Some law departments attempt to create their internal budgets from the ground up each year (See my post of July 6, 2007: an example of zero-based budgeting.). Advantages of zero-based budgets are that they challenge received wisdom. Social passing of line items fails. The process also tends to get more…
From the First Law Department Operations Survey, published by InsideCounsel and Blickstein Group with special contributions by David Cambria of Aon, we learn something odd about budgets for operations. Of the 50 total respondents, 27 answered the question. They split, with 16 stating they have a “distinct budget for operations,”…
Wondering about this, I posted a question to the Law Department Management group on LinkedIn [Reader, join me on LinkedIn!]. Two responses, edited slightly by me, offer insights into an answer: No. Matt Williams, a lawyer at Safeco, wrote: “It depends on the financial structure of the entity that the…
Some people foresee increasing amounts of law-related information available for free online. Yet of a group of 84 in-house counsel at large companies, all of whom are technologically savvy enough to belong to Legal OnRamp and completed a recent survey, only one-third agreed. Doubting Thomases were 21 percent. But the…
An aggrieved managing partner at a recent conference told a roomful of inside counsel that payment patterns are changing with clients. He said, in effect, that law departments are stringing out payment of fees for months and months. My feeling is that no general counsel adopts delay as a money-saving…
This factoid comes from an article in 8-K, Vol. 4, Fall 2008 at 30, and others have said as much (See my post of Oct. 27, 2005: Fulbright & Jaworski notes 60% settle during trial.). Law department management issues surround from settlements (See my post of April 26, 2006: internal…
A disturbing piece in the ABA J., Vol. 94, Dec. 2008 at 32, bitterly describes the plight of a contract attorney, immured in a basement, who spends all day reviewing electronic discovery documents. “The buzz around reviews is that the firm bills out an attorney at $180 an hour and…
Just after having written about one law department’s budget categories (See my post of Sept. 9, 2008: 34 line items.), I came across a second set of accounts. This one has 52 items of which most resemble a category in the previously-reviewed budget. With so many more categories, however, the…
Some general counsel support conferences as sponsors (See my post of Oct. 10, 2008: several named sponsors of diversity conference.). Others support worthy causes with cash. An advertisement in Diversity& the Bar, Vol. 10, Nov./Dec. 2008 at 71, thanks five law departments for donations they made to the Minority Corporate…
Although in-house lawyers uniformly despise tracking their time – “That’s why we left law firms!!” – the practice has its supporters and detractors (See my post of Sept. 10, 2005: why in-house attorneys loath tracking time; Jan. 13, 2006: pros and cons of tracking time; March 24, 2007: more on…