Many times I have referred to in-house attorneys in one country retaining law firms in another country. Several posts consider the challenges of doing that (See my post of Jan. 4, 2006: advice regarding cross-border firms; Jan. 4, 2006: foreign firms charge higher rates to non-national clients; Oct. 19, 2007:…
A recent survey of general counsel in Europe offers some advice to law firms: “It is pointless to make ‘independence’ the main banner in their marketing, because clients and potential clients simply do not care.” Whether a local firm has joined a larger firm or has continued to practice on…
To continue the wordplay, at least one group of chief legal officers doesn’t buy “one-stop shopping.” The General Counsel Survey 2009 from the Belgium-based consultants, FrahanBlondé, bluntly concludes (at pg. 23) “the General Counsel do not see full service as a compelling argument for working with a law firm.” Concerns…
A group of 22 legal departments of local authorities in northwest England “is going to set up an online database to provide information on pricing and contacts for the firms and chambers they instruct.” This step moves well beyond what I wrote about three years ago, where only 18 authorities…
A long article in Law Bus. Rev., Winter 2009 at 28, describes the relationship between Tyco International and Eversheds. For a two-year term, Eversheds is handling all of Tyco’s more than 1,300 matters across 70 jurisdictions in EMEA. At the end of the article, the chief lawyer of Tyco’s EMEA…
We all know the canard about two ears and one mouth, but it’s right. When your law department asks a law firm to present its capabilities, whether during an RFP process (an invitation to tender in the UK) or otherwise, tell them how to plan the distribution of their time.…
You could see it coming. “In pitch documents, clients ask what we are doing as a firm on the environment,” says an office services manager at Simmons & Simmons. Here is yet another question on RFPs that may or may not ever make a difference. As regards environmental efforts, Law…
Dynamics differ when you negotiate more favorable rates with firms you already use significantly than when you negotiate with new firms that want your business. With incumbents, the benefits can come more quickly because they are already handling matters and rate reductions kick in at once. For the same reason…
Not talked about much in the groundbreaking arrangement Pfizer has entered into with 19 law firms is that three of them “have formed a partnership in which they bill Pfizer a single fee.” That quote is all that an article, in Corp. Counsel, Vol. 17, Jan. 2010 at 69, tells…
One of the consequences of convergence, when a handful of firms take on a large portion of your work, is that you probably should engage yourself more in their issues of “bench strength,” succession planning, training, evaluations, promotions, and relationship partners – to name a management decisions of law firms.…