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Although not my view, six more arguments against competitive bidding processes

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Two years ago I catalogued ten reasons not to stoop to competitive selections of outside counsel (See my post of Oct. 10, 2008: reasons to oppose competitive bids.). Still strongly in favor of that method, I recognize that opponents might put forth additional reasons. Perhaps in a follow-up post I will counter-argue.

  1. The process risks disclosure of too much sensitive information about the company’s external counsel spending and legal profile.

  2. Responses from the firms, while proclaiming uniqueness, all sound about the same. Marketing polish has homogenized proposal material.

  3. No objective, reliable methods exist to rank proposals. It boils down to judgment so why add on the all the spurious numbers and process?

  4. If you enforce a level playing field, you deny firms the ability to take advantage of differentiated access and knowledge they may have. Why shackle those in the know?

  5. Related to the objection before, competitive processes privilege incumbent firms who know so much more. It can’t be a truly fair competition, so why pretend?

  6. If you engage in a competitive selection, you might have to involve the dreaded Procurement.