In-House Counsel

Too bad that academics rarely pay attention to law departments

By Rees Morrison

I am a closet academic, as long-time readers might have noticed. Ideas, research and writing interest me, and my blog posts are sometimes tiny efforts to teach. Too bad no group of law or business academics vigorously study and debate anything about law departments, let alone their management. Only sometimes do I run across professors with such arcane interests.

Some posts write about courses at colleges for in-house counsel, and obviously someone teaches those programs (See my post of May 14, 2005: program at Harvard Business School; April 18, 2005: Said Business School at Oxford; April 12, 2006: universities with courses aimed in-house counsel; and Feb. 24, 2008: Harvard Program on the Legal Profession.).

Other posts mention specific professors (See my post of May 5, 2006: academics with an interest in law department management; Oct. 23, 2005: empirical legal studies discipline, yet the dearth of academics who study law departments; Oct. 23, 2005: James Cook?s PhD dissertation on law department structure; June 25, 2007: Professors Ross and Fortney; Sept. 17, 2006: bill padding research by Ross; May 10, 2006: Fortney research; Feb. 25, 2007: law review article on roles of general counsel; and Dec. 27, 2008: research on gate-keeping by Sung Hui Kim.).

Mostly I regret that little comes from professors about law department management (See my post of July 4, 2006: lack of data; Aug. 1, 2006: natural experiments; March 20, 2007: comparison to McKinsey research; and Feb. 17, 2008: law firm practice group to include academics.).

Full post as published by Law Department Management on February 25, 2009 (boomark / email).