MIT Sloan Mgt. Rev., Vol. 49, Summer 2008 at 53, discusses customer satisfaction and two specific problem areas. “The linkage between satisfaction and customer behavior and positive financial outcomes has tended to be modest.” To my knowledge, no one has ever tried to show that corporate employees who have higher…
To be synchronized with their clients, shadows of the business executives moving hand-in-hand toward the company’s efforts – that is alignment for a law department (See my posts of Sept. 21, 2005: activities aligned with client goals; and May 10, 2006: an important Canadian-department goal.). Profiles of law departments often…
A profile of the general counsel of Whole Foods Market, Roberta Lang, appears in InsideCounsel, June 2008 at 72. The all-natural food supermarket giant has seven in-house lawyers and they all are described as invested in the beliefs and values of their client. At one point, Lang says, “We give…
A discouraging view about lawyers and their win-lose mentality is expressed in the Harv. Bus. Rev., Vol. 86, May 2008 at 82. In the context of “competitive arousal” that afflicts executives during high-stakes, time pressured and publicized deals, the author disparages resort to lawyers. After all, “most of them are…
When clients complete satisfaction surveys on behalf of law departments, rarely do they have a question that asks their views on the performance of outside counsel. A question might touch on the cost of external lawyers, but otherwise the external contribution is entirely refracted through inside lawyers. The external lawyers…
The UK-based law firm Eversheds posted on Legal OnRamp a document about its Advisory Board. The Advisory Board consists of senior members of legal teams and, apparently, the firm convenes it every now and then to share ideas on various topics. For example, one general counsel “went around the company…
Most law departments charge back to business units a significant portion of the outside counsel fees paid on their behalf (See my posts of Feb. 27, 2008: practices of Time Warner Cable; and July 31, 2006: goal of 100% of outside counsel fees allocated out.). Far fewer legal departments charge…
Rather than a long email or memorandum, an in-house lawyer might depict various choice points and possibilities of a complex situation by means of a flow chart. Many people can grasp branching alternatives and complex relationships better from a diagram – either a flow chart or a process map –…
Laws permeate the operations of companies, as do regulations, ordinances, agency procedures, judicial decisions, and many other forms of juristic governmental dictates. Let’s just call them all “laws.” Given the pervasiveness of laws in a company’s operations, what should be the scope responsibility for observance of them sought from the…
A general counsel, speaking recently to a large group of in-house lawyers, proudly explained that in his law department, “Our lawyers never say ‘no’ to clients.” Lest you be concerned about such patsies who abdicate their checks-and-balances role, he hastened to add that that his lawyers will tell wayward clients…