Biglaw, General Counsel, In-House Counsel

The Best Offense Is A Good… Network Of Law Firms

An argument in favor of in-house counsel spreading their business across multiple firms.

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biglaw soldier armyCall it naiveté or the Hollywoodifcation of things, but before going in-house, I assumed large companies like ours had a single Biglaw firm they turned to for everything.

I thought a single Biglaw firm, in exchange for a large retainer, would handle all aspects of that company’s business. After all, I presumed when you retained the biggest of Biglaw firms, they would be equipped to handle all aspects of a company’s business.

I had the image of a company being wooed by multiple firms, much like LeBron choosing Miami, before ultimately taking their talents to the inevitable Latham & Watkins or Skadden Arps.

Very quickly after going in-house, however, I realized we had multiple firms on speed dial. Biglaw, Midlaw, and Smalllaw alike, we were a near equal-opportunity client. While we do have some favored firms we turn to for our most trusted engagements, a single firm rarely captures more than a quarter of our business in a given year.

At first, I was admittedly confused by this decision. If our Biglaw firm of choice could handle the variety of issues we would throw at it, what would be the need for another?

That is, until our legal department received a request from one of our regular firms for a conflict waiver. This particular waiver was rather harmless. The firm wished to represent a plaintiff against one of our former physicians in a medical malpractice case. This waiver, like countless others, was granted without much thought.

When I inquired why we spread our business around so often as to require such seemingly mundane conflict requests, an attorney who had been with the company for years raised his head from a stack of papers and rather dryly quipped, “Knowledge is power.”

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He explained that each time we are requested to sign a conflict waiver, we not only gain a little bit of knowledge on the state of legal affairs around the state, but we gain leverage in our ability to say no.

He recalled a time he was in a meeting with a potentially adverse, out-of-state party who broadly claimed our company had better accept their proposal or else they would retain the largest Biglaw firm in town!

He let on a big grin as he said he told them that particular Biglaw firm was a trusted counselor of ours who had not requested a conflict waiver to represent the client, and if they did, he would decline it given the nature of the present dispute.

He chuckled as he recalled how the faces of the adverse party sank as they knew their bluff had been called. Not only did they have a weak case, they also had no counsel to represent them. And even if they did decide to go firm shopping, they would quickly find there were very few firms in town who could, or would, want to engage them as a client.

In that moment, it clicked. Sure, while it is nice for the local large company to spread its legal business around town to gain some powerful friends, the real value comes in the ability to deny a firm a potential engagement.

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Denying an adverse party local Biglaw counsel can derail their potential dispute before it even gets off the ground.

So to those in-house who are satisfied with their current single Biglaw engagement, I implore you, look to the others in the city. Not only will you be able to gain a fresh perspective on a given issue, you just may be able to shut down an adversary before they get started.

Stephen R. Williams is in-house counsel with a multi-facility hospital network in the Midwest. His column focuses on a little talked about area of the in-house life, management. You can reach Stephen at stephenwilliamsjd@gmail.com.

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