fee-arrangement-structuring

Description

AFA design, scope-to-fee matching, negotiation preparation, and health check for in-house legal ops teams managing outside counsel arrangements. Design fee structures (fixed, capped, collar, blended, phased, success) matched to matter characteristics. Assess whether scope supports a proposed AFA structure. Prepare commercial positions for fee renegotiation conversations. Review existing AFAs against delivery data. Trigger on: 'structure the fee for this matter', 'move off hourly', 'design an AFA', 'fixed fee for this type of work', 'does scope support a fixed fee?', 'negotiate the fee', 'renegotiate the arrangement', 'is our AFA holding?', 'fee health check', 'cap is being approached', 'firm is claiming OOS', 'AI should reduce the cost', 'blended rate vs fixed', 'collar arrangement', 'phased fees', 'success fee structure'.

What This Skill Does

Structures commercial fee arrangements between in-house legal teams and outside counsel. Encodes the methodology for selecting, documenting, stress-testing, and renegotiating AFA structures across the full arrangement lifecycle.

This skill does NOT:

• Build the phase-based matter budget or track WIP variance — use budget-and-fee-manager (LPM Core)
• Draft billing guidelines or rate card policy — use engagement-terms-billing-guidelines (OCM Skill 1)
• Run the RFP process or evaluate firm proposals — use rfp-pitch-management (OCM Skill 3)
• Manage scope change control from the law firm side — that is a firm-side LPM function; this skill handles scope disputes from the in-house client perspective

Cross-skill connection: fee-arrangement-structuring determines the commercial structure. budget-and-fee-manager models whether the number is viable and monitors actual vs agreed during execution.