Fenwick & West started a program in 2010 whereby the firm “put a half dozen standardized legal documents on the Web for free to help entrepreneurs streamline the process of funding their startups without generating big legal bills.” The quote comes from Bloomberg BusinessWeek, April 11, 2011 at 30. An…
I signed a consulting agreement this week that had strong language about consistent staffing. This was not, I repeat, from any guideline for outside counsel, but it does suggest a level of control that some general counsel might impose on their primary law firms. “Any removal or reassignment by [Law…
Imagine if someone had outside counsel guidelines from a dozen Fortune 500 companies during the 1970s, from the same companies or comparables during the 1980s, and likewise for the next two decades. Such a collection would allow a historiography of guidelines: a study of how the guidelines changed over time.…
Trial.Com, the Network of Trial Law Firms, has launched its YouTube-platform CLE. The website allows in-house attorneys to watch videos and build their CLE credits in California, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, New York and other states in accordance with those states’ rules. According to the Trial.com press release,…
A short white-paper by Mike Lipps, managing director for LexisNexis of corporate counsel solutions, explains a study that pitted UTBMS coding against his company’s proprietary technology for bill review. According to the paper, CounselLink “processes more than $3 billion of invoices annually through SmartReview.” That automated bill review software does…
It sounds like a tricky situation for the general counsel, what with solicitation rules and non-compete agreements and unfair competition lurking. In reality, the general counsel may be on the side of the angels and should feel free to discuss the likelihood that work will follow the partner or remain…
Several times I have ventured that total legal spending correlates positively with the profitability of a business sector. When margins are generous, it seems quite likely they justify legal investments to create intellectual property, build corporate infrastructure (new initiatives, evolving law, global spread), and consummate corporate transactions (M&A, equity and…
A recent report entitled Litigation Cost Survey of Major Companies, presented at the Searle Center on Law, Regulation, and Economic Growth (Northwestern Univ. School of Law, May 10-11, 2010), presents time series data on litigation costs for 37 Fortune 200 US companies. The authors found that “companies spent, on average,…
Mark Harris of Axiom remarked at the recent Georgetown Law Center conference that the Fortune 200 control 85 percent of the $100 billion legal market in the United States. The 200 largest US law firms, he then added, have revenue of about $85 billion. If both those statements are even…
At one time, the term “consigliore” embodied for lawyers the notion of the completely trusted confidante and advisor. The term doesn’t show up much these days (See my post of Aug. 28, 2005: common desire to be seen as a consigliore.). Perhaps it has been elbowed aside by “trusted legal…