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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

Surprisingly low data on law-firm chargeable hours and effective billed rates

Posted on November 16, 2008
David Bilinsky, writing in Law Practice, Oct./Nov. 2008 at 51, draws on LexisNexis?s 2007Juris Law Firm Economic Survey. ?Billed hours per lawyer in the top quartile firms averaged 1,582; in the fourth quartile firms, the average was only 1,314 hours...

Legal competencies compared to operational implementation

Posted on November 09, 2008
Lawyers should interpret and apply laws and regulations, help executives set strategy to maximize gains and minimize legal backlash, draft legal documents, and give legal advice, but they should not run the operations that result from that work (See my...

Thank you to the blogs that have referred readers to LawDepartmentManagementblog.com

Posted on November 09, 2008
This blog comes to the attention of online searchers in a variety of ways. One way is that other blawgs cite to posts here. I have been collecting some of the referral sites from the last few days and mention...

Part XX of a collection of embedded metaposts

Posted on November 09, 2008
With this post I have reached 200 embedded metaposts with URL links (See my post of Oct. 3, 2008: Part XIX.), each of which shows the number of references cited within them. 1. Attributes of firms for purposes of selection...

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Double monitors for lawyers as a two-edged sword

Posted on November 09, 2008
I have been meaning to write another post about a law department where the lawyers have double monitors (See my post of Jan. 18, 2008: multiple monitors.). As I spent time in a second law department so handsomely outfitted, I...

Three more energy-saving suggestions that all legal departments could adopt

Posted on November 09, 2008
An advertisement by Johnson Controls offers ten ways we can all contribute to environmental sustainability. Three of the steps are available to all law departments. (1) In addition to printing on both sides for drafts, use the ???draft??? setting. ???In...

More management scrutiny of legal costs when those fees must be expensed starting in 2009

Posted on November 09, 2008
An article by Ben Heineman, Jr., in Corp. Counsel, Vol. 15, Nov. 2008 at 92, explains that under new accounting rules that will take effect in 2009, legal costs incurred as part of deals will have to be expensed immediately,...

Useful acronym for meetings ??? PACER

Posted on November 06, 2008
A well-managed law department that I have worked with promotes a five-word acronym to help everyone take care of meetings more effectively. (See my post of April 22, 2007: meetings with 9 references.) PACER stands for Purpose, Agenda, Conduct, Expectations,...

Part XX of a collection of embedded metaposts

Posted on October 29, 2008
With this post I have reached 200 embedded metaposts with URL links (See my post of Oct. 3, 2008: Part XIX.), each of which shows the number of references cited within them. 1. Attributes of firms for purposes of selection...

Neural nets and the logic to estimate the costs of related matters

Posted on October 29, 2008
At some point we will be able to analyze data on a moderate numbers off cases and predict the costs of similar cases. An inspiration for this forecast is a computer system that predicts which death-row inmates are most likely...

Blogs that have referred readers to LawDepartmentManagementblog.com

Posted on October 25, 2008
This blog comes to the attention of online searchers in a variety of ways. One way is that other blawgs cite to posts here. I have been collecting some of the unusual referral sites from the last few days and...

Steps that help people act on a good idea

Posted on October 24, 2008
Perhaps a reader can tell me the originator of the metrics below. Regardless of their source, these observations and percentages ring true. Managers of law departments would do better if they followed the advice suggested. ? 10 percent of people...

Bias in support of our conclusions, and a mental exercise to test that bias

Posted on October 24, 2008
Leonard Mlodinow, The Drunkard?s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives (Pantheon Books 2008) at 191, urges that ?We should learn to spend as much time looking for evidence that we are wrong as we spend searching for reasons we are...

Offerings by law firms beyond legal capabilities

Posted on October 24, 2008
I have written from time to time about the capabilities of law firms that complement their lawyers? abilities (See my post of Oct. 21, 2005: Faegre & Benson litigation support group; Oct. 17, 2005: a few British firms? on-line offerings;...

Early history about the management practice, regional counsel

Posted on October 24, 2008
What inspired general counsel first insisted on a budget from a law firm? Who first received an invoice electronically? When did the first law department appoint an official administrator? I do not know these milestone dates and specifics, but I...

