Infrequent problems with external counsel, given by Asia-Pacific survey respondents

Having considered the infrequent reasons why legal departments select firms in Asia, let’s look at the infrequent concerns the same survey respondents expressed about dealing with law firms (See my post of Sept. 9, 2009: long-tail reasons for selecting firms.).

The bottom ten of the 16 total reasons were “work performed slowly/inefficiently”; “Missed deadline”; “Lack of involvement by partners”; “Frequent turnover of associates”; “Ethical conflict”; “Change of responsible partner”; “Personality conflict”; “Deteriorating brand name/reputation”; “Other reasons”; and “Bad firm publicity.” These reasons come from a survey by and published in Asian-Counsel, e-edition, Vol. 7, July/Aug. at 28.

Is an “ethical conflict” worse than a “conflict of interest”? Is a “deteriorating brand” different than “bad firm publicity”?