Law firm panels were common among French law departments, fee arrangements less so

A survey of French law departments during the fall of 2010 asked whether they had put in place a panel of law firms and negotiated fee arrangement with those firms. From responses of 91 general counsel, two thirds of them had done so (69%). Convergence and discounts have become a common tactic around the world. Convergence is not a continuous process. From the following question, it is clear that few of the French law departments (17%) plan to reduce further the number of law firms with which they work.

The benchmark survey cited above was conducted by Helene Trink of Profit & Law together with Equiteam, an executive recruitment firm. They invited 475 general counsel (Directeurs juridiques d’enterprises) of which 100 responded. The cited data comes from page 10 of the report.