A previous post discusses my concurrence with and dissent from some obstacles within law departments to improving outside counsel management (See my post of June 30, 2007.). Some reasons were not mentioned at all by that compilation. Law firms, to put it bluntly, are flush. If they have as much…
A document of the Corporate Executive Board lays out 13 obstacles within law departments to improving outside counsel management. They include several that I agree with. “Pressure to use expensive law firms as an ‘insurance policy’ for important matters” (See my post of May 23, 2007 on CYA.). “Reluctance to…
One way to test whether discounted billing rates actually translate into savings is to compare the post-discount effective rate of a law firm to its pre-discount effective rate (See my post of June 13, 2006 for the definition of “effective billing rate.”). To do so take a representative selection of…
A commonplace holds that, roughly speaking, 25 percent or fewer of a law department’s law firm’s account for 75 percent or more of all its billings. Likewise, 25 percent or fewer of a department’s matters account for 75 percent or more of its spending on external counsel during a year.…
Any law department with electronic billing can break down its invoices by timekeeper level. The proliferation of timekeeping levels is remarkable. The bare minimums of levels are in law firms that have partners, associates, and paralegals (or legal assistants) (See my post of June 7, 2006 on the difference between…
By contributing author Brad Blickstein, Blickstein Group, on legal service providers: As did many people (including Rees, who’s quoted in the article), I read with great interest the June 2007 Corporate Counsel article on Circuit City’s prompt payment plan, in which they outline their policy of requiring a 3% discount…
A fair number of US law departments keep lists of domestic preferred firms, which law firms they turn to unless there are extraordinary circumstances. Similar lists are much less common for firms that are based outside the US. According to Law Firm Inc., Vol. 5, May 2007, at 38-9, “Only…
I have commented on associations of law firms that refer work among themselves and market collectively (See my posts of May 30, 2005 which names a dozen; Dec. 19, 2005 with more metrics; and Nov. 11, 2005 and skepticism on whether departments rely on such groups.). Some more associations have…
The term “panel of law firms” is mostly used by European law departments (See my post of April 18, 2005 on the term and its American counterpart, “preferred provider.”). The smaller number of firms on a panel makes decisions as to which to instruct easier (See my post of Nov.…
Five huge law firms comprise the “Magic Circle,” the superordinant firms of London. With thousands of lawyers each and global footprints, it is not surprising that many posts on this blog refer to these impressive law firms. I wondered how many times its five members have made this blawq and…