Long gone are the days when going in-house was likened to putting on a comfy pair of slippers. General counsel now enjoy high status as custodians of the corporate purse strings. They want more for their money and are getting it.

Fixed fees and rigorous panel tender processes are now the norm. E-billing, once thought of as cutting edge, is becoming mainstream.

New ideas to squeeze more value from private practice firms continue to be minted. And a newly created thinktank exclusively for general counsel, Global Leaders in Law, will doubtless be the wellspring for more.

All very commendable, but counsel should remember that there is a balance to be struck. As we report this week, City firms are hitting back at increasingly aggressive cost-cutting by rejecting offers of panel pitches, and submitting pitches they know are destined to fail. That wastes everyone’s time. And with procurement departments increasingly involved, there is real concern that lack of knowledge of legal business is leading to unrealistic demands to cut costs.

What is clear in these straitened times is that the commoditisation of legal services is not limited to what one might describe as private practice’s more prosaic functions, such as conveyancing or probate. The contagion, if it can be so described, continues to spread.