About

Originally from Arkansas, Alan Bryan spent a highly successful decade practicing with Little Rock-based Friday, Eldredge & Clark – where he eventually became partner. He decided during the course of this, however, that ‘what [he] really wanted to do was lead people’, which would be realised more effectively in an in-house capacity: ‘With this in mind, and having transferred to my firm’s office in Fayetteville, Arkansas, in the backyard of Walmart’s global headquarters, I decided to take the leap into the in-house world’. His tenure with the company has been extremely successful, and has seen him move initially from a position in the litigation team to his current role which was created specifically for him; the role involves him ‘leading a team that manages all relationships with the hundreds of law firms utilised by the company, and also heading our newly-created legal operations group at a level not seen before’. Bryan regards the opportunities he has been afforded at Walmart as ‘a privilege’, and has achieved a number of notable successes over his time at the company. ‘In August 2015, as the legal department explored ways to be more operationally efficient, I was asked to develop a long-term plan with targeted projects to find efficiency and cost-savings within the legal department. In response to this, I designed “Project Pretium” that would later become a driver for the creation of a first-ever legal operations team within the legal department and the basis of many projects we work on today. Project Pretium included initiatives classified under four broad areas that were to be segmented by timeline for accomplishing them. The four broad areas were: engagement; fee/expense reduction; process, procedure, and leverage; and, efficiency/improvement/investments. It was after my Pretium proposal that I was promoted and began leading ongoing initiatives to begin transforming the legal department of the Fortune 1 company into a truly 21st century operation’. In addition to this, he mentions his extensive work on promoting diversity within Walmart as an initiative he is particularly proud of. His role now is of critical importance to the company as a whole, and Bryan reels off some truly impressive statistics regarding his recent day-to-day work: ‘Last year, I had the sole responsibility of negotiating with over 460 law firms, including some of the world’s largest, on a comprehensive engagement agreement, including all rates and alternative fees as well as information security protocol. This effort was the foundation of fundamental changes in how we engage and retain law firms. It preceded efforts I am currently leading to create matter-RFP protocol, an invoicing review program, and designing an evaluation process of our top 100 firms. I am also currently leading a new effort to massively overall our outside counsel guidelines, making them more cohesive, succinct, and enforceable’.