This Cat Has Claws

Lawyers for Caterpillar Inc. don’t shy away from legal battles. You might say they move the earth — perhaps it’s a byproduct of being the world’s largest maker of construction equipment. “We will not be pressed or coerced into a settlement just because we have deep pockets,” says Wesley Blumenshine, the associate general counsel who heads the company’s litigation group. “If we’re at fault, we’ll rectify the problem. If we aren’t, we won’t be bullied.”

They fight litigation like a machine, following the same problem-solving process Caterpillar uses to assemble its mammoth tractors: Six Sigma. (For the uninitiated, Six Sigma is a quality control system that analyzes work in minute detail and tries to find improvement at each step.) As Six Sigma acolytes, Caterpillar’s lawyers are data-driven. They identify and solve problems by analyzing statistics, and measure the results to track their progress. And almost every legal decision at the company that’s called Peoria, Ill., home for the last 80 years is made as a team, according to the clearly defined method.