General Electric (GE) has created an intranet website aimed at gathering information and reports to enable company lawyers to effectively assess and choose outside counsel, according to a report from Bloomberg.

Over 800 in-house lawyers can access the internal site – called GE Select Connect – so they can check a pool of ”preferred providers” and evaluate the outside counsels’ track record with GE.

This tool showcases over 200 of GE’s outside law firms, which have Facebook-like profiles that detail basic firm details, feedback from GE lawyers, diversity staffing levels, hourly fees as well as discounts the company has received.

“When you think about it, we didn’t have a good tool to help our attorneys make informed decisions about their selection of counsel,” explained Dan Hendy, GE’s associate general counsel.

Hendy, who supervised GE Select Connect’s development, added: “We didn’t have a good mechanism to communicate the type of (pre-existing) arrangements that we had… if there was a volume-based discount or complimentary hours that may have been available, or the ability to use low-cost secondments.”

To provide feedback, the tool allows GE lawyers to choose from a smiley face, a sad face and a neutral face – reflecting their experience with the outside counsel. Lawyers can also use a word bank to further describe their level of satisfaction, with positive options ranging from “efficiency” and “expertise” and negative options including ”too expensive” and ”poor judgment”. Lawyers can also give written comments as feedback.

The outside firms have inked an agreement with GE about their negotiated rates and possibly other benefits over a specific timeframe. 

GE’s outside firms includes Arnold & Porter, Hogan Lovells, Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom, Sidley Austin, Sullivan & Cromwell and Weil Gotshal & Manges, reported Bloomberg.