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Articles Posted in Non-Law Firm Costs

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Working backwards from a figure of $4 billion to be spent on e-discovery software and services

The e-discovery niche, according to the ABA J., Vol. 95, Aug. 2009 at 29, is crowded with about 600 vendors. They are jostling for pieces of a large pie. George Socha, a consultant deeply involved in research about e-discovery vendors, projects that “[C]ommercial spending in this young niche is expected…

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The irony of cost parity between US contract attorneys and LPO attorneys [Bob Unterberger]

Is there any incentive for corporations to turn to LPOs for such tasks as document reviews when you compare current Indian rates with the recent downward trend in rates domestically? Fewer and fewer U.S reviews are being performed by the expensive big-firm associates. It is much more common — and…

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Operating costs of legal departments compared to those of law firms

It has interested me how the operating costs of legal departments differ from those of law firms. Some figures for law firms on that point come from Patrick McKenna’s MCK Int’l Rev., Spring 2009 at 11. www.patrickmcKenna.com The largest expense for both departments and firms covers occupancy costs, which make…

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A tool to explain e-discovery metrics and an encouragement to save money with lower-cost staff

DiscoveryMetrics™, by Casewerx Development, focuses squarely on reducing a law department’s hemorrhage of expense in litigation — document review. Manny Guerrero, a Partner and co-founder of Casewerx, sent samples of a DiscoveryMetrics dashboard and from looking at his slides it appears to be a useful tool. The dashboard shows productivity,…

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Eight myths procurement professionals harbor about US legal departments

To be more accurate, these eight beliefs are not total inventions of sourcing heads. Some truth creeps in, as I have noted. Myth 1: Legal departments don’t know how much they spend. Fact: Most departments know their total domestic legal spending reasonably well, or as well as the accounting department…

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32 steps each legal department can take to protect the environment (and reduce costs)

In three previous posts I listed a total of 27 energy-saving ideas (See my post of April 27, 2008: ten tips; Oct. 12, 2008: nine ideas; Nov. 9, 2008: three ideas; March 11, 2009: four more steps toward environmental preservation; and May 29, 2009: power strips and solar battery chargers.).…

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Commercial arbitration can be shockingly costly and the fees are difficult to negotiate

A recent article lambastes commercial arbitrations on the basis of their sometime costs. Writing in the NYSBA J., Vol. 81, July/Aug. 2009 at 30, Ronald Offenkrantz describes the unregulated and often unfettered charges of arbitrators. Various organizations set some rules for their arbitrator members, such as the AAA Commercial Rules…