In 2005, Robert Half Legal published its Future Law Office report on “Client Service: Challenges and Strategies.” In a portion about service issues and solutions, on page 4, a startling quote appears. “The best way for a [law] firm to familiarize itself with a client’s needs is for partners and…
This statement, from Michael Shermer, Science Friction: Where the Known Meets the Unknown (Time Books 2005) at 31, should give those of us who advocate surveys of clients some measure of pause. If systemic factors distort scores downward, general counsel should account for that. Meanwhile, several other distortions bedevil client…
I oppose tracking time in legal departments at the level of detail found in law firms (See my post of Nov. 22, 2008: internal time tracking.). Even more I question the value of charging clients for the hours worked by inside-counsel (See my post of June 30, 2006: don’t charge…
Ben Heineman, writing in Corp. Counsel, Vol. 15, Nov. 2008 at 92, asks “Are the CEOs in large and medium-size international companies … willing to invest in in-house legal departments?” He views global, specialized and sophisticated legal departments with high-quality lawyers – sort of like he viewed General Electric’s department,…
According to IP Law & Bus., Vol. 6, Sept. 2008 at 42, one of the practices at 3M Co. is to have its patent lawyers “not only attend meetings of the management teams and operating committee, but even keep regular office hours in the business units’ labs.” Circuit riding means…
Three tensions stand out for me between what clients want and what in-house should provide. No solution will ever emerge for these intractable management problems, a subset of the insoluble issues general counsel face that I wrote about in my article on intractables. Clients want an unlimited, free good; lawyers…
Cartoons are sometimes no laughing matter, and one in the LA Times, Aug. 28, 2008 at C2, hurt. Scott Adams www.dilbert.com shows in panel one of Dilbert the hapless guy with the flat head and tie flipping up speaking to “company lawyer,” a bespeckled nerd, with no computer on his…
The general counsel of General Electric advocates doing more work within the law department than did his predecessor. Setting aside the skeptical inquiry – “How do you measure this statement?” – let’s take on the three advantages he states, very clearly, for doing legal work in the law department. His…
At the start of this summer, the consultancy of Barend Blondé and Antoine Henry de Frahan asked in-house counsel in Belgium to select their top three management priorities out of a list of ten options. Here are the six priorities that received the most votes as stated in their article.…
The received wisdom is that lawyers are by personality, training, or position quite cautious. In two words, they are risk averse (See my post of April 12, 2006: risk aversion and personality styles; Nov. 22, 2007: research findings about lawyer styles; Oct. 18, 2005: generally on lawyer on risk aversion;…