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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

A hyperpost on law firm marketing efforts

Posted on July 16, 2009
Previous metaposts have compiled my comments on various aspects of law firm marketing: beauty contests, brands, cross-selling, and marketing (See my post of Nov. 28, 2007: law firm brands with 11 references; Jan. 28, 2008: brands, marketing, and cross selling;...

Data on number of invoices processed per user through leading e-billing systems

Posted on July 16, 2009
In mid-May, ten providers of e-billing software received invitations from me to provide metrics for three questions. Two declined but eight sent me data: Allegiant, Bottomline, Bridgeway, CTTyMetrix, DataCert, DOELegal, LawTrac, and Serengeti. One question asked for the ?Number of...

Descriptive metrics ? the series so far ? and thoughts on the ill-fated effort to develop that idea

Posted on July 15, 2009
At one point this Spring I set off on an ambitious series of posts about what I call ?descriptive metrics.? I persuaded myself that I had hit upon a higher-level way to quantify and depict legal department performance and characteristics....

Meet more posts on how to improve meetings

Posted on July 15, 2009
More than two years ago I compiled what I had written about the infernal time sponge, meetings (See my post of April 22, 2007: meetings with 9 references.). Since then, in-house attorneys have endured countless more hours in meetings. To...

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Number of invoices processed through leading e-billing systems

Posted on July 15, 2009
In mid-May, I invited ten providers of e-billing software to answer three questions. I followed up several times with the invitees. Eight companies eventually sent me data: Allegiant, Bottomline, Bridgeway, CTTymetrix, DataCert, doeLegal, LawTrac, and Serengeti...

A surprising boost from technology thought by firms to enhance client service

Posted on July 15, 2009
A surprising emphasis on technology training appeared in a recent white paper. A chart summarizes the survey responses from 150 lawyers among the largest in the United States and Canada, reported in Future Law Office: Delivering Value-Added Legal Services in...

A new website that curates the flood of law firm updates on substantive legal developments

Posted on July 15, 2009
Robert Ambrogi, the prolific host of LegalLine.com and other activities internetal (to coin a term), points out a useful resource for in-house attorneys. In-house lawyers may want to learn from the published work product of law firms, but how do...

Six disadvantages of a decentralized system where local business leaders hire lawyers as they see fit

Posted on July 15, 2009
In Inside Counsel, June 2009 at 54, Peter Wexler explains why he changed the decentralized structure at Schneider Electric to one where its practicing lawyers all report to him. The department has 90 lawyers, in 31 locations in 23 countries...

A claim about billions in value overseen by patent attorneys, but questions, always questions

Posted on July 14, 2009
Whirlpool ?has more than $4 billion of new ideas in its innovation pipeline,? according to an article in talent mgt., Feb. 2009 at 46. The rest of the article looks mostly at how the company has fused technology and talent...

More data and observations about why legal departments choose a specific firm for a matter

Posted on July 14, 2009
By law, it seems, all surveys of legal departments must include a mandatory question: ?Which of the following criteria is most important to you when you decide which law firm to retain?? Loopholes in the law allow the survey to...

Better meetings through devotion to facts based on reading during the meeting

Posted on July 14, 2009
The legendary Prof. Edward Tufte, interviewed for MIT Sloan Mgt. Rev., Vol. 50, Summer 2009 at 38, argues that meetings are more efficient if members devote much of their time during them to reading.. "I like enforced reading in meetings."...

The A3 technique of Toyota to boost the thinking of problem-solvers

Posted on July 14, 2009
MIT Sloan Mgt. Rev., Vol. 50, Summer 2009 at 30-31, gives an example of Toyota Motor Corp.?s method to achieve operational learning. Called the A3, because it fits on one sheet of paper of that size, it typically has a...

The false consensus effect and the blinders it creates for teams of peers

Posted on July 14, 2009
The more that people are centrally connected to their peers, the more they tend to overestimate the degree to which their judgments are in agreement. Social scientists call this the ?false consensus effect.? So, for example, lawyers who report directly...

Wince at the suggestion that firms press for quarterly meetings with the general counsel

Posted on July 14, 2009
A recent white paper quotes an article by Larry Bodine, who ?advises law firms to meet with general counsel at least once a quarter, at the client?s office? to talk about the client?s business. His quote appears in Future Law...

Tell law firms where they rank on metrics that matter to you, without identifying the firms

Posted on July 13, 2009
To spur your key law firms, tell them how they compare to their competitors. This idea comes from Inside Counsel, June 2009 at 50, which recounts the tactic of Jim Bencer, the general counsel of Williams Co. His legal group...

