Take it from a former in-house attorney, metrics are essential in choosing which outside counsel to engage and retain. Unfortunately, in my experience, we rarely use metrics in making these decisions, and even when we do so, we often use vague, subjective satisfaction evaluations or make the mistake of evaluating an entire law firm instead of the attorneys within that firm that will perform our service.
I remember once when I gave a transactional matter to an AmLaw 20 firm while I was in-house counsel at a Fortune 500 company.
