In-House Counsel

Rees Morrison?s Morsels #90 ? additions to earlier posts

By Rees Morrison

Yearly paper usage by white-collar workers. The Atlantic, Jan./Feb. 2009 at 67, tells us that white collar workers, at least, are gradually moving toward less paper. In 2000, the average worker ? with lawyers included somewhere in the lot ? consumed 144.2 pounds of paper. In 2008, the average declined to 129.3 pounds. Toner cartridges in law departments are grateful (See my post of April 27, 2008: power down printers to conserve energy.).

General counsel severance agreements. The Career Development Office at Yale Law School posts a guide for its law students who may be interested in law departments as employers. Under the topic of compensation, it mentions employment contracts for general counsel. ?Severance agreements at the GC level are common, though not universal, and provide back-end insurance.? That last term means that the compensation may not be as high as a partner in a law firm would pull down, but there is a golden parachute for the general counsel.

Structure and size of Goldman, Sachs? law department. A senior lawyer at Goldman, Sachs contributed to the Career Development Office at Yale Law School?s guide for law students who may be interested in working in in-house. In 2007 that lawyer wrote that she worked in a four-lawyer ?Department,? part of a 24-lawyer ?Division,? which is in turn part of ?325-375 in [the] Legal Department worldwide? (See my post of Oct. 19, 2005 #2: 90 lawyers outside the US and staff of more than 400; Dec. 19, 2005: Esta Stecher and ?her team of 200 attorneys?.).

A blog by a recruiter who specializes in legal department placements. Law Department Search is the blog of a recruiting consultant who focuses on corporate legal departments and in-house counsel. Courtney Sapire of the Sapire Search Group, the editor of the blog, is the Texas-based legal and executive search consultant. When I checked on January 15th, the most recent post was Dec. 8, then Dec. 5 and Dec 4, so not a lot of new material (See my post of Dec. 16, 2008: thirteen law-department related blogs *2.).

Full post as published by Law Department Management on January 18, 2009 (boomark / email).