Many law departments that are bedeviled by a swarm of lawsuits hire a single law firm to coordinate the defense. If cases are pending throughout the country, then the so-called national coordinating counsel will handle cases in jurisdictions where the firm has capable litigators who are admitted, and will turn to local counsel for the remaining cases. A coordinating firm rides herd on the other firms, unlike a virtual team of firms or a multi-source group of firms (See my post of July 16, 2005 on this term.).
Principally, national coordinating counsel strive to maintain a consistent approach by the company to discovery requests and strategy. They prepare standard forms of documents and pleadings, they serve as a research clearing house, and they respond to skirmishes across the entire battlefront.