the ACC's website about how they have negotiated fee deals for the Michigan-based shoemaker's trademark portfolio. According to Grady, "we're both spending a fair amount of time working through what makes sense for both of us. It's intended to be a relationship that benefits both sides." The article pointed out that a key to those discussions has been their willingness to exchange data so they can negotiate a fee, measure the arrangement's success, and ultimately eliminate inefficiencies. Grady, for example, has been willing to disclose how much Wolverine has spent on trademark and anticounterfeiting actions. Meanwhile, Damon has proposed using metrics such as overall satisfaction, timeliness of communication and cost-management effectiveness. Grady added, "it's critical that you share information. Part of what makes for an unhappy in-house/outside counsel relationship is the failure to share expectations up front at a sufficient level."

The "ACC Blog Series" article focused on the creation of the blog, which was developed for a general counsel and his or her law firm partner to write about how they are learning to work together. Seyfarth and Grady are the blog's first participants. According to the article, before Seyfarth and Grady started blogging together, the partners independently had taken time to carefully consider their goals and realized they needed to re-evaluate their legal processes to improve performance. Grady commented that "the one thing I keep trying to emphasize is that there isn't any right or wrong to going down this path. The key is to get in there and do something and learn from what you're doing."