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In-House Counsel

Law Department Management

Comments on every aspect of how best to manage a law department, including how to manage outside counsel. Topics of interest to general counsel and other in-house lawyers who manage legal functions.
By Rees Morrison

Post Frequency: 39.5/day

Last Entry: April 01, 2011 at 11:12:47

Possible content of a three-year plan for the legal function

Posted on July 26, 2008
In the briefest of mentions, the general counsel of Belgium-based InBev notes that her company has a three-year business plan and a ?corresponding three-year plan for the legal function.? The huge gulp of Budweiser undoubtedly upended that law department?s plan!...

All the posts here I collected, preserved, reviewed and produced about electronic discovery

Posted on July 26, 2008
Dark matter accounts for the bulk of the universe, we can?t see it, don?t understand it and it pushes the universe to expand faster and faster. So too with e-discovery. These days, the ether is filled with almost hysterical talk...

The variety of benefits for in-house counsel

Posted on July 26, 2008
Benefits, in the context of compensation, I define as monetary fillips for an employee, as distinct from entitlements and perquisites, which cannot be converted to money or save money but do cost the company. By that definition, benefits include employer...

Your major law firms should have relationship partners and even engagement partners

Posted on July 26, 2008
Along with a relationship partner at your primary law firms (See my post of Dec. 3, 2005: have a relationship partner at each of your key firms.), you might also want to designate an engagement partner for each major matter....

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Bait-and-switch by law firms proposing to handle your work

Posted on July 21, 2008
Are there techniques to lessen the risk of taking the bait of stellar lawyers at the final presentation, but working thereafter with a switch to earthly types? This question occurred to me when GC New England Mag., 4th Q. 2007...

Vigilant vendors keep an eye on costs charged by foreign patent agents

Posted on July 21, 2008
When US companies prosecute patents in foreign countries, they typically have to retain specialized patent lawyers in those countries. The charges of those patent lawyers ? called foreign associates ? can be high, and apparently sometimes higher than what local...

Compensation and benefits accounts for 75% or more of total inside spend

Posted on July 21, 2008
Personnel expenses, including salaries, bonuses and benefits, dominate the internal budgets of most law departments (See my posts of July 31, 2005 and Feb. 21, 2008: estimates of 75%.). Data on this common situation comes from Altman Weil, in GC...

Large law departments increased internal expenses twice as fast as all the departments in a survey

Posted on July 21, 2008
Altman Weil published data in GC Mid-Atlantic, June 2008, at 30, that compares metrics from the firm?s 2003 benchmark survey to its 2007 survey (See my post of July 20, 2008: demographics of the surveys and some observations on methodology.)....

Selection bias in surveys of law departments

Posted on July 21, 2008
A methodological spoke in the wheel of many surveys is selection bias. If survey data comes mostly from what surfaces on its own, because someone chooses to respond, the data may not be representative of the universe of data. It...

Brainstorming in groups or with individuals who then join groups; idea quantity and quality

Posted on July 21, 2008
MIT Sloan Mgt. Rev., Vol. 49, Summer 2008 at 11, offers some good ideas about brainstorming (See my posts of Nov. 28, 2005: mind-map software helps with brainstorming sessions; Dec. 9, 2005: the Delphi technique; Oct. 30, 2006: suggestions and...

On survey methodology

Posted on July 21, 2008
Many times I have dissected survey results where I suspected poor methodology, so I pulled together my posts on survey methodology. I have followed a framework (in bold) defined by the Manual for Complex Litigation (See my post of Jan....

Multiple cautions about multiple-choice questions on surveys

Posted on July 20, 2008
Surveys of law departments frequently have multiple-choice questions, even though such questions are beset with methodological traps. Here are my blog posts on the topic. Strive to cover every reasonable choice and not have choices overlap (See my post of...

Comparative data over four years on total legal spending as a percentage of revenue

Posted on July 20, 2008
Data published by Altman Weil in GC Mid-Atlantic, June 2008, at 30, compares metrics from the firm?s 2003 benchmark survey to metrics from their 2007 survey. The 2003 report includes data from 199 corporations ?evenly distributed between companies with annual...

?Resources? is the wrong word for people who work in law departments

Posted on July 20, 2008
One word that ought to be banned from thoughtful writing and speaking is the word ?resource? when it describes a human being who does something. What galvanized me to write this tiny diatribe is a recent post of mine that...

Part X of a collection of embedded metaposts

Posted on July 20, 2008
Here are ten more embedded metaposts with links (See my post of June 11, 2008: Part IX.). In the parenthesis is the date of original posting along with the number of references cited. 1. Alignment with clients (See my post...

