If you go to a conference of corporate counsel, you could be forgiven for thinking you’ve stepped into a math seminar. Charts dominate the PowerPoint presentations, and speakers talk at length about “metrics” and “value.” Important concepts, especially when you’re talking millions in outside legal expenditures. In-house counsel need to spend that money wisely.
Beyond routine matters, however, there’s something else. The inside-outside counsel relationship is a unique one, especially in bet-the-company litigation more akin to a surgeon-patient duo. And just as we need to trust our doctors, airline mechanics and others who make life-or-death choices for us, so it is with outside law firms. So for this year’s survey of Who Represents Corporate America, we’ve chosen to highlight one example of the longer-term relationships between in-house counsel and the law firms that represent them.
The partnership between UPS and Alston & Bird is as good as it gets. And both sides say it goes to the basic core values that the firm and company share: integrity, trust, and loyalty.
A breakdown by category of the firms appearing most often in the list of outside counsel to Fortune 100 companies.
