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

Part XLV of a collection of embedded metaposts

Posted on March 12, 2010
Two more handfuls of embedded metaposts and their back references (See my post of Feb. 22, 2010: Part XLIII), conjointly with the number of their back references. 1. 3M (See my post of March 2, 2010: 3M Corporation with 7...

Two networks of law firms, Law Europe and Ius Laboris

Posted on March 11, 2010
Lawyers in-house who manage law firms may want to consider a network of firms in some circumstances. Here are two more of them. ?Law Europe EEIG is a group of 25 law firms, principally located in Europe but with members...

Why do lawyers in companies believe they hold higher moral standards than other employees?

Posted on March 11, 2010
I am a lawyer but I do not claim that lawyers are more moral than non-lawyers. That view would likely irritate and offend many people. What says lawyers are any holier than thou? Yet general counsel, or some of them...

Marketers and ?net fans, hear this blogger discuss blogs and other Web 2.0 methods

Posted on March 11, 2010
It is an honor for me to host a Legal Marketing Association webinar on May 11th. I will share my hard-won learnings from five years of blogging. Beyond that I will discuss how to propagate a successful blog such as...

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

Twenty techniques to bring together a dispersed legal team, and an article to boot

Posted on March 11, 2010
It is no easy matter to create in the minds of departmental lawyers a collective sense that they are pulling the oars together, especially when they are all over the world and come from many different legal backgrounds. Bits and...

When a network for lawyers (Legal OnRamp) links up with servicers to law departments (CT Tymetrix)

Posted on March 11, 2010
They hyper-active Paul Lippe of Legal OnRamp continues to embrace new collaborations. Recently, GC Roundtable linked up with his online network and now a major vendor to legal departments has joined. I learned about this from Charles Christian?s American Legal...

Document disassembly (and then document assembly) with Baseline Solutions

Posted on March 11, 2010
An interesting tool for legal departments came to my attention on Charles Christian?s online American Legal Technology Insider, March 2010. ?Baseline Solutions has launched a new legal document review tool called Baseline. Through a series of customizable ?Playbooks,? the system...

Myth or reality? Smaller legal departments are harder pressed than larger ones

Posted on March 11, 2010
Why does the sentiment prevail that lawyers in small law departments face noticeably more burdensome workloads than do lawyers in larger departments? Small and stretched vs. large and lazy? To the contrary, size probably creates more legal problems; smaller but...

The right of a legal department to audit invoices of law firms it hires

Posted on March 09, 2010
One of the provisions in the Council on Litigation Management?s Litigation Guidelines (Para. XIV) establishes the right of a legal department to go back over bills even after the department has paid them. ?These audits may be conducted at your...

Six ideas for rules that control fees billed for intra-firm meetings

Posted on March 09, 2010
Inside lawyers squawk about internal conferences at law firms and how timekeepers bill for them. Partners squawk back, because they understand that it is valuable to consult with peers, delegate work, and share knowledge, the purposes, that is, of internal...

Rees Morrison?s Morsels #133 ? posts longa, morsels breva

Posted on March 09, 2010
Recovery of legal fees for successful defense of the Crown?s criminal action. Law departments in the UK have the right to recover the legal fees they pay in defense of criminal charges, if acquitted. For example, the engineering firm Balfour...

Most in-house counsel neither manage nor lead others ? they do work

Posted on March 09, 2010
Upwards of 80 percent of all US law departments have fewer than 10 lawyers. Even at the top of the range, assuming at least four or five direct reports to the general counsel, none of the other lawyers manage more...

Ten best posts of January 2010 on LawDepartmentManagementBlog

Posted on March 08, 2010
In case you missed them, here are the ?Editor?s Choices?: Survey your law firms, but observe some courtesies (Jan. 5, 2010) Your firms can provide all kinds of information to you, but ask judiciously and always share the feedback Data...

Five innovations in legal department benchmarking, courtesy of an article in Met. Corp. Counsel

Posted on March 08, 2010
If you have wondered whether to complete the benchmarking survey of General Counsel Metrics, wonder no more. It is fast, easy and the participant group is already the largest ever! To find out some of the innovative techniques the report...

Honest frustration from a general counsel about a CEO?s proclivity to work directly with outside counsel

Posted on March 08, 2010
An interview of Stasia Kelly, the controversial general counsel of AIG who recently resigned, appears in Fortune, March 1, 2010 at 48-49. Kelly explains her relationship with Bob Willumstad, who took over as CEO and was her boss. One critical...

