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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

Metrics on document management systems used by large law departments

Posted on February 13, 2009
The International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) released the results of its 2008 Law Department Survey of 45 law departments. The respondents could check all that apply, so there may be more systems than departments. In declining order of use, the...

Wide range of technology roles in law departments according to a recent survey

Posted on February 13, 2009
The International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) released the results of its 2008 Law Department Survey of 45 law departments. On page 5 a table lists eight technology roles. For each of them around 20 of the respondents had one or...

For aligned law departments, structure follows when the business changes its configuration

Posted on February 13, 2009
At Cadbury PLC the business regrouped from four regions to eight, and the law department matched that change exactly. It is a clear example of how efforts to align with the business side can push a law department to restructure...

Does your technology put at risk your attorney-client privilege?

Posted on February 13, 2009
The International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) released the results of its 2008 Law Department Survey. Forty-five departments responded, and about 34 of them were in companies with more than $10 billion in revenue, so we have a substantial population of...

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Purging 80 percent of your law firms and permitting the survivors only alternative billing

Posted on February 13, 2009
ITV, the public broadcasting network for TV in Britain, slashed the number of external law firms it uses from almost 50 to nine, according to Corp. Counsel, Vol. 16, Feb. 2009 at 52. Moreover, group legal director and general counsel...

Document comparison tools (red-lining) used by large law departments

Posted on February 13, 2009
The International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) released the results of its 2008 Law Department Survey of 45 law departments. One of the questions asked about the use of software that compares one version of a document to another version. The...

Acquiring companies do not always keep their general counsel; TLS per lawyer

Posted on February 13, 2009
Lloyds TSB paid roughly $18 billion to take over HBOS but the merged financial giant decided to keep the HBOS general counsel as its top lawyer. As disclosed in Corp. Counsel, Vol. 16, Feb. 2009 at 52, Lloyds has a...

Are these wide swings in specialists? cash compensation plausible?

Posted on February 12, 2009
Data in InsideCounsel, Jan. 2009 at 52, covers compensation from the Thomson Hildebrandt 2008 Law Department Survey. One of the charts shows median total cash compensation from a survey population of more than 220 law departments by seven areas of...

Median total cash compensation varies by legal specialty

38 articles by Rees Morrison about law department management

Posted on February 12, 2009
When I am not blogging, I like to write articles. My oeuvre now covers quite a few topics. If you would like to download PDFs of any of my 38 articles, visit my website and enjoy! I have added short...

Non-infringement opinions of patent counsel, but non-data on cost and frequency

Posted on February 12, 2009
An ad in Corp. Counsel, Vol. 16, Feb. 2009 at A2, with text by John Augustyn, a shareholder in Leydig, Voit & Mayer, refers to how ?Companies obtain opinions of patent counsel with respect to specific patents and products for...

For an associate, a C-suite secondment at Samsung Electronics

Posted on February 12, 2009
No headline, really, about Samsung Electronics, appointing its first-ever European general counsel. If, however, you read the announcement in Corp. Counsel, Vol. 16, Feb. 2009 at 52, you might raise an eyebrow. Since February 2008, a secondee from Eversheds coordinated...

Modest penetration of offshoring now and in future among UK legal departments

Posted on February 12, 2009
A survey jointly conducted by the Law Society, the U.K. equivalent of the ABA, and NewGalaxy Partners, a London-based legal outsourcing firm, collected responses from 52 British corporate counsel. Some of them completed an online survey and some gave telephone...

Four ideas for how to tell law firms to best respond to your RFP

Posted on February 12, 2009
Karen Kaplowitz of The New Ellis Group issues periodic newsletters, one of which contains several suggestions for how law firms can improve their RFP responses. Three of them would be good for your law department to suggest to the firms...

The big-three law department metrics hold in a survey of small law departments

Posted on February 12, 2009
The Small Law Department Compensation Survey, conducted in the summer of 2008 by ACC and Empsight, collected responses from 337 organizations. The average revenue of the companies was $500 million with the median revenue of $152 million. A year or...

Ten upsides of the recession for law departments

Posted on February 12, 2009
Having previously depressed everyone with eight downsides, I sanguinely offer ten advantages for general counsel that they might seize as a result of the economic downturn (See my post of Feb. 5, 2009: 8 downsides.). 1. Use the corporate pressure...

