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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

Eight basic categories of legal department software

Posted on September 05, 2009
Amidst the large number of specialty packages (See my post of Feb. 9, 2008: law-department software applications with 59 references.), it is important for managers in legal departments not to lose sight of the basic software choices. It will make...

Rees Morrison?s Morsels #119 ? additions to earlier posts and short takes

Posted on September 05, 2009
Corporate credit unions as a cost of lawyers. I had never thought of it, but if a company supports a credit union, its in-house attorneys can benefit. Thus, it is yet another cost that is unlikely to be allocated to...

Off-hand advice, not off-putting at all, on the off-chance that you deal off the cuff with off-the-main-road areas of the law

Posted on September 05, 2009
An article in Asian-Counsel, e-edition, Vol. 7, July/Aug. at 18, gives advice to in-house attorneys who encounter a legal question or task that is unfamiliar to them. The three choices are cleverly summarized: ?Such in-house counsel generally have three options...

Even a narrow niche like corporate secretarial functions has oodles of software

Posted on September 02, 2009
While building another post, I realized I had not assembled in one place my various comments on software for corporate secretarial functions. Not one to dally around, here are the eleven posts (See my post of July 19, 2006: corporate...

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Calculating ROI benefits and costs (Part Two of Two) ? By guest author Steven Levy

Posted on September 02, 2009
Previous posts about ROI calculation noted the time value of money and some of the complex factors affecting benefits. Nailing down the costs is no less complex, according to guest author Steven Levy. A valid ROI calculation includes the following...

Calculating ROI benefits and costs (Part One of Two) ? By guest author Steven Levy

Posted on September 02, 2009
A valid ROI calculation, according to guest author Steven Levy, includes the following factors on the benefits side: 1. Time value of money, usually at the corporate internal discount rate (often ~10%/year). 2. Assignment of returns to the proper fiscal...

How does the Office of the Blogger feel about the term ?The Office of the General Counsel??

Posted on September 02, 2009
It has an officious tone, an imperious that puts me off. Beating hearts and thinking brains are within, yet the clammy, 1984-ish ?The Office? may or may not oblige your obsequies. I like flesh and blood (See my post of...

Update with 48 posts that have contacts with contracts

Posted on September 02, 2009
So much of what many in-house lawyers do has some connection to contracts that I quailed at the thought of wading through all my posts that pertain (See my post of May 16, 2006: misperception that all in-house lawyers do...

Metrics you might want to analyze about use of your department?s legal intranet

Posted on September 01, 2009
If your department maintains a legal intranet, you might wish to track some of the same traffic metrics that bloggers do. You could monitor the number of visitors, visit length, pages viewed, and business unit represented. You could find out...

Research that some in-house career paths need to end; mandatory retirement policies?

Posted on September 01, 2009
A report three or four years ago by the General Counsel Roundtable found that frustration by in-house attorneys regarding career advancement had not created difficulty for legal departments in attracting, motivating, and retaining attorneys. To the contrary, many legal departments...

Allow for the time-value of money in ROI calculations

Posted on September 01, 2009
If you calculate your expected net return for an investment, be it dual monitors, document assembly, or databases, you should recognize the time-value of money by discounting costs and benefits for years in the future. Whereas many of your costs...

Increased use of legal support offshore threatens in-house jobs at home

Posted on September 01, 2009
The publicity about the offshore deal between CPA Global and Rio Tinto gushes, an ink river about Rio. This blog has poured out its share, but here is another small stream. The author of an article in Corp. Counsel, Vol....

Effective billing rates adjusted for a law firm?s city cost of living?

Posted on September 01, 2009
For many years, and possibly continuing today, Law Office Management & Administration Report (LOMAR) published a cost-of-living index for about ten major US cities. As I recall it, the monthly table used prices in New York City on a certain...

Seven high-level similarities between contract management and matter management systems

Posted on September 01, 2009
These two packages, frequently found in law departments, raise similar issues. In fact, all databases raise issues of this kind, including intellectual property databases, document management systems, and corporate entity repositories. 1. Accountability for updates...

The open-book approach to reaching a flat-fee agreement with a firm

Posted on August 31, 2009
We too often resort to factually emaciated RFPs, doling out facts on an as needed basis, restricting the questions that can be asked, and limiting due diligence. Telling the firms who are proposing too much takes time, runs risks, and...

