The US law firm now called Howrey a few years ago agreed to defend Chinese cellphone battery maker BYD Co. in a patent infringement suit. The law firm agreed to discount its hours in return for a bonus if a good verdict or settlement was reached. When the case settled…
At RBC Financial Group (part of the Royal Bank of Canada), the law department uses an internal survey to ask its lawyers to rate on a scale of one to 100 the performance of the firms they use. The numeric ratings matter, “but the most useful information is often the…
Rick MacKenzie, and associate general counsel at BMO Financial Group in Canada, offers some insight about how his bank intends to reduce outside counsel expenses by 10 and 15 percent over three years. As described in LEXPERT, Vol. 8, July/Aug. 2007 at 63, the bank’s new procurement system takes advantage…
GC Mid-Atlantic, July 2007 at 19, mentions that “recently, Wal-Mart Inc. reportedly required that its top 100 firms include at least one woman and one minority attorney among the top five attorneys handling the giant corporation’s legal business.” E-billing software makes it easy for law departments to track compliance with…
One of the difficulties with alternative fee arrangements is that early in a matter it isn’t possible to foresee future events and craft a fee arrangement that complements what is likely to happen. Who can know enough about the other side, the court, the issues, and the external actors who…
Some people argue that smaller law firms are more receptive to alternative fee arrangements than are very large firms. Let’s look at both sides in that debate. Very large law firms are more likely to have extensive experience, even in a highly specialized area of law, so they know more…
When Daniel Churay joined YTC Worldwide, a $10 billion trucking company, in 2003 the law department head 722 law firms working for it. Quoted in a profile in the Nat’l L.J., Vol. 29, July 9, 2007 at 8, Churay gave a neat spin to the essence of convergence: “we are…
From a recent, large-scale survey, reported in Inside Counsel, July 2007 at 61, I have little to quarrel with about the top four factors law departments chose on why they select the law firms they select: “quality of work” and “responsiveness” were tied at the top followed by “creative solutions.”…
When asked in a survey, reported in Inside Counsel, July 2007 at 61, which of nine choices are the most important factors in their selecting outside counsel, the 862 responding in-house counsel put “quality of work” and “responsiveness” as the top two, equally ranked, factors. What caught my eye was…
Law firm partners, especially those in very large firms, often cannot act unilaterally when they seek to work out the economic terms for how they will represent a law department. At least five gatekeepers may put up their hand to stop or alter a deal. Partners may have to run…