David Burgess, publishing director of The Legal 500, asks David Stark, chief legal officer at Teva Pharmaceuticals, and Trevor Faure (pictured), chief executive of Smarter Law Solutions, for their views. Warning – this may make for uncomfortable reading
In 2020, Teva Pharmaceuticals conducted a law firm selection process unprecedented in scale and sophistication within the profession (see ‘On notice: Teva’s entire $330m legal spend could go to one law firm’, The Legal 500, Summer 2019). Despite deploying ground-breaking quality vs cost correlation analysis, selection also involved the traditional panel interview meetings when two dozen of the world’s top law firms met Teva’s legal management team to pitch their propositions, with surprising and salutary results. The cutting-edge, data-driven selection methodology Teva used is well-founded (see ‘Harvard Law The Practice – Smarter Relationships in Legal Services’, November/December 2019) so instead, here are a dozen entirely unscientific but equally compelling approaches for winning business at the face-to-face selection stage. These findings are not the result of rigorous research, merely the bemused observations about what actually took place in these decisive meetings, ie, this stuff really happens. Continue reading “A wholly subjective (but nonetheless definitive) guide to law firms from a $300m client on how to make a successful pitch*”
