Inside Counsel, July 2007 at 58, summarizes three findings with a provocative conclusion: “[I]n-house counsel think their outside firms are oblivious to the need to cut costs.” Finding one is that most law firms pad their bills. Unfortunately, aside from interpretive difficulties, the number of in-house lawyers who agreed with…
InsideCounsel, July 2006 at 52, printed the results of 407 law department lawyers, of which about 200 were general counsel, who gave their views on the statement “Law firms make too much money.” Far more agreed to it (43%) than disagreed (19%), while the remainder chose “neutral” (See my post…
From Inside Counsel, July 2007 at 58, its latest survey of in-house counsel and law firms asked for the third year in a row the views of in-house and external counsel on the statement “Most law firms pad their bills.” In 2005 36 percent of the in-house lawyers agreed with…
For its latest survey of in-house counsel and law firms, Inside Counsel, July 2007 at 58, reports that 862 in-house counsel responded, of which 40 percent were general counsel. Many respondents were with large departments as the median department had 39 lawyers. About one sixth as many lawyers in private…
This blawg has a number of posts on conflicts of interest (See my posts of May 1, 2005 (5) on Freivogel and conflicts; May 31, 2005 on principles for law departments.), so I thought I would collect them in one meta-post. Entries have discussed specific applications (See my posts of…
Fascinating data from 170 respondents to a survey this year by a research group, GCR, suggests that it is possible, and harmful, to over-consolidate law firms. The chart has five columns, which are in a bell curve formation. The columns represent increments of 10 percent of the law departments’ work…
A small item in a recent Corp. Exec. Board document opines that “Fixed fees save about 100 hours of scarce lawyer time a year because in-house counsel no longer need to review invoices. The annual renegotiation process takes around 6-8 hours of general counsel time.” By my quick calculation, since…
A 2007 GCR Outside Counsel Management Survey gathered data from 39 members on hourly rate discounts as a function of the amount of work given to the law firm. Stated simply, for every 10 percent of company work allocated to a law firm, the average size of the discount rose…
A principal-agent tension rears its head whenever any in-house lawyer can decide on his or her own whether to turn to outside counsel. For the principal, the law department and the company as a whole, some discipline about whether to instruct a law firm is desirable; for the agent, the…
If you are law department that follows a disciplined approach and evaluates your law firms’ performances, you should include as many of the following criteria as possible. My mnemonic uses the letter E and I list them in what I would argue is their priority order. 1) Expertise – did…