New Model for Businesses Hiring Lawyers
Is the DuPont model dead? Larry Bodine seems to think so.
Under the Dupont model, a corporation picked several firms to handle all of its work across the country. The practice was known as "convergence."
But legal marketing guru Bodine believes that "pinpointing" or "cherrypicking" is the model more and more corporations are adopting.
Here is an excerpt of Larry's article on the subject: "In my opinion, convergence was a failure for corporations. The Big Companies didn't save any money using the DuPont Model. Sure, they winnowed down their list of 200 law firms down to 5 law firms. But the lawyers demanded to get all of a company's legal work, charged blended rates so that the handling lawyer would probably be an associate, and insisted on bonus fees for unusually good results. In the end, the corporations wound up with 5 mega-firms, all charging $600 an hour and the company's legal costs went up. ACC research bears me out on this."
"So corporations in 2005 began seeking out litigation boutiques in Buffalo, rather than fly their megafirm lawyer up from New York City. Big Companies began hiring local specialists, who charged local rates, to handle local problems in Baton Rouge. After a while, I began to notice that lots of little firms everywhere are getting work from titanic publicly-held companies."
Read more here. Here is another article that discusses a similar concept.
We are seeing a similar trend. More and more companies seem to be understanding that a law firm known for its expertise in securities or tax may not necessarily be the best law firm for a litigation matter.
I mean, would you go to a boat dealership to fix your Mercedes just because they did a great job on your boat?