Legal Department of the Year: Bank of the West, Honorable Mention, Outside Counsel Management

Banking is “an alphabet soup of regulation,” says Christopher Ball, executive vice president and deputy GC at Bank of the West. So it would be understandable if the combination of the intense post-recession regulatory environment and ever-higher billing rates meant that the bank’s outside counsel costs were ballooning. Yet Bank of the West has managed to reduce its outside counsel spend for two straight years. It’s projected to decline again this year, coming in at about $20 million.

To achieve this, the bank has brought more work in-house, hiring attorneys with experience in real estate, HR, lending and workouts. Though the legal team is lean, Ball’s lawyers have considerable collective experience—an average of about 20 years each—so they know when to look outside, and what to look for. They hire individuals, says Ball, and not law firms, freeing the bank to obtain expertise that exists outside the expensive national firms. That flexibility is all the more important as the bank routinely handles matters in far-flung, rural areas.