Based on my consulting impressions, general counsel are not all that enamored with cross-selling by partners of a firm they have retained. (By the way, I define cross selling as an effort to persuade a purchaser of one kind of legal services to try the firm on another kind of…
Jordan Furlong writes clearly and persuasively about three telling reasons why general counsel haven’t sharpened their cost-cutting knives. Midway through he summarize his reasons: “I actually think the first two reasons account for most of the problem: GCs are under-incentivized and overburdened by distracted bosses. But even if and when…
… groaned the GC, commenting on the competition going on between two partners from a large law firm who battled right in front of him for his attention. Each of the two partners wanted the right to be credited as “Billing Partner” and in addition appeared to hate each other…
Large law firms will accept smaller assignments if doing so will not conflict them out of larger assignments later. In fact, Corp. Counsel, Vol. 15, Aug. 2008 at 22, states that “more companies are being asked to sign a blanket waiver that allows a firm to represent a client’s rivals…
This was one of the questions Paul Boynton asked me on a recent podcast. My response was “no, but that is an interesting possibility.” As I thought about it later, there is no reason a general counsel can’t ask a responsible partner who does a lot of work for the…
… requested the GC, explaining that one of the roles of the relationship partner is to act as a talent agent to introduce the firm’s rising stars and up-and-coming practice areas. But I thought that law departments were tired of the constant sales pitches and cross-sell attempts made by their…
Law Department Management Blog welcomes as a guest author leading law-firm consultant Bruce Heintz. Bruce has written five posts which will appear in the next few days. Each begins with a pithy quote from a GC that raises a particular law department management issue. Next, Bruce asks readers a question…
Alex Arato, associate general counsel of CA Inc., recently described his law department’s RFP process. As reported in InsideCounsel, Jan. 2009 at 58, Arato solicits around five to seven firms for proposals on individual matters. That number makes sense (See my post of Oct. 26, 2007: seven tips for more…
ITV, the public broadcasting network for TV in Britain, slashed the number of external law firms it uses from almost 50 to nine, according to Corp. Counsel, Vol. 16, Feb. 2009 at 52. Moreover, group legal director and general counsel Andrew Garard selected the nine firms for three-year terms and…
Karen Kaplowitz of The New Ellis Group issues periodic newsletters, one of which contains several suggestions for how law firms can improve their RFP responses. Three of them would be good for your law department to suggest to the firms competing for your business. Answer each question as briefly as…