GCs Demanding That Firms Staff Part-Time Attorneys on Their Cases
General counsel at a dozen major corporations—including Wal-Mart, General Mills and Del Monte Foods Co.—are telling their outside counsel that they want at least some part-time attorneys handling their matters.
“It’s completely logical,” said James Potter, Del Monte general counsel told the National Law Journal. “You’re never going to fully accomplish diversity without flexible work schedules.”
This is one of the goals of the Diversity and Flexibility Initiative launched by the Project for Attorney Retention, which is part of the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California Hastings College of the Law The initiative was announced in January.
The 12 general counsel participating in the initiative will track the progress of part-time attorneys through the law firm ranks, the National Law Journal says.
“It’s not the recruiting of women and minorities that’s the problem; it’s the retention,” Michele Coleman Mayes, Allstate Insurance Co. general counsel, told the National Law Journal.
General counsel see these efforts as a way to retain attorneys, and emphasize the price clients pay for attorney attrition.
“When we have turnover with our outside counsel, it costs us money,” Teri Plummer McClure, United Parcel Service Inc. general counsel said at a PAR conference in October. “You lose that knowledge base and the experience that comes with long-standing relationships.”
