Jonathan Baum is principal of Avenir Law and founder of Avenir Guild, a resource community for lawyers. Views are the author’s own. For in-house counsel, the typical engagement decision is to hire a firm you’ve worked with and that appears to have the requisite expertise and geographic footprint. Unfortunately, the success of that engagement will be constrained by the size, quality, availability and motivation of the firm’s talent pool, however big and prestigious it is.