One size doesn’t fit all. Everyone knows it’s true, but somehow this truth hadn’t penetrated our Best Legal Department com­petition. For six years, tiny law departments, if they wanted to vie for this award, were forced to compete against the largest law departments in the land. And the staff of Corporate Counsel had to try to compare them.

We’ve done our best, but it hasn’t been easy. When you’re picking one department, and you’ve got several hundred lawyers with vast resources in one corner, and a team of three dozen attorneys with far fewer re­sources—but lots of resourcefulness—in the other, it’s tricky. You don’t want to reward the big department just because it’s big. Nor do you want to penalize it for that reason.

Best Legal Departments 2012: