A paper written by Jeff Hodge for Bridgeway, Legal Spend Management: An International Perspective, states at page 13 “since invoices in the EU are considered tax documents, the invoice reviewor cannot adjust them. Any adjustment to an invoice must be made using credit (or debit) notes which are then tied…
This blog has often referred to the fully loaded cost per hour of corporate attorneys. It has also from post to post provided data on the effective hourly rate of law-firm partners and associates. More recent data came as to the latter from Law Practice, July/August 2012 at 46, which…
An article in Law Practice, July/August 2012 at 40, describes “15 proven profitability techniques” for today’s law firms. Two of them raised my eyebrows and should do the same for general counsel. Under the technique “unbundle operating costs from case related expenses,” the author writes that “clients should be asked…
In Law Practice, July/August 2012 at 14, a law firm consultant describes a “client scorecard.” With it, your law firms might rate you on five categories: “level of cooperation”; “how enjoyable your work is”; how profitable your work is; your relative ability to pay the firm’s fees; and one category…
The legal fees paid by Goldman Sachs in defense of a former board member were almost three-quarters of $30 million; Procter & Gamble picked up the balance. From the same article in the NY Times, June 19, 2012, at B1, Morgan Stanley paid $4 million in the defense of one…
A piece in Met. Corp. Counsel, June 2012 at 16, cites a survey published in December of 2011 by the New Jersey Law Journal. The sentence with the citation says that “54% of law firms have clients who will not pay for the work of first-and second-year associates.” The partner…
A presentation by the President of doeLEGAL, Tom Russo, addressed how to design what he calls litigation spend architecture. On a slide having to do with how to start a matter you have assigned to outside counsel, Russo recommends, “Within five days – outside firm must file [an] Assignment Acknowledgement…
CPR, the International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution, is a non-profit initiative of general counsel, law firms and legal academics “whose mission it is to install alternative dispute resolution (ADR) into the main stream of legal practice.” CPR has a National Task Force on Diversity. That task force has…
It is always easier to predict exciting revolutions, sturm und drang, a brave new world, such as in the relations between law departments and the law firms they retain. Seers get invited to conferences, enjoy their names in headlines, relish being quoted – and they might even, sometimes, be prescient.…
Inspired by an article in the Economist, June 9, 2012 at 83, on using McDonalds Big Macs to compare international productivity trends and improve on purchase power parity (PPP), I imagined a counterpart for legal services rendered to corporations. Ten general counsel in each of ten developed nations agree to…