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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

BT enters into broad-scale arrangement for legal services support from UnitedLex

Posted on March 31, 2010
An email from UnitedLex (Kristie Kushner) brought to my attention a recent development that involves both a major legal department and a major LPO provider. I normally find little value in press releases but this one seems of the magnitude...

For starters, 21 different titles for legal department administrators

Posted on March 31, 2010
My friend Brad Blickstein,head of the Blickstein Group, wanted to supplement my recent post about law department administrators who mediate between the legal function and other support functions. I had mentioned the profusion of titles for administrators so he helpfully...

Only half of all CLOs in the US are promoted from within the legal department

Posted on March 30, 2010
One of the metrics that came out of a survey conducted by the Harvard Law School Center on Lawyers and the Professional Services Industry tells us the provenance of new general counsel. A table from an unpublished article by four...

Four nuances of attributes of ?lawyer,? such as in lawyers per billion of revenue

Posted on March 30, 2010
The position ?lawyer,? as in the key benchmark of lawyers per billion of revenue, treats each lawyer as an undifferentiated atomistic unit, but in fact individual lawyers consist of sub-atomic particles galore, so to speak. If we knew more precisely....

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General counsel straddle the gap between Aristotelian qualities and Baconian quantities

Posted on March 30, 2010
?Everyone knows that the scientific revolution involved the replacement of an Aristotelian understanding of nature in terms of qualities by a new understanding, which prioritized quantities.? Although sadly not one of the ?everyones,? I read that statement from the J...

Total median compensation of a group of general counsel was five times salary

Posted on March 30, 2010
Data in a paper by Prof. Michele Beardslee, presented at the Georgetown Conference on the Future of Law Firms at 19, reports on the salaries of 46 general counsel and the total compensation of 39 general counsel. The paper cites...

The role of a law department administrator as go-between with other staff functions

Posted on March 30, 2010
Aaron Van Nice, Director of Operations for the legal department of Baxter International, will be speaking at Mitratech?s upcoming Interact conference. The conference will take place May 16-19, but I read Van Nice?s bio in the program materials. Among his...

Dynegy?s legal department bares all its benchmark metrics, and why not?

Posted on March 29, 2010
Corp. Counsel, March 2010 at 82-85, sets out the fundamental metrics of Dynegy, a $3.5 billion operator of electricity power plants. The legal department has 20 lawyers. Its spending on external counsel in 2009 was $5.1 million, of which only...

Four technology observations based on the bio of a speaker at the upcoming Interact Conference

Posted on March 29, 2010
One of the speakers at Mitratech?s upcoming Interact Conference,is Libby Troughton, Senior Manager, Legal IT, at The Home Depot. Since the conference doesn?t take place until May 16-19, my observations are based on Troughton?s bio in the program materials...

A new book on tools to improve the management of your legal department

Posted on March 29, 2010
The Smarter Legal Model (Practical Law 2010) by Trevor Faure, General Counsel of Ernst and Young Global, has just been published. The marketing blurb touts the book as ?a practical "toolbox" of complementary methodologies which have been applied on a...

Rarely gotten around to: formal succession planning

Posted on March 29, 2010
The general counsel I interview can always rank their direct reports in terms of their ability to take on the general counsel?s position. Some they recognize as very strong candidates (?X is my likely heir apparent.?) while others are pegged...

50 state survey describes state bar admission requirements for in-house counsel

Posted on March 29, 2010
A publication of the law firm of Butler Snow has in its Pro Te: Solutio, Jan. 2010 at 13, an impressive three-page summary of the requirements in each state ?governing admission of out-of-state attorneys who represent business organizations as in-house...

Rees Morrison?s Morsels #134: posts longa, morsels breva

Posted on March 29, 2010
Four-time general counsel. Corp. Counsel, March 2010 at 37, notes that when Tracy Rich recently became the general counsel of Guardian Life Insurance Company, it was his fourth general counselship in a 30-year career (See my post of Nov. 16,...

Staff cuts because productivity increases or because legal demand drops off

Posted on March 24, 2010
From 2006 through 2008, voluntary and involuntary departures from Ford Motor?s legal department reduced its lawyer numbers from 200 to 120, a 40 percent slash. During that period, as recounted in Corp. Counsel, March 2010 at 72, the company?s sales...

Secondments will rise if more firms decide they are a prerequisite to become a partner

Posted on March 24, 2010
At the recent Georgetown Law Conference on the evolution of law firms, a panelist from Clifford Chance (Sally Fiona King) explained that the firm now requires associates who are considered for partnership to have passed one of two requirements. Either...

