A prominent GC, in a private conversation, recently told me that he is willing to pay his outside counsel a lot for wisdom and judgment, and nothing for information and process. Unfortunately, under the current business structures prevalent in law, with hourly pricing, most of what firms charge for and clients pay for is “information and process.” This is where the bulk of commercial lawyer time is spent today. So even if my GC friend’s “nothing” really meant “very little” (which I am confident it did), there is every incentive, other than preserving jobs for lawyers, for smart firms to move in the direction of maximizing the value of their wisdom and judgment, while minimizing the cost of their information and processes. It is precisely these areas that are the most subject to improvements, streamlining, outsourcing and the like.
Source: hildebrandt.com