The year 2013 is just about past its halfway mark, but that still leaves six months where plenty can happen for general counsel and their corporate clients. The BTI Consulting Group’s “Benchmarking Corporate Counsel Management Strategies” report has some late-breaking trend data for GCs, including a look at the law firms that the survey says are providing the best outside counsel.
The benchmarking report draws on interviews with more than 200 in-house counsel at large U.S. corporations during 2012, 53.3 percent of which were general counsel or chief legal officers, and another 37.1 percent who report to the GC.
Toward the end of the report, BTI focuses on outside counsel and how satisfied their in-house clients are. The survey found that “650 core law firms serve large and Fortune 1000 companies” and “of these, corporate counsel nominate just 332 for superior client service.” Winnowing down even further, BTI found that only 30 firms were rated by in-house counsel as “the absolute best.”
The top 10 firms on that list are:
- Jones Day
- Mayer Brown
- Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom
- McGuireWoods
- Seyfarth Shaw
- Thompson Hine
- Kirkland & Ellis
- Faegre Baker Daniels
- Baker & McKenzie
- Sullivan & Cromwell
In another, perhaps more telling measure of client satisfaction, 42 are called out as those most likely to be recommended by in-house counsel to other in-house lawyers, with Jones Day and Latham & Watkins leading the field as “Most Recommended,” and the remaining 40 divided up into those that are “Predominant Recommended Law Firms” and “Strongly Recommended Law Firms.”
