An American Lawyer survey in the fall of 2006 of the 200 largest US law firms uncovered the practice that “nearly one-third (31 percent), billed out their contract attorneys at more than a 200 percent markup.” Thus, a contract attorney for which the firm pays $40 an hour was billed…
The Canadian Corporate Counsel Association (CCCA) surveyed its members for the 2005 In-House Corporate Counsel Barometer. It’s heavy weather to make sense out of the result, stated in Canadian Lawyer Inhouse, Vol. 2, Feb. 2007 at 28, that “38 per cent of those surveyed … said they or their organization…
Consulting Mag., Vol. 9, Jan./Feb. 2007 at 17, describes a lawsuit against PricewaterhouseCoopers, which case unearthed evidence that the accounting firm had obtained discounts from travel companies. That would have been fine, except PwC structured the discounts as backend rebates rather than front-end discounts, and pocketed the rebates. Some large…
In project after project, I see that the disbursements charged clients by law firms hover around ten percent of the fees charged (See my post of Dec. 1, 2006 generally on disbursements and seven references cited.). Consulting Mag., Vol. 9, Jan./Feb. 2007 at 17, presents data from 10 major consulting…
One of the questions in ACC’s Seventh Annual Chief Legal Officer Survey at 4, asked the 848 respondents to describe “any new or noteworthy initiatives implemented by your outside firms to improve the relationship with your law department.” The initiative checked most frequently was “Seminars/Training/CLE Sessions” at 21 percent of…
ACC’s Seventh Annual Chief Legal Officer Survey at 3 lists 13 primary reasons why respondents fired a law firm. Cost (which includes improper billing), mishandling one or more critical matters, and lack of responsiveness, each accounted for seven to eight percent. Poor quality of work came in at 6.5 percent.…
A recent survey gives some support for the heuristic that law departments five or fewer lawyers retain customarily about three primary firms for each inside lawyer. Data from ACC’s Seventh Annual Chief Legal Officer Survey at 2, shows that 85 percent of the respondents use 15 or fewer law firms…
The marketing blurb for a conference called “Managing and Leading an Effective In-house Legal Department” (organized by Falconbury) dropped into its list of all that attendees would learn the notion of “effective negotiation techniques.” There is, I suppose, a small chance that ineffectual restrictions on law firm charges has to…
Rue another instance of “no good deed goes unpunished.” If a law department sees that a law firm has been very successful in representing companies in its industry, the law department might shy away (See my post of Oct. 29, 2005 and its disparagement of industry knowledge.). This paradoxical reaction…
In the US, a handful of organizations purport to rate lawyers. According to the ABA J., Jan. 2007 at 27, the evaluators include Martindale-Hubbell, The Best Lawyers in America, Super Lawyers, Chambers USA (the colonial arm of Chambers and Partners in Britain), and the newcomer, Lawdragon. The article points out…