Law Department Management Blog
About 1995, Marriott International shrank its “bloated legal Rolodex” from well over 200 law firms to the ten firms that a decade later handle 90 percent of the company’s external counsel work. Such longevity and stability of key firms astounds me; it is much to the credit of law department and its key law firms.
Corporate Counsel provided these facts (Aug. 19, 2005) and added a curious additional fact. The law department’s person who “manages in-house/law firm relations” – that position, too, being atself a second unusual feature of the department – says that “she tries to send the same amount of work to each firm.” If this means that each firm receives approximately $2 million a year from Marriott (one-tenth of the $20 million a year Marriott spends on outside counsel) this third oddity even more startles me. Surely the firms are not that fungible!