Law department managers complain about the level of ignorance their outside firms suffer from regarding knowledge of the company. They gripe, but what can they do to raise the level? At a recent conference, I heard about a telecomm law department that invites its key law firms to gather and…
A beautiful brochure arrived in my mail from the International Legal Alliance Summit, to be held in Paris on June 23rd. The brochure explains that attendees can choose 30-minute one-to-one meetings with senior partners from distinguished international firms or with general counsel from various big companies. A box lists general…
A piece in Met. Corp. Counsel, May 2011 at 30, points out advantages and disadvantages of fixed fees. One effect, according to Ashish Prasad, the CEO of Discovery Services,is subtle: “When negotiating a fixed fee, the client has an incentive to understate the complexity of the case.” Prasad cites Poonan…
Law departments readily agree to talk with someone from one of their law firms about the firm’s performance. Some law departments are asked by their law firms to speak with a consultant about the firm’s performance. What are the differences to a department between talking to the party of the…
I advocate budgets for “major matters” handled by outside counsel. “Major” turns on the amount likely to be spent in some period of time. It doesn’t make sense to require all practice areas in a law department to comply with the same threshold requirement for matter budgets (See my post…
Budget accuracy drops exponentially I suspect; if you double the time period of the budget – maybe from six months to a year – the accuracy plummets to one-fourth as good. For that reason, require budgets only for a quarter or two ahead (See my post of April 27, 2005:…
With trepidation I cite an actual case, but the broader point about management of outside counsel encourages me, a lawyer manqué. You can read more in the 2011 supplement to Bob Haig’s Successful Partnering Between Inside and Outside Counsel, Section 9 at 96, about McQueen, Rains & Tresch, LLP v.…
In 2003, the general counsel of Captivate Network identified three ways that law firms could get his attention, including free CLE training and brand awareness. It was the third idea that I particularly noticed in the 2011 supplement to Bob Haig’s Successful Partnering Between Inside and Outside Counsel, Section 4…
Diversity asked about in RFPs was virtually irrelevant in selection decisions six years ago The 2011 supplement to Bob Haig’s Successful Partnering Between Inside and Outside Counsel adds a footnote to Section 4 on Selection of Outside Counsel. It cites a 2004 study of in-house counsel by Kirkpatrick & Lockart…
Corp. Counsel, April 2011 at 22, summarizes a recent panel discussion on alternative billing. Altria Client Services’ Murray Garnick, an Associate General Counsel, told the audience that “A firm is disguising hourly billing as value billing if it merely estimates the number of hours it would spend on a case…