Kristin Herber, senior counsel to Under Armour
Under Armour's litigation counsel Kristin Herber doesn't have fond memories of the attorney who repeatedly botched her company's name throughout his pitch meeting to work with Under Armour as an outside attorney.
Nothing conveys being a partner more than knowing our industry and our business, Herber said in an email interview with Corporate Counsel.
And the general counsel of Uptake, Andrew Polovin? Well, he's not really interested in a generic email inviting him to have a beer sometime. He would prefer a pitch that's detailed and thoroughly explains why the firm would be a good fit for the Chicago-based predictive analytics company's needs.
Needless to say, in-house attorneys are inundated with pitches from outside counsel wanting to work with them. In preparation for these meetings, Herber and Polovin don't suggest winging it.
As managing counsel of litigation for the Baltimore-based retailer since 2013, Herber works with a legal department of 30 lawyers and is the only one dedicated solely to litigation. She is often tasked with choosing outside counsel for litigation and has found that it's important to know your client and be able to come up with creative strategies.
For instance, Herber said, one outside attorney recently suggested a creative argument to get us out of a jurisdiction that would not have been good for us, a so-called judicial hellhole. Almost immediately after the conversation ended, the lawyer sent Herber a comprehensive memo outlining the argument, on which she had clearly spent considerable nonbillable time.
Herber said she was impressed and promptly retained the lawyer and her firm.
Sometimes it just comes down to colleague suggestions. Herber recalled how a patent litigator who had a relationship with one of her colleagues flew to Baltimore for the day to provide a patent boot camp personally for her.
Under Armour had no pending patent litigation at the time, but she said the lawyer's timing was perfect because she was looking to develop a network of outside counsel and the substance he provided was top notch. Herber said the two have now worked together on several matters and she considers him a trusted partner.
Uptake's Polovin made clear it takes more to win him over than an invite to lunch or a drink an offer he gets multiple times per week and he considers lazy. If I accepted 10 percent of those invitations I would never eat lunch by myself, I would never see my children, I'd be a raging alcoholic and I'd never get any work done, Polovin said.