If there ever was a time when general counsels appointed law firms over a second bottle of Bollinger at Lord’s cricket ground, then those days are very much in the past. The process of winning an appointment to a corporate panel has become much more formal and transparent, thanks in part to the growing influence of corporate procurement departments.
Traditionally, procurement’s control over expenditure covered indirect materials and routine services – laptops, office equipment, stationery, facilities management – as well as direct spend items such as raw materials or components.
