The number immediately draws attention — between 2007 and 2012, medical supply and device maker Boston Scientific Corp. cut its outside counsel costs by nearly 60 percent, with a 22 percent cut between 2011 and 2012 alone.
It was the result of a departmental restructuring that began in 2008 with the arrival of general counsel Timothy Pratt, then a 31-year litigator from Shook, Hardy & Bacon who built his career defending pharmaceutical and medical-device litigation and toxic tort cases. Even before lawsuits began to mount in 2011 against Boston Scientific and other producers of transvaginal mesh products, Pratt saw a long-term opportunity to restructure his legal department — not only to boost efficiency and save money, but to put the lion's share of its outside legal work in the most capable hands for all matters, not just litigation.
