Qwest Communications’ General Counsel, an independent thinker for sure, will have none of this alternative fee arrangement stuff. He pours scorn on them in Corp. Counsel, Dec. 2010 at 68, particularly for the complex cases that make up the bulk of Qwest’s legal spend (See my post of March 16,…
I have thought that commercial contracts embody the most important legal skills of a department. A core competency, to put it differently, surrounds the preparation, review, negotiation, and interpretation of contracts for the sale of a company’s goods and services (See my post of Dec. 15, 2010: article cited that…
Small companies spend such a high percentage of their revenue on legal matters because of the importance of legal services and their cost. The 2010 ACC/Serengeti Managing Outside Counsel Survey found that companies with less than $100 million in annual revenues spend 0.94% of it on outside counsel. I assume…
The ACC Docket, Nov. 2010 at 12, includes findings from the most recent Serengeti survey. Pay attention to the definition in the one sentence: “Many in-house counsel believe that convergence (i.e., reducing the number of law firms with which a company works on a regular basis) is an effective way…
When law departments mean what they say, “Law firms, bill us on time,” they generally include in their guidelines something like “Invoices that are submitted more than 75 days after the date of the earlier time record may be delayed or not paid.” Another method to make the point is…
A general counsel explained four rules law firms need to follow “to get and to keep us as a client.” (1) “Be extremely smart and know your subject matter.” (2) “Do perfect work.” (3) “Tell us the truth; we can handle it.” And (4) “Charge us the right amount for…
In a variety of circumstances a general counsel has to decide whether to stick with a particular partner who leaves a firm or to keep matters with the abandoned firm. The cause of the rupture might be a merger (of the law firm or of the company), internal changes within…
One of the five initiatives undertaken by the 40 lawyers of media company ITV was described briefly by the Financial Times. The law department won the newspaper’s annual award for being the most innovative law department. The initiative of note to me was that when ITV slashed its panel from…
As I read through the thumbnail descriptions of why 18 law departments were singled out as innovative, two initiatives jumped out at me. Convergence was cited for three of the law departments (ITV shrank its rolls from 45 firms to 9, Network Rail reduced its panel to 5, and Ladbrokes…
Pulling together my most recent posts on partnering gave me occasion to reflect on points I have not covered previously. The notion of partnering leaves me dubious, but more can be said, especially from the law firm side, than just criticisms. You need to consider the law firm side. Does…