David Howard, deputy general counsel of Microsoft Corp. January 15, 2015. HANDOUT.

The company's legal department began using the new approach, dubbed the Strategic Partner Program, July 1 and has named 13 partner law firms so far, including Arent Fox, Covington & Burling, Davis Wright Tremaine, Fish & Richardson and Greenberg Traurig.

David Howard, corporate vice president and deputy general counsel of litigation and competition law and compliance at Microsoft, outlined the new program in a recent LinkedIn post. He told Corporate Counsel in an interview that the Strategic Partner Program is focused on setting up “deeper relationships” with the company's outside counsel.