How to motivate outside legal counsel to get us deal docs faster?
We are a small PE shop, and I've noticed that the law firm we use (semi-well known national firm) will promise to have contract sets out to me by a certain date, and miss their deadline with little or no explanation. I am an associate so whenever we have major timing issues and are facing a "do or die" deadline to get something out, my boss who is also a partner in the company will get on the line and just say they MUST get it to us by X date, and there is now zero tolerance for missing this hard deadline.
I'm starting to run my own deals more, but the problem is I can't just throw soft threats at them like that because they know I am not the one signing the check for their bills, or that I have enough clout in my position to really do anything about it.
They are a boutique shop of former biglaw attorneys, so their bandwidth is much more limited than a giant firm which I understand. However, sometimes things need to be sent out by a certain date, and I believe they just need to make it happen. I don't believe in intimidating or "yelling" to make someone work quicker and put their 100% effort forward, but it makes me look extremely bad to my boss when I am running a deal that is facing delays due to legal, to the point where my boss has to give me a hard deadline before he steps in and tells legal he has no tolerance for one more missed deadline.
Any tips on this would be greatly appreciated guys!
When the hard deadline is approaching, get your boss on the phone with them to ask for it done by that date. It also depends on how much priority do they place on your contracts versus other stuffs they have to work on. If these are your own deals without much involvement from the senior people then you probably don't have much leverage over them.
Can't you just fire them and use another law firm that actually does what they're paid to do on time? There's a bunch of solid corporate law firms out there.
If this law firm keeps coming in late in the short-term, then suggest to your boss maybe your firm should find new legal counsel.
Unless the lead attorney is married to your boss' sister or these guys are billing at like $250/hour, it is baffling to me that this is tolerated by your firm. There are so many good attornies out there who will not just get work done in time, but who will actually be a partner to you in the deal and provide legal insight that could impact a business/deal decision. Anyway, part of your job as a deal qb is to manage these guys, so if this is a problem and you have raised it numerous times in the past, you need to lay down the hammer. Myriad ways to do this.... perhaps tell them that for every day they miss a deadline without explanation, you are going to wait an extra week to pay their next bill.
They do great work and truly understand our business, but getting rid of them isn't an option due to inside connections that allow us to get better rates than using a competing firm. Obviously not as low as what you put, but enough that it's worth it for us. Supplementing them with another law firm is an option which we have all discussed, but doesn't help when this firm is working on something and we need it back.
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