Many law departments have offices in several countries

For example, Aon scatters approximately 250 legal professionals in 17 countries, McDonalds has lawyers in 19 countries, and Carrefour has lawyers in even more – 30 countries. But those aren’t the most spread out. BP operates at least 36 offices with lawyers, HSBC has some 650 lawyers worldwide in 40-some countries, and Royal Dutch Shell’s diaspora department has offices in more than 50 countries (See my post of Aug. 6, 2008: McDonalds; May 27, 2007: Carrefour; April 23, 2007: BP; March 17, 2006: HSBC; and Dec. 14, 2005: Royal Dutch Shell, approximately 650 lawyers worldwide.

Mere pikers, these, since apparently Cisco has 230 total legal staff in 72 countries (See my post of March 26, 2008: Cisco.).

That sample of legal departments represents but a portion of the geographically-dispersed legal departments. Scores of law departments likely have outpost offices of lawyers in more than ten countries. Moreover, the number of departments with multiple out-of-main-country offices is rising constantly as well as the number of their remote offices. Here are several others found on this blog (See my post of Jan. 28, 2007: JDS Uniphase had 30 lawyers in four countries; Feb. 1, 2007: Cummins had 21 in-house lawyers as well as 9 paralegals and administrative personnel in five countries; April 18, 2005: Barclay’s lawyers, based in 17 countries; Jan. 1, 2006: GE Consumer Finance in 2006 included more than 110 lawyers in 21 countries; and April 17, 2007: Johnson & Johnson had lawyers in more than 35 offices around the world.).