Hiring Lawyers by the Numbers

Many companies are instituting new policies for hiring outside counsel -- policies that are making some general counsel squirm and some law firm lawyers shudder.

Under pressure to control expenditures for legal services, general counsel are increasingly called upon to explain their outside counsel hiring practices and the resulting costs to their clients.

More important, while in the past the details of hiring decisions may have been left up to general counsel and their law departments, now many corporate employers are getting involved.

Some corporations are implementing policies that mandate that their procurement or purchasing departments become involved in every decision to outsource services -- including legal work -- says Ron Friedmann, president of Prism Legal Consultants Inc.

Some outside counsel say that this increased involvement by purchasing and procurement departments has resulted in a "commoditization" of legal services -- corporate clients purchasing legal services much like commodities.

"There's a movement right now, across the board, to pay the lowest price you possibly can," says Ed Hansen, a partner in the global outsourcing and technology practice at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius. "On the surface, it seems like a good idea, but companies aren't able to differentiate what's a commodity and what's not. You can't buy outsourcing services like you buy pencils."
Hansen calls outside counsel services "relationship-based contracting," and says those contracts can fail when the GCs need to work internally with management or departments like procurement or purchasing come between in-house and outside counsel.

Read More Here:

http://www.legalnewspost.com/entry/Hiring-Lawyers-by-the-Numbers