If you invest in formal education for your lawyers, insist on repayment if they leave soon thereafter

Posted on July 13, 2009
Some law departments (or their companies) pay for graduate programs taken by their lawyers. For example, someone might enroll in an executive MBA program or earn a project management certificate. For international lawyers, a resource like this is the Center...

Bring foreign-country lawyers to headquarters for a stint of training

Posted on July 13, 2009
When a legal department has lawyers who are admitted in a foreign jurisdiction and have only practiced there, it is important to integrate them with the mainstream department. You might bring them to headquarters for a period of training and...

Part XXXV of a collection of embedded metaposts

Posted on July 13, 2009
Ten more embedded metaposts (See my post of June 19, 2009: Part XXXIV), each embellished with the number of its back references. 1. Evolution, evolve (See my post of June 25, 2008: evolution with 8 references.). 2. General Electric (See...

Law departments extensively profiled on this blog: Cisco, DuPont, FMC, GE, McDonalds, Microsoft, United Technologies and Wal-Mart

Posted on July 13, 2009
So far, I have collected posts and created metaposts on Cisco, DuPont, FMC Technologies, GE, McDonalds and Microsoft. These six total 154 posts (See my post of Sept. 25, 2008: Cisco with 30 references; June 7, 2009: DuPont with 32...

Ten most interesting posts on this blog of May 2009

Posted on July 11, 2009
Some time having passed since I published 100 or so posts during May, I reread them all and chose the ten most provocative and interesting. For each, I wrote in brackets after the header a brief description of the post;...

Plotlines, a presentation technique more advanced than timelines

Posted on July 10, 2009
In-house counsel who need to present complicated material to clients or outside counsel should consider the advantages of a plotline. As a visualization tool, timelines leave much to be desired (See my post of Feb. 16, 2008: flowcharts and summaries.)...

Mens sana in corpore sano: corporate lawyers and health

Posted on July 10, 2009
To be able to ?run a good race? as an in-house lawyer over a period of years, it helps to stay healthy. An assortment of posts on this blog refer to physical health (See my post of Jan. 13, 2006...

Third set of resources from blogs and websites ? thanks to another 13

Posted on July 10, 2009
Many blogs and websites cite to Law Department Management Blog, 27 of which I have previously thanked (See my post of June 17, 2009: 14 blogs/websites that have directed readers here; and June 26, 2009: 13 more referral sources.). During...

Ten benchmarks many general counsel wish they could obtain and ponder

Posted on July 10, 2009
Having presented the ten most fundamental benchmarks for legal department managers, all of them available from various sources, I mention here ten benchmarks that many general counsel may wish were more available (See my post of July 9, 2009: ten...

Another set of 12 practice pros and cons

Posted on July 09, 2009
Since my previous post on the advantages and disadvantages of fifteen practices (See my post of March 23, 2009: pluses and minuses of 15 practices.), I have accumulated a dozen more debate posts. 1. Break-outs or plenary sessions at large...

Don?t ask for a single budget, ask for scenarios of plausible outcomes in a matter and the associated fee estimates

Posted on July 09, 2009
Jeanne Graham, writing in the Texas Lawyer, July 1, 2009, quotes the managing partner of Beirne Maynard & Parsons. His comments on decision trees are grounded in reality (See my post of June 17, 2009: decision tree software with 6...

Ten most fundamental metrics for general counsel and interested observers

Posted on July 09, 2009
For US law departments that have more than five lawyers, here are the fundamental ten metrics: 1. They spend approximately 0.5% of their corporation?s revenue each year on their inside plus their external spend. 2. That benchmark for ?total legal...

Recommendations of software for litigation tracking that are new to me

Posted on July 08, 2009
The head of litigation at a pharmaceutical company, facing scores of lawsuits, asked on a LinkedIn forum about software that would allow his firms to enter their litigation data. ?I need several outside firms to input/upload confidential data [about lawsuits]...

Hyperpost on software applications for legal departments

Posted on July 08, 2009
Most of the metaposts on Law Department Management Blog look at specific categories of software, including the following seven: 1. Contract management (See my post of Nov. 22, 2008: contract management software with 11 references.). 2. Decision trees (See my...

Pros and cons of an in-house lawyer responsible for relations with a primary law firm

Posted on July 08, 2009
Dialectics appeal to me; the push and pull of opposing views exists all the time on any practice worth a discussion. So in that spirit let me present both sides of the decision to charge a lawyer in a legal...

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