If you can?t roll-back billing rates, at least freeze them

Posted on February 09, 2009
?Deflationary billing? ? a term to hearten general counsel ? means hourly billing rates of law firms decline. A pipe dream, perhaps, because hourly rates are a powerful signaling device for law firms (See my post of Jan. 2, 2009:...

Fame and fortune! money-makers based on law departments

Posted on February 09, 2009
Venture capitalists might struggle to find bonanzas in these startup ideas that aim at legal departments, but at least a dozen ideas for aspiring entrepreneurs have appeared on this blog. Some are fanciful, some are practical and all are waiting...

4,000 posts on LawDepartmentManagementBlog! Isn?t it time you say hi?

Posted on February 07, 2009
Write me. Break radio silence. Feel the guilt of the lurking proletariat. Toss timidity to the winds. Bring a smile to the face of a blogger with even an ?Attaway!?. Click here to email Rees Morrison and let me know...

Are law departments urging unjustified settlements because e-discovery is too costly?

Posted on February 07, 2009
Almost 90 percent of 1,400 lawyers who responded to a recent survey said ?e-discovery is too costly and is increasing litigation costs, causing cases to be settled on cost rather than merit." This conclusion, from a study conducted by the...

Cogito ergo counsel ? a celebration of in-house cerebration

Posted on February 07, 2009
An in-house mind is a terrible thing to waste. On this I cogitated, ergo I blog (See my post of Jan. 24, 2006 about the half-life of law department knowledge; and (Sept. 22, 2006: factors that erode the rationale choice...

Metrics on what proportion of discovery covers electronic files on computers

Posted on February 07, 2009
We hear all the time about e-discovery, but what proportion of all document discovery does it constitute? It sounds like 60 percent might be a rule of thumb. These findings come from a survey of 235 mostly-US companies by the...

Legal work sent offshore in early 2008, smallest of six functions, might be 2% of companies now?

Posted on February 07, 2009
In January 2008, CFO magazine surveyed 181 finance executives about their company?s offshoring practices. About one out of three said their company used ?offshore outsourcing? and another ten percent planned to. In CFO, Vol. 24, March 2008 at 76, a...

Standard & Poor?s somehow to incorporate legal risk assessments into its ratings

Posted on February 07, 2009
Standard & Poor?s plans to assess enterprise risk management (ERM) practices at non-financial companies. The assessments will look at four components of ERM that S&P considers common to all industries: ?risk-management culture and governance, risk controls, emerging-risk preparation, and strategic...

Software that helps most with cost and quality of legal holds

Posted on February 07, 2009
These findings about litigation holds come from a survey of 235 mostly-US companies by the IT Policy Compliance Group (IT PCG) as reported in Info. Mgt., Vol. 43, Jan./Feb. 2009 at 10. Several posts refer to this survey (See my...

Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) blog roll of 15 topic blogs, including this one

Posted on February 07, 2009
It is an honor for this blog to become one of the 15 blogs on the ACC website. Three others also comment on management issues that general counsel encounter (InHouseBlog of Geoff Gussis, Wired GC of John Wallbillich, and the...

A huge amount of data about US patent lawsuits available for free online

Posted on February 07, 2009
Information about 23,000 US patent suits filed in U.S. district courts since 2000 are online and available free for analysis. This treasure trove of data was made possible by Stanford Law School?s Intellectual Property Litigation Clearinghouse. As stated on the...

Lock all laptops in your law department!

Posted on February 07, 2009
A member of DuPont?s IT organization who supports the company?s legal department wrote recently in Peer to Peer, Vol. 24, Nov. 2008 at 71, about protecting equipment. A poster that she had just seen dramatically warned people not to leave...

Dramatic data on what is saved in legal expenses by good compliance practices

Posted on February 06, 2009
A recent survey found that, "regardless of size, companies following best practices when it comes to compliance issues spent a smaller amount on legal fees than those following the worst practices." Companies that follow what the survey describes as "normative"...

Another YouTube smash hit by this blogger (PG rated)

Posted on February 06, 2009
Back by popular demand, better than ever, here is your videogenic blogger starring in this second clip from LegalTech. It will rivet you to your seat (See my post of Feb. 3, 2009: the prequel has been viewed 37 times.)....

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