In-House Counsel

We lack reliable benchmark metrics for practice areas of law departments (See my posts of July 20, 2005 and May 28, 2005 on this missing set of metrics.). A few, though, have appeared on this blog.

Contracts (See my post of Jan. 6, 2006: contracts handled per commercial lawyer.);

Corporate secretary (See my post of Feb. 4, 2008: cost per entity maintained.);

Litigation (See my posts of Jan. 25, 2006: lawsuits pending; May 31, 2005: Canadian caseloads per litigator; June 15, 2006: claims per lawsuit; Nov. 22, 2007: litigation loads.);

Intellectual property (See my posts of Aug. 3, 2005 and July 18, 2006 on 27 metrics for patents; Dec. 21, 2005: per R&D spend; and April 9, 2006: trademarks.);

HR/employment (See my posts of Jan. 3, 2006: EEOC charges; June 7, 2006: lawyers per 1,000 employees; Jan. 6, 2006: employment.);

International mergers and acquisitions (See my posts of Dec. 22, 2005: deals per lawyer; March 19, 2006: foreign to domestic revenue); and

M&A (See my post of March 24, 2005: deal value per lawyer.).

Still incognito are metrics that suggest the appropriate staff for environmental work, antitrust and import/export. At some point these, too, as well as other practice group metrics, will be unmasked (See my post of April 7, 2006 on international lawyers in the US; and Dec. 22, 2005 on compliance spend compared to legal spend.).

Other posts related to this topic have been scattered throughout (See my posts of May 16, 2007: create an index of change; and Sept. 3, 2006: a retrospective on this topic.). Even posts on paralegals by practice area (See my posts of Dec. 22, 2006 and March 12, 2006.)