A law department that forces its key law firms to invest at their cost in technology

Rather than paraphrase, here is the surprising quote from an interview with the former general counsel of Bombardier: The Canadian company’s GC “requires key firms that work with his law department [to] invest in whatever systems they need to provide the Bombardier law department with the data and information it needs – at no cost to Bombardier. This should be part of how the firm does business.” Quite an in-your-face position!

This provocative quote is found in the ACC Docket, Sept. 2010 at Supp. 8. Its premise stands up acceptably – expect more from you primary firms – but its scope troubles. No law firm can genuinely commit to invest from its own purse in whatever software capabilities a client would like. Such an open-ended promise should alarm the partnership (See my post of Aug. 4, 2008: interventions with three posts and 40 references.).