In-House Counsel

Joint law and business degrees in-house. The general counsel of Blackboard Inc., Matthew Small, graduated with a joint JD/MBA from the University of Connecticut. In 2008, according to Inside Counsel, Aug. 2008 at 49, Small was named chief business officer in charge of operations, marketing and business development, in addition to his position as chief legal officer (See my post of Dec. 31, 2006: JD/MBAs might gravitate to law departments.).

General counsel who move laterally in the company. Alison Gregory, the top lawyer of GobeOp Financial Services in the fall of 2006 took a job in the company?s enterprise risk management division, according to Corp. Counsel, Vol. 13, Aug. 2006 at 66. Elsewhere, I read that Andrea Zopp, erstwhile general counsel of Sears, moved laterally to become head of HR for the company.

Growth of General Electric?s legal department. According to the recollection of a partner from King & Spaulding in Met. Corp. Counsel, Vol. 16, Aug. 2008 at 36, over the past thirty years there has been phenomenal growth in the GE legal department, ?which in 1978 consisted of only one lawyer.? In three decades the company bulked up with more than 1,200 lawyers (See my post of May 23, 2007: General Electric and its 1,225 lawyers.).

A blog on e-billing. A blog hosted by Striata covers electronic billing in all its aspects. It has an interesting technique of aggregating searches on Google for variations on the term, such as ?electronic billing? and ?online payment.?