For the head of litigation of Altria, Bill Ohlemeyer (Corp. Counsel, Vol. 12, Nov. 2005 at 93), no one may bill more than 10 hours a day to his company for every business day of a typical month. Stated more precisely, his immutable rule stops the clock at 200 hours…
An article about William Ohlemeyer, Altria’s litigation chief (Corp. Counsel, Vol. 12, Nov. 2005 at 92), quotes him as saying that in large lawsuits, “you can very quickly get dozens, if not hundreds, of people involved in … a case.” He invoked the 80/20 rule, since a few of those…
The 2005 ACC/Serengeti survey of US law departments reports that the “average percentage of matters for which budgets are required has been steadily increasing over the years from 37.5 percent in 2001 to 56.4 percent in 2004.” It is possible that matter budgets have become this widespread, although I am…
An article (Corp. Counsel, Vol. 12, Nov. 2005 at 23) described the three phases Domino’s seeks budgets for in class actions. It also cites ACC survey data that found that law departments “require budgets 67.4 percent of the time in litigation cases, compared with 46 percent of the time in…
With local firms that defended the bulk of its slip-and-fall and other small cases, Walmart used to demand flat per-case fees, reportedly as low as $2,000. That scrimping backfired, as firms cut corners, so Walmart dropped that policy after 2002 (Corp. Counsel, Vol. 12, Nov. 2005 at 23). That policy…
Research by Tom Collins of Juris has found that law firms appear to be moving away from specific recovery of soft cost transactions such as internal copying, faxing and even phone service. Some simply consider those costs to be covered by the law firm’s service fees. Other law firms, however,…
The Juris® User International Group’s annual conference in October included a panel with Steven Levy from Microsoft® and Michael Gruskin from General Motors speaking about e-billing. I have extracted portions of an online report. Levy identified three levels to e-billing: Level 1 assures law firm compliance with engagement rules. Level…
I started to list the practices that a law department should consider standardizing in the area of choosing and managing outside counsel. Feeling like Bubba on Forrest Gump, who endlessly listed dishes with shrimp, I note a starter set for appropriate development and enforcing of the SAME: form of retention…
I heard an unusual question about discounts from standard billing rates. The standard rates of law firms vary, with the result that law firms A and B may be doing identical work, but law firm A charges 10 percent off a $500 an hour billing rate while law firm B…
Some law departments balk at paying for more than one attorney’s time when attorneys hold internal conferences to discuss a client’s matter. For example, I understand that Wachovia just amended its outside counsel guidelines to make clear that limitation. Firms view such internal conferences as important and effective ways to…