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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

Differences between competition, non-cooperation, conflict, and sabotage

Posted on June 06, 2008
Those who manage people in law departments have to learn to recognize the differences between these interactions and deal with them appropriately. Competition between two or more lawyers can appear everywhere in a law department. How often the general counsel...

Total litigation spend of large American corporations as percentage of profits

Posted on June 06, 2008
?The Fortune 500 corporations spend the equivalent of one-third of shareholder profits on litigation. This cost and the associated risk are not transparent to shareholders.? Met. Corp. Counsel, Vol. 16, May 2008 at 47, blares out this staggering claim by...

The rare need for a law department to retain appellate counsel

Posted on June 04, 2008
Only rarely does the decision of a trial court warrant a law department either filing or responding to an appeal. Even then, most general counsel stick with the firm that litigated the case below to represent them on the appeal....

Three new technologies IBM is working on its Innovation Labs

Posted on June 04, 2008
EWeek, Feb. 4, 2008, at 34, lists 10 new technologies in the works at Big Blue, and three of them got me to thinking about law department applications. (1) ?The Virtual Team-Building Game is designed to improve trust and cooperation...

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Have we recently shot from stagnation in the legal industry to hyper-change? No

Posted on June 04, 2008
Mehul Patel, the general manager of Axiom, published an article in the National Law Journal (April 28, 2008). He argues that pressures on law firms will force them to change, with two of those pressures being offshoring and ?new-model firms.?...

A shameful way to turn your law department into a profit center

Posted on June 04, 2008
An employee, hit by a truck and brain damaged such that she requires full-time nursing, recovered $417,000 from the trucker?s company, which funds a court put in a trust to pay for her medical care. The law department of the...

General counsel need to serve as references for service providers

Posted on June 04, 2008
From time to time, general counsel who consider hiring me as a consultant ask for references. They want to find out from other general counsel about my abilities and approach. Likewise, once a law department licenses software, purchases equipment, or...

Client satisfaction survey by a firm and possible learning by a law department

Posted on June 01, 2008
An interview of two Eversheds partners, published in Met. Corp. Counsel, Vol. 16, May 2008 at 27, contains the following statement: "At the end of each dispute we handle that involves fees in excess of �40,000 [about $70,000] we bring...

Aspects of in-house work that sometimes boost and sometimes burst morale

Posted on June 01, 2008
I have quarried much from InsideCounsel, May 2008 at 61, which reports on a survey of in-house counsel on career satisfaction. In one part of the survey, respondents chose from a list of 11 MOST rewarding parts of working in-house...

Rees Morrison?s Morsels #73 ? additions to earlier posts

Posted on June 01, 2008
A Ph.D in legal fees. The normally reticent Donald Trump admitted recently that "I have a Ph.D. in legal fees. I know when fees are fair and when they're not," Law Firm Inc., Vol. 6. May-June 2008 at 10. If...

?The current growth in law firm fees [is] not sustainable

Posted on June 01, 2008
The Magic Circle firm Eversheds recently gathered responses from ?the top international law firms as well as 50 of the world?s most prominent businesses.? In a summary of the latter group?s views, published in Met. Corp. Counsel, Vol. 16, May...

With external counsel, lines between social activities and professional dealings

Posted on May 29, 2008
?We may want to get to know our clients socially. In fact, many of our client relationships are the result of years of social relationships, through sports or charitable organizations.? Two ideas seem mashed together in this quote by two...

A disappointing bit of advice: Keep lawyers away during gut-wrenching decisions

Posted on May 29, 2008
A discouraging view about lawyers and their win-lose mentality is expressed in the Harv. Bus. Rev., Vol. 86, May 2008 at 82. In the context of ?competitive arousal? that afflicts executives during high-stakes, time pressured and publicized deals, the author...

Thoughts on benchmarking other than about individual metrics

Posted on May 29, 2008
This blog has at least a dozen posts on specific benchmarks for law departments. I will eventually compile and publish that metapost. Meanwhile, other aspects of benchmarks ? aside from specific metrics ? deserve mention. A general counsel ought to...

When legal tasks are shipped offshore, it threatens the jobs of some in-house lawyers and staff

Posted on May 29, 2008
Increasingly, law departments are taking a look at offshore legal process firms. When the general counsel does that, a sotto voce fret might drift through the hallways of the department ? ?worry about your job!? To the extent law-related work...

