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As a marketing pitch, full service is empty according to European general counsel

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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 about getting all or much of your legal needs from a single law firm include inconsistent quality across offices, lack of intra-firm coordination, loss of competitive market discipline, different billing methods, and even competitiveness among partners. These reservations are similar to those expressed sometimes about associations of law firms as well as efforts by firms to cross sell services (See my post of Feb. 21, 2008 #2: law-firm networks with 7 references; and Feb. 20, 2009: cross-selling by law firm partners with 7 references.).

The partner you know is better than the promised allures of others; on-target, known services give more value than potential full services (See my post of March 15, 2006: global law departments disparage one-stop shopping.).