Law departments can hire local firms in different countries, they can hire a large firm with foreign offices, or they can turn to a law firm that belongs to an association that has international members. A report three years ago by one of the largest of such associations, Lex Mundi,…
For major matters such as class action defenses, acquisitions of public companies, and significant SEC filings, the top lawyer – the chief legal officer – typically approves which law firm to hire. But when a 2002 study commissioned by Lex Mundi (conducted by Altman Weil) reported that in an international…
A 2002 study commissioned by Lex Mundi (conducted by Altman Weil) found among an international group of law departments that “one-third of all respondents maintain a list of approved outside counsel for work performed domestically.” Unsurprising, but to what end? No one has compared legal spending as a percent of…
In 18 years of consulting to hundreds of law departments, I have yet to see a formal statement of rules to determine whether a law firm is in conflict with the company. The common coin enjoins law suits brought against the company retaining a firm. Beyond that, I suspect that…
Does it make sense to hire only partners? Here’s a man bites dog tale. The General Counsel of a small insurance company, with four corporate lawyers and a larger number of claims staff, stated publicly that her policy was to retain the services only of law firm partners. Partners only?…
Here’s what to do to start analyzing your outside counsel spending. In a spreadsheet, list down the first column all the law firms you paid during the past three years. Next, create a column for each area of law that has significant outside counsel spending: litigation, patent and trademark, finance…
A recent item made the point that the burn rate tends to soar in the period just before trial. [www.mondaq.com/article/asp?articleid=31137&hotopic=1] If a law department insists on budgets from its litigation firms, Russell Barron of Foley & Lardner urges the responsible in-house lawyer to ask for more frequent budget updates during…
An article in the ABA Journal (May 2005 at pg. 30) quotes the managing partner of Reed Smith, who “can foresee a time when there will be 30 or 40 major international law firms that are working with most of the major business organizations in the world and in most…
Forty five Chief Legal Officers located in Europe were asked by Altman Weil, the Association of Corporate Counsel and the Practical Law Company “What is the single most innovative practice proposed or used by your outside counsel in the last twelve months?” The most common answer was “none” — only…
A question on a recent survey asked “Have you fired or are you considering firing, (sic) one of your law firms this year?” Fifty-four percent of the respondents answered “yes.” As I thought about this finding, published by Altman Weil, the Association of Corporate Counsel and the Practical Law Company…