Three points regarding your law firms if you want them to work on fixed fees

Posted on July 17, 2008
Most partners need considerable nudging from their clients if they are going to commit to fixed-fee billing. An article in the ABA J., Vol. 94, July 2008 at 26, gives three suggestions. Choose services that are amenable to fixed fees...

More horses for courses: clients can choose the best match of personnel within a law firm

Posted on July 17, 2008
McDermott Will & Emery announced it has created a permanent class of staff associates: ?lawyers who will be paid less, work less (though still be full-time) and be billed out at a lower rate than the firm?s other associates.? This...

Four fundamental questions to answer when the lawyer responsible for a matter reviews an invoice

Posted on July 17, 2008
Bill approval is a pain in the neck. That said, if an inside lawyer wants to focus his or her attention, answer these four questions about a bill. A. For the results and work accomplished during the month, do the...

Law department attendees at conference flail law firms on efficiency ? who?s to blame?

Posted on July 17, 2008
Attendees at a recent conference excoriated their law firms on efficiency. Voting on electronic pads with a scale from 1 low to 5 high, ?87% of them gave their law firms a 1 or 2 on efficiency and not a...

Remove compliance and ethics from the law department

Posted on July 17, 2008
"It's best not to position compliance and ethics people in the law department, says Joseph E. Murphy, counsel at Compliance Systems Legal Group and author of Building a Career in Compliance and Ethics (Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics, 2007)...

Admirable characteristics of a medium size law department regarding talent

Posted on July 17, 2008
A profile of Respironics? general counsel, Steve Fulton, has dotted throughout four commendable people practices in his department. Strong hires and strong retention. During Fulton?s 13-year tenure, ?I have never needed to terminate an attorney and none of the attorneys...

My worry at the core of the core-team concept

Posted on July 17, 2008
To push your primary law firms to assign a handful of lawyers to handle a large portion of your work impresses me as a sound practice. I refer to those lawyers as the core team (See my posts of Aug.28,...

Do big companies dance mostly with big law firms?

Posted on July 11, 2008
Many in the US legal industry probably believe that big law departments mostly hire big law firms. After all, deep pockets face more lawsuits, for more millions of dollars, and on more cutting-edge transactions than do their smaller competitors. Accordingly,...

A picture worth a thousand words about the proper role of general counsel

Posted on July 11, 2008
The NY Times, July 8, 2008, at C3, published a photo of InBev?s chief executive striding through the US Senate surrounded by a bevy of reporters. Prominently in the shot, looking determined with her briefcase is Sabine Chalmers, the general...

On autarky, plus a benchmark for the percentage of legal work handled inside

Posted on July 11, 2008
At Respironics, a $1.2 billion manufacturer of respiratory medical products, nine lawyers and three support personnel make up the internal legal department. According to the company?s general counsel, quoted in GC Mid-Atlantic, June 2008 at 9, that team handles ?probably...

Processes and an emphasis on old-school efficiency or new-age learning

Posted on July 11, 2008
An article in the Harv. Bus. Rev., Vol. 85, July-Aug. 2008 at 60, distinguishes between execution-as-efficiency and execution-as-learning. If law department managers lock into the first set of beliefs ?efficient, timely, consistent delivery of legal services, they run the risk...

General counsel as head of legal as well as member of the executive management team

Posted on July 11, 2008
A piece in GC Mid-Atlantic, June 2008 at 8-9, describes the role Steve Fulton, the general counsel of $1.2 billion in revenue Respironics. His legal team consists of nine attorneys and three support personnel. The article comments that Fulton ?wears....

Half-time partner, half-time general counsel ? full-time exhaustion

Posted on July 11, 2008
For six months in 1995, Steve Fulton served as the general counsel of Respironics on a half-time basis and as an employment-law partner at Reed Smith. Speaking to a reporter for GC Mid-Atlantic, June 2008 at 8, Fulton remembers the...

A method to rate outside-counsel guidelines

Posted on July 11, 2008
Intriguingly, the Ethisphere Institute offers to complete a Code of Conduct analysis using its methodology and ratings on 57 elements. As described in Ethisphere, Qtr. 2, 2008 at 13, each of eight critical components has a weighting and they aggregate...

A disconcerting impression of lawyers who walk and speak with ear plugs

Posted on June 26, 2008
When lawyers walk down the halls talking on a BlueTooth headset, the scene is surreal. Concerned always about confidentiality and attorney-client privilege, here is a lawyer blabbing for all the world to hear. Yet, the scene is not uncommon. It...

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