GC Issue: Autumn 2015

Given the transactions costs incurred by private equity funds, fund managers and portfolio companies are often leanly staffed – or even not staffed at all – by in-house legal teams. The over-reliance on external counsel can be hugely inefficient. Steve Yoost, general counsel of cloud hosting service HOSTING, argues that in-house counsel can increase the value of private equity investments by effectively managing and mitigating risk.

RPC, once a traditional firm known mainly for insurance work, took a sharp left starting in 2008 with a complete overhaul of its business. It now divides its client focus between the still sizeable insurance side and an increasingly broad corporate/commercial offering; the balance is now a rough 50/50 split.