Usually, Peter Carter is on the receiving end of pitches from lawyers. But on April 13, Delta's chief legal officer flipped the table, making a pitch of his own to about 150 lawyers.

“I am waiting for the law firm that figures out project-based billing,” Carter said during a panel discussion. “I think the industry is begging for it, and I personally am.”

Carter's self-described pitch was directed to attendees of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association's Southeast Regional Conference in Atlanta. The event included a panel discussion featuring Carter and other top lawyers at Fortune 500 companies: Norman Brothers of UPS Inc., Lucy Fato of AIG Inc. and Rhonda Ferguson of Union Pacific. The discussion was moderated by Michael Wu, GC at Atlanta-based Carter's Inc.

During the wide-ranging discussion, the top lawyers touched on everything from their roles within their organization to what makes a good GC, to their relationships with their outside counsel, a topic which had a unanimous response: Know our business.

Brothers said of his core outside counsel network of just about 26 firms: “What makes firms successful within the network are those that understand our business and are proactive about helping us identify issues we haven't thought about.”

Ferguson added that, in addition to knowledge of the business, she also pays close attention to early resolutions of cases, while Carter said that his outside lawyers must reflect the company's culture and brand.

“These lawyers are Delta incarnate in court,” he said.

And, of course, the bottom line always still matters, the panelists said.

Firms do a disservice to themselves when they send “eye-popping” bills that include rates of up to $1,400 per hour, Fato said. They would be well served, she added, to examine their rates and bills before sending them out.

Alternative billing arrangements often make sense in some situations, Fato said.

“There are some matters where fixed fees are appropriate because they're low-dollar, high-volume,” she said.

To Carter, the key lies in project-based billing.

“It would mean a lot to me if a law firm could give me a project number so that I could look and see that I am going to make my budget every year,” he said.

But it's not just outside relationships that matter, the panelists said. A general counsel's relationship with the company's CEO and other executives is among the most critical, they said.

“It's all about relationships and rapport and being very intentional about developing those relationships,” UPS' Brothers said. “It is impossible to be effective at these jobs unless you have these relationships.”

So what makes an effective GC? Someone who can be the “calm conscience of the company,” Union Pacific's Ferguson said.

“You deal with a lot of gray, so you need someone who can discern and prioritize accordingly,” she said.

Added AIG's Fato: “As GC, you must always remember that your client is the corporation, which is often a tricky balance. You have to find a way to remind people to ask, 'What do we think is best for the company in this situation?'”