Several posts have zeroed in on aspects of the logistics of paying law firms (See my posts of March 26, 2008: Six Sigma and invoice processing; and March 2, 2008: invoice review and 25 references cited.). A handful have suggested what costs are incurred by law departments when paying firms…
Ideally, the system in the law department that tracks outside spending ought to produce the same numbers as the company’s accounts payable system. For many reasons, however, that correspondence doesn’t happen. Both systems would have to treat an invoice as paid as of the same date. They would have to…
As reported in InsideCounsel, May 2008 at 18, Oracle’s law department has created an in-house virtual team headed by an e-discovery director. The ranks of legal departments with such teams swell every day (See my posts of Oct.1, 2005: Laura Kibbe and Pfizer; Aug. 26, 2006 #1: initiatives at Verizon,…
According to a K&L Gates ad in Inside Counsel, Feb. 2008 at 90, the law department of American Express has “worked hard at …the generation of revenue, typically through [patent] license fees.” Those Amex lawyers may have worked hard, but to claim that their toil has generated corporate revenue goes…
Managers of law departments overlook the total costs of filing cabinets. “If the average four-drawer cabinet holds about 20,000 pages, that equates to 360,000 additional pieces of paper.” [I am not clear just what that sentence says; perhaps 20,000 documents.] According to InsideCounsel, April 2008 at 44, a large file…
In the 2007 ACCA/Serengeti Managing Outside Counsel Survey, selected results of which are presented in ACC Docket, Vol. 26, April 2008 at 14, you can ponder some whiplash metrics. “Average reported savings from using matter management systems were 8% of outside counsel legal spending. Average reported savings form using electronic…
From time to time, law departments recruit senior lawyers who need to be relocated. Alternatively, law departments move lawyers from one location to another (See my post of Oct. 10, 2005: ex pat pay and relocations; May 27, 2007: mass relocation of Royal Dutch Shell’s law department; June 7, 2006:…
A very large financial institution wanted to know how many different payment destinations it was paying to the 40 law firms it paid the most. Although using Automated Clearing House (ACH) payments, the institution nevertheless was shocked to discover that among those law firms there were nearly 400 different accounts…
Many posts on Law Department Management concern Requests for Proposal (RFP), which are a popular tool of general counsel. Some general observations about RFPs have deserved comment (See my posts of Oct. 26, 2007: seven tips for more effective RFPs by a law department; Aug. 9, 2006: RFPs compared to…
Two posts invited readers to download PDF collections of my recent articles (See my posts of March 5, 2008: five articles on productivity; and March 11, 2008: six articles on cost control). This final collection brings together six articles on spending by law departments. Click here to download the set.Download…