An analogy between corporate finance and legal talent

Posted on October 24, 2008
According to the ?indifference theory? of economics, in a perfect market the value of a company is independent of its capital structure, which is its mix of equity and debt financing. Having read about this in the Harv. Bus. Rev.,...

Six Sigma and a project for entity oversight

Posted on October 24, 2008
A Six Sigma project at a manufacturing firm tackled the chaotic situation of too many corporate entities where too little was readily known about them. The project concluded that the lawyers needed to gather information on all the company?s Asian-Pacific...

Six years out of the law department, then promoted to General Counsel

Posted on October 22, 2008
Some general counsel wander in the wilderness, sometimes for several years, before they become the top lawyer. Sandy McDade, for example, practiced for 20 years in Weyerhaeuser?s law department. He then left the department and spent six years in a...

Cost-benefit analysis sheds light on the difficulty of ROI calculations

Posted on October 22, 2008
Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) resembles some decisions about non-hourly fee arrangements in that both are efforts to match what is paid against the value of what is gained. A thoughtful article in the Bus. Lawyer, Vol. 63, Aug. 2008 at 1187,...

Normal and reasonable fees don?t deserve excellent services

Posted on October 22, 2008
?What clients want and need: high-quality legal services that deliver solutions at a reasonable cost.? Would that we could all pay merely reasonable amounts for high quality! Pause on this declaration in ACC Docket, Vol. 26, Oct. 2008, at Value...

From surveys, attributes considered by law departments when selecting firms

Posted on October 22, 2008
According to surveys, law department managers say they consider a huge array of attributes when they select outside counsel (See my post of Dec. 28, 2006: summary of four surveys and 37 attributes.). Readers can find more on those four...

Don?t try to divine the future, but do prepare your department to cope with the unexpected

Posted on October 22, 2008
Leonard Mlodinow, The Drunkard?s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives (Pantheon Books 2008) at 203, urges managers to ?focus on the ability to react to events rather than relying on the ability to predict them, on qualities like flexibility, confidence,...

In-house lawyers responsible for a specialty in addition to their primary area of expertise

Posted on October 22, 2008
It is a good practice to designate ?minors? for many of your in-house lawyers ? secondary areas of law they should keep up on for the benefit of the entire department. Their ?minor? knowledge, which may relate to their primary...

The elements of a knowledge management program

Posted on October 22, 2008
At a PLI conference, Ed Greene of Citibank shared his department?s definition of knowledge management: ?Leveraging of a department?s collective wisdom by creating systems and processes to support and facilitate the identification, capture, dissemination and use of the department?s knowledge...

A dozen arguments in favor of convergence

Posted on October 22, 2008
Compare these 12 points that favor reducing the number of law firms used by a law department to a dozen reasons that oppose convergence (See my post of Oct. 19, 2008: reasons against convergence.). 1. Better service delivery 2. Better...

Evaluations and assessments of law firms by publishers and others

Posted on October 22, 2008
A number of publications rate law firms according to various systems, and I have made observations about them generally (See my post of July 4, 2006: ranking sources of guidance on law firms; July 21, 2005: Zagat-style ratings for law...

Neuroscience finds we experience more pleasure when we consume expensive firms?

Posted on October 19, 2008
Research subjects had their brains imaged in a magnetic resonance scanner as they drank and rated several wines of seemingly different prices. In fact, the wines were randomly assigned high and low prices. As summarized in Leonard Mlodinow, The Drunkard?s...

A high standard for lining up replacements for vice presidents in a law department

Posted on October 19, 2008
?General Mills Inc. tracks the number of ready-now candidates for each position at or above the vice president level.? The company requires senior executives to cultivate and list who has the training and experience to step into each VP position....

An unjustified complaint about law departments hiring law firm associates

Posted on October 19, 2008
?Heck, every time we assign someone to their work longer term, they hire them out of the firm to work in the department, usually just at the point when they begin to actually contribute to the firm?s overall profitability.? This...

Ten sound suggestions for how to listen more effectively

Posted on October 19, 2008
Blog posts are for reading, but read this one aloud and listen! Listening well is a skill, and clients and others want you to do so. Here are an earful of aids to better listening (See my post of April...

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