Organizational capital in legal departments and a rating system

Posted on March 24, 2010
Some people argue that productivity gains in companies arise primarily from improved organizational capital: improved management practices and operational processes. That claim rests on the assumption that human capital is roughly equally distributed so a competitive advantage accrues to those...

Three more objections to fixed-fee arrangements

Posted on March 24, 2010
A few days ago I tackled four objections of Rich Baer, Qwest?s general counsel, to fixed fees, and perhaps brought them to the ground (See my post of March 16, 2010: criticisms of billing arrangements that are based on fixed...

The Birkman Method: a behavioral analysis instrument that could help legal teams

Posted on March 23, 2010
The instrument costs $495 for individuals, it asks 298 online questions, and it takes about a half hour to complete. Your results come with a one-hour feedback session with a Birkman-trained consultant. This summary comes from Fortune, March 22, 2010...

An article on document assembly, with eight offerings mentioned

Posted on March 23, 2010
A recent article by my friend Marc Lauritsen, of Capstone Practice Systems marc@capstonepractice.com, discusses ?practice system authoring software.? Some people refer to such software as document assembly software, some as automated drafting software, but Marc covers the basics of whatever...

If credit default swaps, why not litigation loss swaps?

Posted on March 23, 2010
When you buy bonds of a company, you can buy a swap from an investor who agrees to pay you a certain amount if the bond issuer defaults. Why not, then, buy a swap from an investor who agrees to...

Insights into how legal departments imitate the practices of other departments

Posted on March 23, 2010
A fascinating article a decade ago, reporting research on the selection of investment bankers, has much to say about legal departments and why they select prominent law firms. Pamela Haunschild and Anne Miner published their article in Admin. Science Quarterly,...

Privileges and two arguments for a separation of much claims work from legal

Posted on March 22, 2010
In Corp. Counsel, March 2010 at A4, a partner at Anderson Kill discusses claims investigations by in-house counsel and two privileges. ?For the work-product doctrine to apply, the investigation must be outside of standard claims handling process. For attorney-client privilege...

Hypothesis: the larger the company, the larger the law firms that represent it and an empirical test proposed

Posted on March 22, 2010
A study I wish someone would do would compile several lists of ?who represents corporate America.? Each company on the list would have a number for their position on the Fortune 1000 list. Each law firm listed as representing a...

A couple of points on data about awards to patent holders ? trolls vs. practicing entities

Posted on March 22, 2010
A chart in a discussion of data compiled by PriceWaterhouseCooopers, January 2010, Corp. Counsel, March 2010 at 50, shows that during 2002-08, median damages awarded non-practicing entities (trolls) were $12 million, almost three times the damages awarded practicing entities...

Five arguments against legal departments using non-lawyers for significant tasks, with counter-arguments

Posted on March 22, 2010
Here are five points that traditionalists might advance against reliance on employees without law degrees for important undertakings. They come from a recent presentation. ?Attorneys are ultimately responsible? ? but this argument, carried to an extreme, would have only lawyers...

A staffing model for US litigation: barrister, solicitor, case manager, contractor, etc.

Posted on March 22, 2010
In a recent presentation, a senior lawyer of a major manufacturing company described his law department?s model for how to staff a lawsuit. More, he described the approximate percentage of time and cost the company believes is appropriate for each...

Nine solid rules for good contract drafting from a ?Plain English? general counsel

Posted on March 17, 2010
A presenter at a conference shared his company?s emphasis on the use of ?plain English? in the drafting of contracts and other documents. The general counsel itemized his company?s basic rules of contract drafting: 1. No embedded definitions 2. Keep....

?Only raise issues that have dollars attached to them? (and four thoughts about that view)

Posted on March 17, 2010
The quote comes from a list of lessons learned by a general counsel who served for a time as the President of a major operating unit. The admonition has much merit. Consider these four corollaries. What interests a specialist lawyer...

No faking in the in-house fight against counterfeit and pirated products

Posted on March 17, 2010
?The OECD estimates that international trade in counterfeit and pirated goods was worth around $250 billion in 2007.? Others put the loss to business much higher, according to the Economist, March 6, 2010 at 81, for various reasons. One reason...

A Qwest for fair billing arrangements ? four arguments against fixed fees

Posted on March 17, 2010
Richard Baer, general counsel of Qwest Communications, recently made several points against fixed fees. He gave four reasons for his opposition to them in an interview by Corp. Counsel, March 2010 at 18. His points don?t persuade me. Baer begins...

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