"When FMC Corp. hired a procurement consulting company this year to analyze potential cost savings across any indirect spending, it sent a shudder through the legal department whose general counsel admits she was a bit skeptical at first of the impact such data analytics would have on her choices for outside counsel.

But for general counsel Andrea Utecht, she is willing to see where the process will take her as she also has to deal with weeding out the duplication of law firms in a number of regions after FMC’s acquisition last year of Denmark-based Cheminova.

At the end of the process, through which the consultant, GEP, anticipates a 5 percent reduction in legal spend, Utecht expects the number of firms she uses to be reduced and the types of financial arrangements she has with the remaining firms to look different in some cases.

Utecht is far from alone when it comes to in-house counsel looking to adjust their outside law firm complement. While convergence is far from new, general counsel have expressed a growing willingness to experiment with smaller firms and a skepticism of some of the techniques used by larger firms to address costs. And as convergence of clients through acquisitions increase, or new company leadership comes in, the need to review outside counsel rosters also rises. But one thing that was clear from their comments was that no one approach is a cure-all to the pricing pressures and results-driven needs of in-house counsel."

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