An extreme reduction of external counsel, done with RFPs

The North American subsidiary of Japan’s NEC Corporation “whittled its list of law firms from 130 to five” and did so through a competitive process initiated with a Request for Proposal. Counsel to Counsel, May 28 at 4, offers no more about this convergence initiative. On a percentage basis, the casting off of 96 percent of the NEC Corp. of America’s firms is one of the most extreme reductions I have heard about (See my post of Feb. 16, 2008: 26 convergence posts collected.).

If more than one of the five fortunate firms was new to the company, the image I have is that of publicly-traded companies who must change either audit firms or audit partners (I am not sure which) every five years. Maybe companies ought to throw out all the bath water periodically.