A BLOOK by Rees Morrison on Law Department Talent Management

This “blook,” a book made up of blog posts, derives from my blog, Law Department ManagementBlog.com, which I started in February 2005. With 296 posts under the category Talent Management, I organized the 201 pages into nine chapters. I further the posts within the chapters into sub-topics. My organizing theme for the chapters is chronological, from when you first think about hiring someone, through finding them, paying them, on to when you fire a person or they leave the law department.

The Commentators. With the blook structured as described, I invited several friends to read it and comment on any posts that interested them. Their observations are at the end of posts. The commentators include Siobhan Moriarty, currently Associate General Counsel and General Counsel Europe for Diageo PLC; Amy Gallent, SVP, Associate GC & Chief of Staff of The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc.; Ken Bunge, who at the time he added his comments was the Managing Attorney for UTC’s law department; and John McGuckin, the General Counsel of Union Bank of California.

Everyone who knew John very saddened to learn that he died in early 2009. He was a wonderful man, funny, insightful, and energetic. We will all miss him very much. I dedicate this blook to the memory of John McGuckin.

The Aspiration. Several tools in this blook will help readers assess and use these
posts:

Table of contents. To help readers find what interests them, the blook starts with a
table of contents that shows all the headers of the posts, in their order in the blook.

Back references. Whenever a post refers back to a prior post, it is to a “back reference.” Of the posts in this blook, 146 of them have no back references indicated in tables by NO REFERENCE). The other posts have a total of 342 back references. If you are interested in where a post was cited subsequently, you can find out from the table if you can match the thumbnail summary of the back reference by date and topic to the back-referenced post.

Posts by Date and Alphabetical Order. Another table lists each post in chronological order. This table helps readers locate a back reference, for example. A second table lists each post alphabetically by its header.

Indices. The full index is exhaustive whereas the index of proper names, which follows it, is briefer.

My hope is that readers find this blook useful and that interest is sufficient that it makes sense for me to update it with a hundred or more recent posts from mid-2007 on.

I urge everyone who has this blook to share with me your comments about it, at
Rees(at)ReesMorrison(dot)com, or call me at (United States) 973.568-9110.