Legal Mosaic Essays on Legal Delivery

<strong>Legal</strong> <strong>Mosaic</strong>: <strong>Essays</strong> on <strong>Legal</strong> Delivery
Shell’s In-House Transformation
Let’s start by noting that a decade ago Shell’s OGC operated in a decentralized
manner (not unlike other multinationals); country chairs reported
to the business units in piecemeal fashion and had their own budgets.
This “tents in the bazaar” structure bears many similarities to contemporary
Swiss verein law firms whose brand is often one of its few shared
elements. Shell made the strategic decision to centralize its legal department,
to grow it according to business unit needs rather than geographic
ones, and to streamline and standardize operations, thereby taking important
steps which have led to the creation of an integrated, collaborative,
and highly efficient global in-house legal team. In so doing, Shell’s
in-house firm has become a model that is setting a high bar for its (pared
down) outside firms, demanding more from them for less.
Specifically, here are some key highlights of Shell’s recent initiatives:
(1) 2009: consolidated work to reduce the number of outside firms. Result:
eliminated redundancy, reduced outside spend, and established
the groundwork for more competitive pricing and deeper understanding
of Shell’s business from the surviving outside firms;
(2) 2011-2012: worked with its internal global contracts and procurement
(“C&P”) team to standardize contract management processes (Shell
spends $65B on 30,000 purchasing contracts a year). The result: millions
saved and in-house resources previously dedicated to contract
negotiation reduced or redeployed to other higher-value work;
(3) 2012: created an in-house global litigation team of 80 lawyers in 15
countries. Result: substantial reduction of outside litigation fees (historically,
a high-spend area) as well as reduced litigation portfolio
(prophylactic counseling);
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