Some say litigation accounts for about 60 percent of outside counsel costs; others say that discovery accounts for about 60% of litigation costs; I wonder whether electronic discovery accounts for 60% of discovery costs! Two practices worth noting: “Pfizer Inc. has hired a senior counsel [Laura Kibbe] to work full…
“A major U.S. firm usually quotes the cost of $10,000 to $15,000 to prepare and file a patent application; that patent application can be prepared for $2,500 to $3,500 in India.” (Nat. L. J. Sept. 12, 2005 at 14). The domestic charge is thus four to five times higher than…
The Arizona Attorney published a 2003 roundtable discussion among six senior corporate lawyers in Arizona (40 AZ Attorney 12 (Nov. 2003)). One lawyer at the round-tabler was the General Counsel of Arizona Electric Power Cooperative, Patricia Cooper, who oversees its two lawyers and one paralegal. Cooper said that the outside…
A piece in the National Law Journal (Sept. 5, 2005 at pg. 11) said that “about two years ago [Wal-Mart] had 50 law lawyers,” based on remarks at a conference by the company’s general counsel. The journalist added that in 2004 the department hired 39 lawyers. Even if the baseline…
Companies doing business around the world often have lawyers located in various international locations. Some of those lawyers, fully competent and handling significant legal work, receive pay at local levels – often levels far below those of equivalent lawyers in the U.S. or U.K. Such a compensation differential allows a…
Cisco System’s law department invested $1.5 million in a “discovery lab” that has helped it find, store, and handle documents that might be subject to discovery. (ABA Journal, Sept. 2005 at pg. 57). That investment, plus $900,000 spent in responding to discovery requests in a recent case, let Cisco avoid…
Even as some signs indicate outside counsel spending in the US might be coming under control, rumblings from Europe suggest that external legal costs over there will rise more rapidly. (See the Financial Times, June 16, 2005 at 9.) A study by the UK law firm Ashurst, reported in the…
A major manufacturer’s law department has committed to its 250 or so law firms that it will pay their invoices within 30 days. While longer than the usual prompt-payment commitments, for which some firms grant small discounts so long as they are paid within ten days or less, the 30…
Speaking at a panel discussion published by Metropolitan Corporate Counsel (Sept. 2005 at 36), Blane Erwin of Bridgeway Software cited as an effective tool “on-line early case assessment systems.” Erwin added that ECA systems “optimize [a defense team’s] pre-trial options, including motion[s] for summary judgment, which judges are increasingly willing…
Metropolitan Corporate Counsel interviewed the CEO of a leading e-billing company, DataCert (Sept. 2005 at 33). The CEO gave an example of one benefit of electronic review of law firm invoices: “if a company does not pay for online research, we will flag any line items with that description.” Whoa!…