At ACCA’s 2001 Annual Meeting, the General Counsel of FMC Technologies (Jeffrey Carr) explained that his company asked law firms to include their internal costs (presumably phone calls, faxes, copies, messengers, legal research) in their rates. A few costs, such as out-of-state travel and court reporter fees, are exempt from…
A book based on interviews of 787 Chicago lawyers in 1994-5, “Urban Lawyers: The New Social Structure of the Bar,” offers some data that is meaningful for law department managers (Legalaffairs, Nov./Dec. 2005 at 61). “Partners at major law firms told the study’s authors that approximately one-third of all proposed…
I don’t think so, despite this sentence in a summary of Corporate Legal Times and Dickstein Shapiro’s Survey of CEOs, “40 percent of CEO’s are ‘very involved’ in their company’s selection of outside counsel, while only 23 percent leave the decision entirely to the company’s head lawyer.” (Oct. 2005 at…
Faegre & Benson has 55 permanent staff in its internal consulting firm, “which develops and implements document strategies,” and is somewhat loosely named its Client Technology Services. According to a post dated Sept. 12, 2005 at Minnesota Lawyer, the group’s members advise on processes, analysis of data, performance metrics, accountability…
That law firms are demanding more billable hours from their associates has become received truth. Whether law departments are paying more because the firms they use have pressured their lawyers to bill with a heavier hand remains unclear. Perhaps law departments should ask their key law firms to state at…
Norman Bradburn, a Senior Fellow at the National Opinion Research Center, explains in an article (Legalaffairs, Nov.-Dec. 2005 at 24) differences between ranking and rating. (See my posts of April 27, 2005 on ranking knowledge management techniques, May 4, 2005 on forced ranking of employees, and Aug. 27, 2005 on…
Previous posts have explored payment on the lack of effect on law firm’s cost consciousness (May 4, 2005), law firms generally rejecting prompt payment discounts (Aug. 24, 2005), the logistics of earning such discounts (Aug. 27, 2005), and net 30 terms (Sept. 14, 2005). Three additional points merit comment. Only…
Law firms, facing the retirement or career slow down of a relationship partner to a major client, give thought to grooming a successor, but do they plan for that eventuality jointly with the client law department? Probably not. Chemistry and trust and long-familiarity have a tenuousness, a personal adhesion, that…
Some lawyers in firms harbor mistaken notions about their law department clients. What follows is a sample: “They see our firm as unique providers of high value work.” Bubble-burst: To most senior lawyers in law departments, many firms seem fungible, equally good at handling much of the work sent outside…
What if a small practice group at a very large firm were handling a significant number of matters for a company? If that group seceded, and continued on but with much lower overhead and assurances from the law department of a steady flow of work, the newly-formed firm and the…