The term “outside counsel management” itself is somewhat misleading, according to BASF Corp. ranking lawyer Matthew Lepore.

“I don’t want to have to manage how my firms are choosing hotels and all that,” Lepore said in an interview. “It’s not really management as much as it is building relationships with these key firms so they can be an extension of our in-house department. … It’s definitely not our attorneys’ intention to manage those firms.”