LEGAL OPERATIONS
How to Drive Efficiencies and Savings in Critical Legal Vendor Relationships By JOE POLIZZOTTO
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ince the rise of corporate law departments in the early 1990s, the management of outside counsel and related law department vendors has occupied a central focus. There has probably been more ink spilled on this topic than on any other aspect of how law departments manage their affairs. Truth be told, even with the advent of new technologies that have greatly
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increased the options for how legal services are delivered to corporate clients, a number of familiar themes continue to dominate the dynamic over how law departments relate to outside counsel. There have been several discernible shifts in recent years over how outside counsel and other legal vendors are chosen. It wasn’t all that long ago that the selection and
NOVEMBER 2023
retention of outside counsel rested entirely with the general counsel and the lawyers within the organization’s legal department. With the emergence of legal operations as a key discipline within most corporate law departments, however, it is not surprising that those professionals play a central, if not dominant, role in the selection process. Legal operations personnel BACK TO CONTENTS
