To charge back or not to charge back time, that is a question for inside lawyers. Those law department managers who advocate a time chargeback system do so in part because it makes clear that legal services are not a free good. A chargeback encourages clients to use lawyers when…
On one side of the aisle sit those who believe that general counsel should be responsible for only two components of corporate legal costs: the overhead costs of inside attorneys and outside counsel fees. On the other side sit those who would add to responsibility for the total amount of…
While law firms drink by far the largest draught of law department spending, many other vendors draw from the same well (See my post of April 18, 2005 on the cottage industry and April 2, 2005 on unbundling.). What is the legal ecosystem’s revenue? If US law departments pay vendors…
“The concept of defense alliance fund is that groups of companies in complementary businesses pool their resources to buy a portfolio of patents. They can then either borrow patents from this pool needed to counter assertions made against them, or target the pool to create revenue that can then be…
The 2006 InsideCounsel/DataCert Annual Report of Corporate Law Departments features responses from about 180 law departments. When those departments identified which of eight cost-control steps they had taken, the dominant method was to bring more work in-house. Here are the rankings from InsideCounsel, May 2006 at 70 and the percentage…
A table in the 2005 California Bureau of State Audits’ review of LA’s Office of the City Attorney estimates the distribution of services provided by outside counsel to three entities (Dept. of Water and Power, LA Airports, and LA Harbor). Of the approximately $16.1 million they spent on outside counsel…
One cost for law departments embroiled in litigation are fees of expert witnesses. “The expert-services industry was estimated by one insider to be reaping $6 billion to $8 billion a year,” according to the Star-Telegram.com, May 14, 2006 (Barry Schlacter). A litigation manager can locate an expert through various directories,…
A partner at UK-based Simmons & Simmons, Jonathan Kelly, compiled an enlightening list of differences on the litigation front between the United States and the UK (England and Wales). He notes particularly these six, Corp. Counsel, Vol. 13, April 2006 at A6: 1. No class actions (See my posts of…
Experts who not only provide a valued service but also tell the customer what service is needed control both ends of what economists call a “credence good,” according to the Economist, April 15, 2006 at 78, because customers – think of a law department that retains a partner who is…
Sometimes, when a law department recommends that a lawsuit be settled, the client from whose purse the funds must come may balk (See my post of Nov. 25, 2005 about whether law departments should manage settlement funds and recovered amounts.). To hit their numbers during the quarter, top executives may…