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Beastly Beauty Contest for Preferred Providers

By Eriq Gardner
November 29, 2005

[Editor's Note: In this compelling snapshot of a growing trend, Eriq Gardner describes the newly expensive vetting procedures now faced by outside firms choosing to pursue business with a highly demanding large client. Gardner also touches on law business practices (eg, long-term fixed-fee contracting for an entire class of a client firms' litigation needs) that may bode ill for the quality of justice produced by the overall legal system.]

It was a cold day for a beauty contest. On a blustery morning last December, a small army of product liability lawyers tried not to slip on the ice as they made their way to the Plaza Hotel in New York. The largest pharmaceutical corporation in the world, Pfizer Inc., had rented a ballroom in the grand old hotel and summoned them.

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