Law Department Management: In-House Counsel

Home -> Law Blog Directory -> In-House Counsel Blogs

OR PHONE (866) 635-1838 for Bankruptcy Help, (866) 635-6190 for Divorce,
(866) 635-2689 for Personal Injury or (866) 635-9402 for Criminal Defense

Find a Local Lawyer

Bankruptcy (866) 635-1838
Divorce (866) 635-6190
Personal Injury (866) 635-2689
Criminal Defense (866) 635-9402

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

The International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) and its Law Department Practice Group

Posted on January 25, 2010
An excellent support group for legal department personnel who deal with technology is the Corporate/Government Practice Group of the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA). It has close to 250 members, I believe, and it has produced some very useful ideas...

Four boasts by law firms that turn few heads of prospective clients

Posted on January 22, 2010
A recent survey of general counsel in Europe offers some advice to law firms: ?It is pointless to make ?independence? the main banner in their marketing, because clients and potential clients simply do not care.? Whether a local firm has...

As an army travels on its stomach, so does one legal department with its recipe for engagement

Posted on January 21, 2010
A profile of James Lipscomb, the general counsel of MetLife, ladles out an endearing accomplishment of his department. According to Columbia Law School Mag., Winter 2010 at 63, the department seeks to serve up an ?inclusive? office atmosphere. ?For instance,...

A view that managing organizational complexity is a top priority of general counsel

Posted on January 21, 2010
The General Counsel Survey 2009 from the Belgium-based consultants, FrahanBlondé, astutely discusses the issues that are top priority for general counsel (at page 12). Of the 10 issues, the third highest priority (after client relations and efficiency) is to ?manage...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

A legal executive committee to help manage HSBC?s huge legal department

Posted on January 21, 2010
HSBC, the global financial powerhouse, has a huge legal department. To manage the 700-plus lawyers in 54 countries, the general counsel (Richard Bennett) set up a ?legal executive committee? in 2007. The European Lawyer, Issue 89, Sept. 2009 at 12,...

An example from risk management of how easy it is to urge impossible tasks

Posted on January 19, 2010
When authors prescribe what should be done, they can get carried away. An example comes from the Int?l In-House Counsel J., Vol 2, Autumn 2009 at 1408, where the author discusses in-house counsel and risk management. ?The in-house legal counsels...

Whistling in the dark about legal risk management by UK heads of legal

Posted on January 19, 2010
It?s hard to see why general counsel are confident about legal risks if they don?t observe basic management practices. The benchmarking survey of legal risk and compliance, prepared in early 2009 and published by the Practical Law Company, gathers responses...

Methods to identify, measure, and review legal risks

Posted on January 19, 2010
A survey of legal risk and compliance in early 2009, published by the Practical Law Company, gathers responses from 69 companies. It produced some findings about their methods to understand and cope with legal risks. At page 5 the report...

Shallow recommendations amidst many findings about legal risk and compliance

Posted on January 19, 2010
The benchmarking survey of legal risk and compliance, prepared in early 2009 and published by the Practical Law Company, gathers responses from 69 companies. The report offers several suggestions for how to maximize the effectiveness of legal risk management processes,...

Incumbent rate negotiations diverge from challenger rate negotiations

Posted on January 19, 2010
Dynamics differ when you negotiate more favorable rates with firms you already use significantly than when you negotiate with new firms that want your business. With incumbents, the benefits can come more quickly because they are already handling matters and...

Questionable whether a general counsel should market and manage a new service line

Posted on January 19, 2010
The Financial Times published its report, ?Innovative Lawyers 2009,? dated Oct. 23, 2009. One ?legal innovator? is Adil Hussain, the general counsel of Gatehouse Bank, the only Islamic bank in the UK. The Bank, unusually, employs ?an in-house Islamic scholar,?...

In the noise about Pfizer?s massive fixed-fee arrangement, a whispered question

Posted on January 12, 2010
Some general counsel might conclude that if they undertake an innovative, daring, and massive restructuring of their economic relationship with outside counsel, they should keep it quiet. One reason might be that a competitive advantage should not be bruited about...

Three law firms formed a collective to bill Pfizer as a single firm

Posted on January 12, 2010
Not talked about much in the groundbreaking arrangement Pfizer has entered into with 19 law firms is that three of them ?have formed a partnership in which they bill Pfizer a single fee.? That quote is all that an article,...

Recruitment costs for legal departments ? two percent of salary for junior lawyers?

Posted on January 12, 2010
My understanding is that the standard charge of executive search firms that place a candidate is on the order of a quarter to a third of the lawyer?s first year compensation. Or, at least that was the range back in...

The fewer the firms you retain, the more you need to intervene in their personnel management decisions

Posted on January 12, 2010
One of the consequences of convergence, when a handful of firms take on a large portion of your work, is that you probably should engage yourself more in their issues of ?bench strength,? succession planning, training, evaluations, promotions, and relationship...

?Core/non-core? compared to ?critical mission? when general counsel decide what to handle inside

Posted on January 12, 2010
In the thoughtful General Counsel Survey 2009 from the Belgium-based consultants, FrahanBlondé (at 19), the authors discuss how general counsel decide the services their departments should provide as compared to the services external counsel should provide...

