In-House Counsel

So much of what many in-house lawyers do has some connection to contracts that I quailed at the thought of wading through all my posts that pertain (See my post of May 16, 2006: misperception that all in-house lawyers do is review contracts; and June 24, 2007: 50-60% of work being low-value standard contracts.). True, an early foray had corralled some (See my post of May 5, 2006: contracts with 15 references.). Still, my procrastination had undoubtedly left piles of them, which discouraged me from the task. But on a long train ride I buckled down and located another batch of four dozen posts.

Several have to do with policy decisions (See my post of March 8, 2005: law departments handling contracts; June 7, 2006: legal approval of contracts; July 14, 2006: policy on who can sign contracts; Nov. 13, 2006: Aviva policy that contracts have to be passed to the legal team whenever they are signed; Dec. 2, 2008: seven guidelines for when the legal department ought to be involved in contracts; and April 8, 2009: wide differences in policies on contract review by legal functions.).

A group of posts here concern processes and tools applicable to contracts (See my post of June 19, 2006: streamlining aspects of contracts; Aug. 16, 2006: end-to-end study of contract handling; Jan. 17, 2007: improved turnaround time for contracts; April 17, 2007: delegating contract work; Dec. 13, 2007: style guides for contracts; May 24, 2009: term sheets for clients; Nov. 22, 2008: contract negotiation guides; and Aug. 13, 2009 #5: translate only key terms if you can?t read a contract in a language.).

A clutch of posts ride on technology topics (See my post of Jan. 4, 2006: contract life-cycle software; June 16, 2006: online acceptance of contracts; July 14, 2006: software that handles contracts for SABMiller; Dec. 17, 2007: clause libraries and software; March 11, 2008: red-lining software; Nov. 22, 2008: Six Sigma project on IT contracts; Dec. 14, 2008: XML tags on contracts; Dec. 17, 2008 #2: software in Australia to review advertising contracts; March 20, 2009 #4: software to automate signatures; and Dec. 2, 2008: four key benefits of a contract management system.).

Contract managers and contract administrators, either within the legal function or without, show up in several posts (See my post of May 5, 2006: contract administrators and Convergys; April 27, 2006: law firms can help with contracts administration; Dec. 8, 2006: contract managers and the evolution of matter management systems; Aug. 19, 2007: seven contract managers at Scientific American; Nov. 7, 2007: Red Hat?s commercial contracting function of 10; and March 19, 2009: business units should designate contract coordinators.).

Contracts incur risks and several posts address those liabilities (See my post of Dec. 17, 2007: tension between risk minimization and business flexibility; March 23, 2008: high cost of contractual dereliction; Aug. 12, 2008: contractual risks rank high for European general counsel; and May 10, 2009: international legal audits review form contracts.).

Recently there have been posts about contracts and legal process offshoring (See my post of Jan. 16, 2009: LPOs and contract review; March 16, 2009: LPO assistance with massive contract review; and June 18, 2009: Rio Tinto and offshore contract drafting.).

As usual with my metaposts, a number of my observations fit into no neat category (See my post of May 3, 2007: contract enforcement insurance; June 24, 2007: attorneys negotiating contracts with non-attorneys; June 25, 2007: metrics about contracts and how to handle them; Sept. 5, 2007: contracts and their complexity; Dec. 6, 2007: Sapient lets clients complete contracts; Jan. 22, 2009: free, online contracts are worth what you pay for them; and April 8, 2009: contract oversight and size of portfolio.).