Offices and countries of dispersed legal departments – UTC’s metrics

A wonderful picture of many of the lawyers in the legal department of United Technologies says above it: “248 lawyers – 21 countries.” That photo, in a presentation by Associate General Counsel Chester Paul Beach at a conference in early December, adds nuance to a previous source that said UTC had “250 attorneys located in 55 global offices” (See my post of May 29, 2009: collected references to UTC on this blog.).

Taken together, 21 countries and 55 global offices give yet another view of dispersion. To think naively of a single legal department pod in each country where there are lawyers is to undercount seriously the scatter that is more likely. For the record, the $58.4 billion company has operations in 180+ countries and 208,000 employees, so many places where business goes on have no lawyer based in the same country.

UTC metrics pop out all over: 4.2 lawyers per billion of revenue (down from 5.2 in 2004); 839 employees per lawyer; an average of 2.6 law offices per country. A feast of figures!