As explained in strategy + bus., Iss. 53, Winter 2008 at 52, more global dispersal of a company’s research and development spending correlates to better financial performance. The performance indicators include operating margin, total shareholder return, market cap growth, and return on assets. Benchmark surveys of law departments ought to…
In plain English, I can’t understand some survey data on the essence of litigation budgets. The Fulbright & Jaworski 2008 Litigation Trends Survey had participants from about 140 in-house counsel at companies with revenues above $1 billion. According to other benchmark surveys, such companies in the U.S. spend about a…
The implication from a recent survey is that private companies face less litigation exposure than public companies. That may be true, the analysis ignores a significant third factor, size. The Fulbright & Jaworski 2008 Litigation Trends Survey writes that “privately held companies saw fewer new suits, but were hardly immune…
One analysis missing from the Fulbright & Jaworski 2008 Litigation Trends Surveyis litigation activity normalized by revenue (See my post of Jan. 1, 2006: explanation of normalized data.). The report, based on input from 358 in-house counsel, tells about percentages of U.S. firms never sued in 2007-08 by under $100…
I have written about benchmarks that the current crop of surveys do not gather. Our industry is missing a number of metrics that could be useful (See my post of May 30, 2005: judgments and settlements; Jan. 19,2008: metrics differentiating privately-held companies; March 24, 2005: productivity; and July 20, 2005:…
Fortune, Vol. 158, July 7, 2008 at 18, cites a study that compares the reliability of corporate-governance ratings (See my post of Aug. 17, 2008: corporate governance with 18 references.). A table shows the scores four firms – Audit Integrity, Institutional Shareholder Services, GovernanceMetrics International, and The Corporate Library –…
A senior lawyer in a law department spoke recently about how the litigation spend of his group amounts to “one or two cents per share.” That is a novel perspective for a legal benchmark. All legal costs could be divided by the number of shares outstanding. The metric does not…
Struggling through another benchmarking project that requires persuading general counsel to release a paltry few metrics, I turned empathic. Why is it so difficult for consultants to collect benchmark metrics from other law departments on behalf of a client (See my post of Oct. 17, 2005 that urges general counsel…
For all kinds of reasons, the gold standard of law department metrics – total legal spending as a percentage of revenue (TLS/Rev) — varies significantly by industry. If you have enough companies in each industry so that you have a reliable median figure for TLS/Rev in each industry, the figure…
Total legal spending as a percentage of revenue (TLS/Rev) leads the metrics pack in terms of importance. I have written an article about some aspects of that figure. and many posts after its publication (See my post of Dec. 3, 2007: reasons why TLS/Rev declines, with 11 references; Dec. 5,…