Reporting upward of general counsel

Posted on March 08, 2010
Despite having addressed reporting from several perspectives, I have not pulled together my pieces on where the general counsel reports. So, I have filled that hole (See my post of Aug. 28, 2005: general counsel who seek to be the...

UK general counsel now more commonly report now to the CEO, Chairman or President

Posted on March 08, 2010
Several years ago I wrote that many more general counsel in the UK report below the CEO than do US general counsel (See my post of April 12, 2006: UK GCs report less often to CEOs than the 80%+ mark...

Learn and retain better when you take a test on material before you study it

Posted on March 08, 2010
Some proponents of a method to absorb information more effectively urge you to learn in chunks, review the chunks, and test yourself (See my post of Nov. 19, 2009: ?spaced education??). A related method emphasizes even more the benefits of...

Do not be of good cheer; a foul mood enshrouds a fine lawyer?

Posted on March 08, 2010
The worth of academic psychology studies varies widely, but when I read that ?people in a bad mood performed tasks better than those in a good mood? I hardly cheered up. My basic style is cheerful; life is full and...

A report after one month from the largest global benchmark study: more than 300 respondents

Posted on March 04, 2010
With more than 300 respondents during February, the survey population has already reached impressive proportions. I thank all the pioneers who have helped launched such a successful effort. As of a week or so ago, the companies in the survey...

Found by firm: an ?overwhelming desire by clients to get to know the associates who work on matters?

Posted on March 04, 2010
In Met. Corp. Counsel, Vol. 18, Feb. 2010 at 11, a partner at Weil, Gotshal & Manges (James Quinn) summarized one of the insights the firm derived from a client satisfaction survey. The firm identified ?an overwhelming desire on the...

Guidelines from England?s Law Society for those who wish to use the services of management consultants

Posted on March 04, 2010
The Law Society, Britain?s counterpart to the American Bar Association,closely associates with Lexcel. A Lexcel publication (at page 10) mentions the availability of ?guidelines for those wishing to use the services of management consultants.? [Blog author?s note: that would include...

General counsel need to know what is going on ? two more formal methods

Posted on March 04, 2010
No general counsel wants to be surprised by some event, not if a lawyer in the department had some inkling it happened or might happen. Drop-ins, phone calls, hallway chats, emails, and scheduled one-on-ones are all means by which the...

Industry is key to benchmarking, but poses methodological problems

Posted on March 02, 2010
My a priori assumption is that legal departments are evenly distributed within industries by number and lawyer staff when you adjust for the size of the industry. If true, then roughly speaking, an industry that is twice as big as...

Law departments can turn to a full-fledged graphics department at a law firm

Posted on March 02, 2010
Weil, Gotshal & Manges has set up an ancillary function that is unusual. "One of the things that we have done is to create an in-house graphics group for trials and hearings. They do all the in-court graphics rather than...

Legal departments of US companies that do business worldwide will steadily disperse around the globe

Posted on March 02, 2010
Marschall Smith, the general counsel of 3M, makes further geographic dispersion of his lawyers an inexorable trend: ?Because 65 to 70 percent of the company?s sales are outside the U.S., so are the majority of our lawyers.? His interview in...

Patent agents instead of patent lawyers, and other instances of para-professional substitutions

Posted on March 02, 2010
3M has steadily brought patent work in-house, according to Inside Counsel, Jan. 2010 at 43, shifting from about 65 percent of the work done inside to now more than 90 percent. At the same time, the department has ?reduced the...

GCs who report to the CEO are paid more, and a few thoughts on reasons why

Posted on March 02, 2010
Recent data has appeared on general counsel among the Fortune 250 who do or don?t report to the CEO as well as the compensation differences between the two groups. The analysis comes from Equilar by way of a summary in...

An intense and complex strategic plan, with no less than 30 indicators

Posted on March 01, 2010
The Legal and Corporate Affairs Department of Microsoft has one or more people dedicated to looking at the company?s strategy and trying to define the goals and develop scenarios for the Department to support those strategies. "The department's Strategic Framework...

Quarterly teleconferences for all 165 lawyers of 3M?s far-flung department

Posted on March 01, 2010
An article of mine on twenty ways to integrate a dispersed legal department will appear next week in the National Law Journal. It mentions teleconferences but not at the scale of 3M?s impressive application of that technique. 3M has 165...

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...