Bloomberg Law
June 15, 2016, 9:08 PM UTC

Wells Fargo GC on the Perils of Running a Big Bank Legal Department

Blake Edwards

Running the legal department of a large American financial institution in the post-financial crisis world is, in a word, expensive.

In 2012, Wells Fargo general counsel James Strother launched a three-pronged program to reform his department and cut costs: His team reevaluated the way they hired lawyers, how work was managed internally, and what work was going to which law firms.

The results followed a familiar trend: more resources and more work in-house, and more pressure on law firms to bring prices down.

“We worked on ensuring that we reduced the overall number of firms that we had,” Strother had. “That last ...

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