Two advantages of fixed fees for the law firm: more flexibility in management and freedom to take initiatives

Posted on January 11, 2010
A long article describes Pfizer?s dramatic move to have 19 law firms handle more than three-quarters of its US spend on fixed fees. The article is Corp. Counsel, Vol. 17, Jan. 2010 at 66, 70. (See my post of March...

Collective evaluations of law firms will inevitably bend to serve the rating organization?s goals

Posted on January 11, 2010
Moves are afoot to rate law firms (See my post of Dec. 14, 2009: good ideas from an ADR rating system; and Nov. 5, 2009: collective assessments by law departments of their firms with 10 references.). It?s a laudable goal,...

Two aspects of relationship partners: involvement in matters and formality of contacts

Posted on January 11, 2010
The General Counsel Survey 2009 from the Belgium-based consultants, FrahanBlondé, delves thoughtfully into the relationship partner system. I am going to blog on portions of it, but to purchase a full copy of this excellent report, please email Antoine Frahan...

A Ning from Estonia that has 600+ IP-related blogs on it!

Posted on January 11, 2010
Mikk Putk, an energetic Estonian from Tallinn , has assembled all these blogs. He has created an impressive online footprint while he works at a patent agency, NotaBene. Putk?s IP Blogs Search Engine is available on the main page of...

Three quotes about metrics and a short riff thereon

Posted on January 11, 2010
Everyone has heard Benjamin Disraeli?s acidic quip, ?There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.? He was 30 percent wrong. A few might even have smiled at Mark Twain?s ?Figures don?t lie, but liars figure.? Ponzi schemes, perhaps? Many have heard...

Drawing on research about CEOs, better to promote general counsel from within than hire from without?

Posted on January 07, 2010
The Harvard Bus. Rev., Vol. 88, Jan.-Feb. 2010 at 104, has an intriguing study of the ?best- performing CEOs in the world.? I wondered how many of them have outstanding general counsel at the helm, but when I searched among...

Not ?lawyers per formal management initiatives? but ?one initiative for every other direct report?

Posted on January 07, 2010
Musing about a will-o-the-wisp metric of ?lawyers per initiative? in legal departments I conclude that the quest is futile. Even if we define an initiative as a formal management effort and can reliably count them ? license a new software...

Clients request legal services through an online portal and can see all the contracts that exist

Posted on January 07, 2010
At Catholic Healthcare West, a system of 41 hospitals and medical centers, the legal staff work on more than 5,000 contracts every year. They use at least 100 templates for physician contracts alone. To cope, they installed Contract Express, software...

Low morale? Sometimes consider an employee engagement survey

Posted on January 07, 2010
Asian-Counsel, Vol. 7, Oct. 2009 at 19, mentions an ?Asia-Pacific Head of Legal & Compliance for a European asset manager? whose company conducted an ?employee staff engagement survey? to identify the kinds of issues that were of concern to employees...

Unusual determinants of a law firm?s reputation: corporate citizenship and ethical standards

Posted on January 05, 2010
Research on reputations of law firms among corporate purchasers of legal services confirms previous findings and adds a couple of unusual ones. The research, from Strategies: The J. of Legal Mkting., Vol. 11, Nov./Dec. 2009 at 14, aims to ?examine...

Benchmarks for M&A transactions that might shape bonus arrangements

Posted on January 05, 2010
An article in Acad. Mgt. Perspectives, Vol. 23, Nov. 2009 at 71, breaks down more than 2,000 mergers or acquisitions announced in Europe between 2001 and 2007. Among the many findings, one table shows the average number of days it...

Looks like a long wait for evidence-based management (EB Mgt.) to inform general counsel

Posted on January 05, 2010
?Evidence-based management (EB Mgt.) is the systematic use of the best available evidence to improve management practice.? In the management and organization sciences, say the authors of an article in Acad. Mgt. Perspectives, Vol. 23, Nov. 2009 at 5, scant...

Data on the costs of intellectual property litigation and recent increases

Posted on January 05, 2010
Results from the 2009 AIPLA Economic Survey at 138-141 show that the cost of the average patent lawsuit, $5 million in 2007, has increased 10 percent to $5.5 million. The same article in Met. Corp. Counsel, Vol. 17, Dec. 2009...

Survey your law firms, but observe some courtesies

Posted on January 05, 2010
A recent post mentions a survey by Coca-Cola of its law firms on their diversity practices (See my post of Dec. 7, 2009: diversity survey; and April 4, 2006: GE collects diversity metrics from its law firms.). Another post describes...

Previous | Next

Related Law Bulletins

Insurance Department Issues Second Annual Ohio Medical Liability Closed Claim Report
COLUMBUS — The Ohio Department of Insurance has issued its secon...

Injury Verdict Upheld in Chicago Police Department Auto Accident
A verdict awarded from a personal injury case in Chicago against t...

Department Of State Update on Implementation of E3 Visas for Australians
Our office receives many questions about when the new E-3 visa cat...