Law firm partners around the world will want to pour a cool one and sip on this: The chief legal officer of the world’s largest brewing company in terms of volume has published a no-holds-barred list of how to get and keep her business.
Sabine Chalmers, chief legal and communications officer for Belgium-based InBev, authored an article titled “What a Client Really Wants from External Counsel” in the June issue of Docket, the journal of the Association of Corporate Counsel. She said the article developed from a year-and-a-half-long review of external service providers the company performed to winnow its law firms to a list of “preferred relationships.” Dug the process, a number of firms that worked closely with the company asked her to clearly outline InBev’s “real” expectations. “Don’t hold back any punches,” they said.
