An earlier post today describes a method of training, spaced education, that could help in-house lawyers when they train clients (See my post of Nov. 19, 2009: spaced education.). To find other instances where this blog refers to client education, I used for the first time a software program called…
People learn much more effectively if they spread out their learning over a period of time, rather than cramming, and if they are tested as they proceed, rather than at the end. Those are the two primary tenets of what is called in the Harv. Mag., Nov.-Dec. 2009 at 10,…
I have worked recently with a legal department that requires clients to complete an RLA (Request for Legal Advice) which goes into the department’s matter management system. If more than a couple of hours of work will be needed from the law department, clients are required to complete and submit…
“Twenty-nine percent of the corporate lawyers [attending a conference] believe policies and procedures are a necessary evil — but believe they are evil. Forty-nine percent believe the policies and procedures are not completely worthless in influencing employee behavior, but almost.” That hurts. Inside lawyers often have their hand in corporate…
Corporate policies cover many, many activities of company employees. They make up one form of codified behavior (See my post of Oct. 10, 2006: policies of law departments compared to practices; and Oct. 25, 2006: guidelines compared to policies.). Sometimes the lawyers have responsibilities to state, interpret or enforce company…
An article in the Academy of Mgt. J., Vol. 52, 2009 No. 3 at 506, describes a study of physicians in a large HMO and their so-called reciprocity dynamic in reaction to beneficial or detrimental treatment. The three authors discuss loyalty of a professional – and I read into it…
Peter Kurer, the former chairman of UBS and before that its general counsel, spoke at the Legal Week Corporate Counsel Forum last week. One portion of his remarks sketched a typology of behavioral and psychological differences between business people and lawyers. Here are my notes. Business people seek closure; lawyers…
In-house lawyers should tell their clients more stories if they want to reach them effectively. Stories are the way humans learn best, according to an article in the J. of the Legal Writing Inst., Vol. 15, 2009 at 270. It claims that cognitive neuroscience shows that our brains are structured…
Here is a bizarre way to get work from clients. As written in Mark Prebble, Managing In-House Legal Services: Providing High Value Support for Your Organisation (Thorogood 2009) at 24, “Legal departments use a variety of methods to deal with incoming work, which include: 1. A central email address which…
Several years ago, the inventive legal department at Cisco developed a tool that lets engineers start to figure out whether an invention is patentable. According to Robert Haig, Ed., Successful Partnering Between Inside and Outside Counsel (Thomson Reuters/West 2009 Supp.), Vol. 1, Chapter 11 at §11:22 fn 8, the online…