Inside the Virtual Box: Teamwork. We work like our clients do: virtually or on site with our clients. We have been able to successfully complete complex transactions via telephone conference only, thereby saving traveling expenses and downtime. Other deals require our personal presence, and we can place a senior lawyer on a customer site for extensive negotiations and contract drafting.
Outside the Box: Geography. We cover domestic and international operations for our multinational clients. While we do not provide legal advice on the law of foreign countries, we do collaborate closely with knowledgeable foreign outsourcing lawyers who understand the impact of local law on all phases of the outsourcing lifecycle of needs assessment, contract development, transition, steady state, renegotiation and renewal. We have a network of foreign lawyers in Europe, Asia-Pacific, Canada and Latin America.
Outside the Box: Philosophy. Each of outsourcing attorneys has had exposure to different styles of commercial bargaining. Some clients prefer management consultants to guide them on the risk analysis, readiness assessment, financial structuring, operational planning and monitoring of implementation. All clients have their own culture, approach to reaching fair agreements and a view of their relationship to suppliers and customers. Our own philosophy is both adaptive since we can work with consultants or provide simply limited legal inputs and innovative. We do not use term sheets but prefer to go directly to contract negotiation, even if only at the high levels. We have a toolkit of forms and tailor our documents to the client.
Outside the Box: Filling the Gaps between Enterprise Customer and Service Provider. Outsourcing of responsibilities does not liberate the enterprise customer from its responsibilities to its customers, suppliers, employees, regulators, tax collectors or any other constituency. Contracts allocate obligations, liability and risk. In our experience, contracts are no substitute for demanding that the parties find solutions to filling the inevitable gaps in communication that cause distrust and frustration. We regularly coach our clients on the differences between unilateral contract rights and mutuality in effective contract implementation. We have advised clients on dispute resolution in such fields as delayed or failed transitions, excessive employee turnover, technical fraud (misstatements) and contract interpretation.
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