“With a network of more than 100,000 users in 180 countries, Serengeti Law is now the largest online community of legal professionals in the world.” So claims a press release summarized in the ACC Docket, Vol. 27, Dec. 2009 at 93. Literally true, since all those Serengeti users share the…
By now, with all the frustrated initiatives and years of lassitude, let’s just accept that in-house counsel couldn’t care less about contributing to departmental knowledge bases (See my post of March 5, 2005: no altruistic information sharing.). Not if they have to do anything to donate material. You can try…
Raymond Bayley, CEO of Novus Law, writes in Met. Corp. Counsel, Vol. 17, Nov. 2009 at 47,that “several studies show that lawyers spend more than 20 percent of their time looking for things. If you can bill 400 or more hours annually looking for things, there is no incentive to…
To the approximately 28 books I have already found, Google’s book search added a few more about legal department operations and management. I have listed all the information that Google provides. Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education-New England Law Institute – Corporate legal departments (1979) 158 pages. The Punjab Law Department manual,…
“The idea that those who actually took part in great events or lived through particular times have superior understanding to those who come later is a deeply held yet wrongheaded one.” This quote from a book by Margaret MacMillan, Dangerous Games: The Uses and Abuses of History (Modern Library 2008)…
General counsel invest their department’s money and time each year in professional development courses (See my post of May 25, 2008: CLE with 30 references.). Some of that expense must be borne because of state law requirements imposed on lawyers admitted to the bar of that state to keep up…
In its eulogy to Bob Banks, the controversial general counsel of Xerox during the 1980’s, Corp. Counsel, Vol. 16, Oct. 2009 at 21, explain that “In 1981 he and eight other in-house lawyers met to discuss the possibility of forming an in-house bar group that would operate outside the American…
“Selective networking should be a part of the day job, not just a ‘nice to do’ task.” I commend this idea from Mark Prebble, Managing In-House Legal Services: Providing High Value Support for Your Organisation (Thorogood 2009) at 19. Whether you meet people in the know at conferences, through social…
If your department maintains a legal intranet, you might wish to track some of the same traffic metrics that bloggers do. You could monitor the number of visitors, visit length, pages viewed, and business unit represented. You could find out which people visit with what frequency. You could also compile…
Actually a four-volume treatise, Robert Haig, Ed., Successful Partnering Between Inside and Outside Counsel (Thomson Reuters/West 2009 Supp.), the huge supplement this year alone has generated two dozen posts (See my post of April 20, 2009: minority general counsel in the Fortune 500; April 22, 2009: zero-based staffing decisions; April…