Client Insight - The i-team

Pioneering GCs are taking control of legal spend, armed with the latest tech. Can the rest of the in-house community keep pace? If conventional law firms have been slow to embrace technology – and they have – their counterparts in-house have been barely moving. But in the last five years signs have emerged of'early adopters' in the bluechip general counsel (GC) community who are willing to do more than apply new tools at the margins. The GCs are turning to technology to reshape the way they work. Aside from the obvious efficiency benefits, the appeal to such GC pioneers is often more potent to the professional soul: control. As Reckitt Benckiser's vice president and GC Claire Debney comments: 'I want the intellectual capital in-house, in my team. I don't want to be outsourcing all of our supply agreements, distribution agreements, or our digital platform agreements. We want our people at the meetings and in the negotiations and have the external back-up if we need it.'