Cheryl Solomon, general counsel of the Gucci Group, leads a team of 30 lawyers and paralegals worldwide. I interviewed her recently about a number of management topics. One was my belief that general counsel only occasionally get involved with retentions of external counsel. So I asked about her situation (See…
When lawyers at GE Canada rate external counsel, they state how likely they would recommend the external lawyer to someone else. As explained in the ACC Docket, Vol. 27, Oct. 2009 in an ad supplement by Ogilvy Renault after page 64, lawyers use ratings of 9-10 (“likely to recommend that…
“Consumer surplus is the aggregate net benefit that consumers receive from using goods or services after subtracting the price they paid.” This definition of an economist’s term, from MIT Sloan Mgt. Rev., Vol. 51, Fall 2009 at 95, hearkens back to what I have written about the effort to measure…
I often see, and as often doubt the value of, one particular question at the end of forms for in-house lawyers to evaluate the firms they use: “Overall, how would you rate the firm?”(See my post of Nov. 16, 2005: evaluations of law firms with 9 references.). If you have…
Rather than distribute hardcopy updates to outside counsel guidelines (environment forbid!) or even tediously email them items that have to be updated, move into the 21st century. Insert where appropriate in your guidelines language to the effect of “We expect your firm to check our online update to these guidelines”…
Among the deepest and darkest secrets of law department land, what they recover in malpractice claims lies hidden and buried. Law firms want nothing to come to light and law departments for their part are probably embarrassed. Even preening departments that strut around claiming to be profit centers do not…
Long, long ago I zeroed in on law firm assessments (See my post of Nov. 16, 2005: evaluations of law firms with 9 references.). Since way back in ’05, this blog has accumulated many more posts on the topic. Examples of specific law departments and their evaluation process or forms…
E-billing software applies rules to invoices, such as “no person can bill more than 10 hours in a day,” or “time of unapproved billers will be rejected.” But rules are made to be broken, and some in-house lawyers consistently break a lot of rules. One measure to take against flagrant…
We are all defensive, so if a law department lawyer criticizes a law firm, the partner who hears the criticism (and tries dutifully to acknowledge it, appreciate it, take it to heart as constructive advice) inwardly may seethe and deny. The partner wishes deeply to hear a real instance of…
If you ask your lawyers to evaluate the importance of various attributes of law firms – responsiveness, knowledge of the law, creativity and the like – you should also ask your lawyers to indicate the importance to them of the attributes. This extra question addresses the same reason you should…