In-House Counsel

Rees Morrison?s Morsels #95 ? additions to earlier posts

By Rees Morrison

Data visualization software. Tableau Software?s offering looks impressive. Its software is?based on a proprietary technology called VizQL, a visualization query language that makes information from databases and spreadsheets almost instantly accessible in an easy-to-read form." I spent some time on the website of Tableau Software and was intrigued at the possibilities for how it might run rings around Excel as a supplemental reporting tool for matter tracking systems (See my post of May 8, 2008: Excel to improve matter management system reports.).

The value of consulting the law department was known 103 years ago. ?In conclusion, it may be remarked that just as in medicine it is cheaper and more effective to prevent than to cure diseases, so in the conduct of the affairs of a railroad company it is much better to consult the Law Department before taking a step than afterward.? The quote comes from an essay written more than a century ago, in Ernest Ritson Dewsnup, ed., Railway Organization and Work (Univ. of Chicago, 1906) at 8.

Hedge funds and litigation financing. After I wrote about entrepreneurial litigation financing (See my post of Jan. 6, 2009: law suit financing offshore.), I read in the Fin. Times, Oct. 17, 2008 by Rod Newing that the UK law firm behind one of the efforts is Addleshaw Goddard.

Software that automates and oversees signatures on contracts. Ken Adams has done research on software for signature automation. I am not sure whether this software helps in-house counsel, but in any event Adams mentions a number of sophisticated tools from EchoSign, DocuSign, and Sertifi (See my post of Nov. 22, 2008: contract management software with 11 references.).

Full post as published by Law Department Management on March 20, 2009 (boomark / email).