An interview in Met. Corp. Counsel, Vol. 15, May 2007 at 39, of Brian Kenny, Manager of Planning and Analysis at Marsh and McLennan, delves into some e-billing specifics. Marsh and McLennan has approximately 140 lawyers. The law department selected DataCert’s AIMS, in part because “approximately 80% of the law…
Law departments might consider several points in time to convert invoices that are not delivered in their home currency (See my posts of July 17, 2005 on currency considerations.). The date of the invoice might be when the law department ought to convert. The date might be later, such as…
In Fulbright & Jaworski’s Fourth Annual Litigation Trends Survey, at 50, a chart portrays data from 303 UK and US companies. The chart shows what percentages of those companies carry nine kinds of insurance against litigation costs. In decreasing order, the insurance coverage included general liability (56% had such a…
From Fulbright & Jaworski’s Fourth Annual Litigation Trends Survey at 23 comes data on e-discovery counsel. The text explains that the data pertains to “companies that have retained or considered retaining national or regional counsel specifically for e-discovery issues that arise in matters” (emphasis added). The findings report emphasizes the…
When faced with budget or headcount cuts, many general counsel create a team and charge that team to meet the objective. Teams can rethink the processes they engage in and teams can change relationships with outside counsel. Teams can chose and implement new software, and they can tackle many other…
From Fulbright & Jaworski’s Fourth Annual Litigation Trends Survey comes some data about the costs of “pre-production privilege reviews.” Half of the 253 US law departments that responded said that privilege review cost more than five percent of their budget in the last 12 months (See my post of Oct.…
The thought has troubled me for some time that in-house lawyers who manage outside law firms have very little reason to control costs (See my post of May 26, 2006 on rubber hitting the road.). All the wonderful systems and processes and external incentive systems pale in comparison to what…
Many vendors of litigation support software or services will offer to host the files and documents you collect during an investigation or lawsuit. The costs for storage can mount rapidly, even into the tens-of-thousands of dollars per month where the number of pages of documents stored reaches millions. Some law…
My notion of a dormant lawsuit is one where billings are trivial during any quarter. If nothing much has happened for three months, the case has gone into hibernation. During one of my consulting projects, the head litigation lawyer estimated that of the company’s lawsuits then pending, “about 97 percent…
In some law departments, where outside counsel is to be hired the lawyer responsible must start the engagement with a purchase order. Some law departments open general purchase orders for the services of a law firm during a year. The department then can accumulate different small matters or general advice…