The Editor interviews Anthony Pearl of The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas and Brian Cheney of Snell & Wilmer, L.L.P. This interview is sponsored by LexisNexis CounselLink.

While working on stories, you sometimes uncover a “good news” angle worth reporting. Such is the case with the relationship between Anthony Pearl – General Counsel, Chief Compliance Officer and Corporate Secretary for The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, and Brian Cheney – Partner with Snell & Wilmer, L.L.P. and relationship partner on The Cosmopolitan account. These two have discovered some of the keys to a productive collaboration between in-house and outside counsel; there are lessons to be learned from their experiences.

Editor: Can you give readers a snapshot view of your operations so there’s a better context for the relationship story?

Pearl: The legal department at The Cosmopolitan is relatively small – 12 people or so – with just two attorneys, including myself, a couple of paralegals, and a few director-level executives overseeing key areas like risk and compliance. Despite the size, we cover a full range of legal activities, with contracts and transactional matters, labor, employment and intellectual property being the big volume areas, along with some employment and non-employment litigation matters. In total, we use roughly 20 to 30 outside legal firms; our working relationship with Snell & Wilmer places them among our few primary go-to firms.

Cheney: I’m glad to hear that, Anthony.

Snell & Wilmer operates in several Western states as a full-service business law firm. My practice area focuses on real estate transactions, but I’m also the primary partner for the entire relationship between our firm and The Cosmopolitan. We have numerous lawyers in different practice areas handling matters for The Cosmopolitan; I’m responsible for managing the relationship, making sure the right people are assigned to the work, and tracking overall service levels, responsiveness and outcomes.

Originally published in The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel - September 2013, Volume 21, No. 9.