I had an eye-opening lunch recently with an area associate general counsel of a major U.S. company with over 1 million customers. This in-house counsel hires and oversees the majority of law firms that conduct litigation on her company's behalf.

When this in-house counsel started with her company several years ago, the company was using hundreds of outside law firms. Today, they work with 10, that's right—10 go-to law firms as outside counsel (not including local counsel).