A haiku on legal department management ? pith in 17 poetic syllables

Posted on August 31, 2009
The J. of the Legal Writing Inst., Vol. 15, 2009 at 266, tells about asking law school students to try haikus. Seventeen syllables. I tried my hand. In-house lawyers, Silos or teams, Rules but people, Always altering Yes, Rees, stick...

A law firm that takes on a major block of work might set up an office near the client?s executives

Posted on August 31, 2009
A chapter in Robert L. Haig, Ed., Successful Partnering Between Inside and Outside Counsel (Thomson Reuters/West 2009 Supplement), Sec. 78:21.20, describes a long-term relationship between ServiceMaster and Hinshaw & Culbertson. In 2002, the company and the firm agreed that Hinshaw...

Working backwards from a figure of $4 billion to be spent on e-discovery software and services

Posted on August 31, 2009
The e-discovery niche, according to the ABA J., Vol. 95, Aug. 2009 at 29, is crowded with about 600 vendors. They are jostling for pieces of a large pie. George Socha, a consultant deeply involved in research about e-discovery vendors,...

Two-week free offer for my just-published blook on law department structure

Posted on August 31, 2009
Finally, I have finished my blog book on effective law department structure. It is 143 pages, including the index. Unlike my blooks on outside counsel management and talent management, this one is written like a book, but with 100 or...

Ask your primary law firms to submit a periodic ?value report??

Posted on August 28, 2009
As described in the ACC Docket, Vol. 26, Nov. 2008 at 101, the core law firms of Pfizer ? those that make up its P3 group ? submit periodic ?value reports.? In them firms ?identify their respective contributions in the...

A fixture of fixed prices, inflated cost estimates to cover a risk premium and contingencies?

Posted on August 28, 2009
"Fixed fee arrangements are fundamentally flawed. As soon as you discuss them with the firm, the numbers increase to include the premium and contingency, and hey presto, you're paying more than you should have in the first place." This cynical...

Why aren?t more law firm lawyers paying attention to this blog -- how their legal department clients operate?

Posted on August 28, 2009
One puzzling finding struck to me when I checked the latest poll results of who visits this blog? As of today, 111 people have responded to my poll on the upper right. Law department lawyers are exactly half of them...

A vacation picture of this blogger, his wife and his son (August 2009)

Posted on August 28, 2009
In a rare departure from my Presbyterian style of just the facts or only the ideas, here is a photograph. That's my wonderful wife, Anne, next to me, lest you be unsure who is who. Just for the record, my...

Part XXXVIII of a collection of embedded metaposts

Posted on August 27, 2009
Ten more embedded metaposts (See my post of Aug. 14, 2009: Part XXXVII), each conjoined with the number of its back references. 1. Benchmarks hyperpost (See my post of July 19, 2009: ten metaposts on benchmarks.). 2. Email effectiveness rules...

Track time by percentages instead of by actual numbers of hours

Posted on August 27, 2009
A drawback of internal time tracking that asks lawyers to enter how many hours they worked on a matter is padding. Inevitably and inexorably, unless a client is charged for the time and therefore brings some market discipline to the...

Pros and cons of publicity for your legal department?s management initiatives

Posted on August 27, 2009
There are benefits to having your department written about approvingly for its programs and management efforts. Most CEOs like it when their people and units get kudos. The members of your department feel proud and more engaged (See my post...

If members of the legal department feel engaged, they will perform better

Posted on August 26, 2009
?More than 100 studies have demonstrated the correlation between employee engagement and business performance. ? But only one in four employees, on average, is ?engaged.? After that sad finding, strategy + business, Issue 56, Autumn 2009 at 49, continues with...

Five more tricks for the e-mail pro(ductivity)

Posted on August 26, 2009
Tired from compiling e-mail tips (See my post of Aug. 26, 2009: 30 e-mail suggestions.), I staggered on and found some more. These come from the Harv. Bus. Rev., Sept. 2009 at 88. 1. ?To eliminate the need for recipients...

Avoid fragmented imbecility: to think hard, ignore email, refuse phone calls, and close the door

Posted on August 26, 2009
A study commissioned by Hewlett-Packard a few years ago noted declines in IQ scores when knowledge workers were distracted by e-mail and phone calls. The decline, chronicled in the Harv. Bus. Rev., Sept. 2009 at 84, was an average of...

Thirty (30) suggestions for better e-mail effectiveness

Posted on August 26, 2009
Here are 30 suggestions for how you and your colleagues can use e-mail more carefully and cope with the rising tide of it more effectively. 1. Train members of the department on e-mail effectiveness (See my post of July 20,...

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