Standardized practices regarding outside counsel

I started to list the practices that a law department should consider standardizing in the area of choosing and managing outside counsel. Feeling like Bubba on Forrest Gump, who endlessly listed dishes with shrimp, I note a starter set for appropriate development and enforcing of the SAME:

form of retention letter; outside counsel guidelines; format of bills, method of delivery; bill review and payment process (See my post of Oct. 30, 2005 on rules of one law department.), budget forms and thresholds, evaluation methods, reports back to firms, analysis from the matter management system, format and frequency of status reports, early case assessment (See my post of Sept. 14, 2005 on savings from ECA.), and on an on.