Sometimes bumpy relations with outside auditors

Posted on May 29, 2008
The Fulton County Daily Report, May 2, 2008, has an article by Katheryn Hayes Tucker that comments on the Association of Corporate Counsel Eighth Annual Chief Legal Officer Survey, released last month. The ACC invited 5,355 U.S. members holding the...

Employee engagement results from ?business, boss, buddies and briefs? ? Part II

Posted on May 29, 2008
In its recent survey of career satisfaction, InsideCounsel, May 2008 at 61, more than 1,200 in-house counsel responded. One question asked respondents to choose from a list of 11 the MOST rewarding parts of working in-house while a second question...

Recent survey results on morale busters that also have an upside

Posted on May 29, 2008
InsideCounsel, May 2008 at 61, surveyed its readers on career satisfaction. A previous post comments on the methodology of the survey and a second one on vacation hours (See my posts of May 11, 2008 [two].). In one part of...

Some lay ?laws? that pertain to inside lawyers

Posted on May 25, 2008
This post has honored a number of social ?laws? that have become commonplaces. One not mentioned so far is Moore?s Law, which describes in part why technology can play an important and affordable role in law department productivity. The law...

Goodhart?s Law ?measures should not become targets

Posted on May 25, 2008
In Edward Russell-Walling, 50 Management ideas you really need to know (Quercus 2007), the author mentions this so-called law (at 11). Data should serve as aids to analysis (See my post of June 14, 2007: basic good practices regarding data.)....

Law firms ought to mine their own business (data), to your benefit

Posted on May 25, 2008
Large law firms, those that have handled many matters of a similar kind, ought to realize that if they extract and analyze cost and timing data for those matters, they will have an edge. The edge would cut on competitive...

Continuing posts on Legal Education ? ?I can CLE now, the rain has gone??

Posted on May 25, 2008
Aside from being a fountain of youth (See my post of April 27, 2006: Continuing Legal Education may help lawyers live longer.), Continuing Legal Education for attorneys who work in law departments ought to have great value (See my post...

Hundreds of thousands of dollars to relocate a new general counsel

Posted on May 25, 2008
In the fall of 2006, San Francisco-based utility PG&E paid $337,296 to relocate its new general counsel. Hyun Park, from Allegheny Energy in Pennsylvania. This item, from Portfolio, June, 2008 at 36, witnesses to the high costs law departments incur....

Legal specialties aren?t likely candidates for core competencies

Posted on May 23, 2008
Other posts have discussed definitions of core competencies in law departments (See my post of May 23, 2008.) and some consequences of deciding on those competencies (See my post of May 23, 2008.). To complete a triptych of posts, let?s...

Core competencies and what differences emphasis on them ought to make

Posted on May 23, 2008
A previous post offers four definitions of core competencies for law departments (See my post of May 23, 2008.). What difference do the definitions make? Many, I submit. First, however, a comment on legal-team size. Is it possible for small...

Core competencies revisited and surveyed

Posted on May 23, 2008
A scattering of posts discuss the general notion of core competencies as applied to law departments (See my posts of May 14, 2005: Bain?s survey of management tools and June 9, 2007: a more recent Bain survey.). A couple offer...

Client satisfaction scores only obliquely assess outside counsel

Posted on May 23, 2008
When clients complete satisfaction surveys on behalf of law departments, rarely do they have a question that asks their views on the performance of outside counsel. A question might touch on the cost of external lawyers, but otherwise the external...

Rees Morrison?s Morsels #72 ? additions to earlier posts

Posted on May 23, 2008
Combinatorial optimization. This sexy term stands for the algorithms behind business-to-business sites that match buyers and sellers using more complex factors than just price. Portfolio, May 2008 at 118, says that a website, CombineNet, conducts such matching auctions (See my...

Mission statements, values declarations, and vision projections

Posted on May 23, 2008
Edward Russell-Walling, 50 Management ideas you really need to know (Quercus 2007) at 49, differentiates three items, each of which a general counsel might seize upon. A mission statement articulates ?our purpose, why we?re in business?; our values: ?our style,...

Tips for how a generalist lawyer can most effectively learn from a specialist lawyer

Posted on May 21, 2008
If you need to know something from a person who is more knowledgeable than you, such as a highly specialized partner at a law firm or your colleague in the law department, there is some pointed advice from Intelligent Life,...

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