The labor theory of value maintains that work makes worth. The germ of this post comes from Jane Kamensky, The Exchange Artist (Penguin 2008) at 34. Karl Marx made this belief a pillar of his system but others have questioned (or rejected) the notion that the amount of time invested…
An article in Sloan Management Review, Fall 2011 at 66, explains the term “value in use.” The notion is a measure of “value in terms of how a given asset provides benefits to a specific owner under a specific use.” Assets themselves have no inherent value; they generate value only…
I came across this description of a service available from Macleod Dixon, a UK firm soon to join Norton Rose. “Technology Consulting and Support: In-house legal departments’ technology needs are often quite different from the technology needs and solutions in their business units. Macleod Dixon provides technology consulting to clients…
A practice that is expressly authorized by most states’ ethics rules, and often referred to as unbundled legal services, means representing a client on a limited basis. According to For the Defense, April 2011 at 41, such circumscribed legal roles include to defend a deposition, appear at a hearing or…
Gibbons, with 230 attorneys, runs an in-house training and educational platform called Gibbons Academy. All of its productions qualify for CLE credits and an article in the Met. Corp. Counsel, Oct. 2011 at 41, describing it briefly, leaves the impression that legal department lawyers who are clients of the firm…
You can read a full account of the arrangements between Levi Strauss and two firms it selected to handle large swathes of its work on a fixed fee (Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe for corporate and commercial work and Kilpatrick Townsend for IP work). The article in the ACC Docket, July/Aug.…
According to an article in the Met. Corp. Counsel, Oct. 2011 at 41, the U.S. law firm Drinker Biddle & Reath, with approximately 650 lawyers, “became the first major law firm to hire a chief value officer.” Law departments that care about the value they obtain from their outside counsel…
“In 1330, the Florence Commune introduced the first sumptuary laws: limits on what kind of fabrics could be worn, when, in what styles, by whom, only so many buttons, no fancy patterns, only so much jewelry, not more than so many dishes at dinner parties, restrictions on spending for weddings…
It’s often unfortunate for both a law department and a firm when the department stops using the firm; it’s worse when a department takes away pending matters from a firm but sometimes transitions are justified; it’s downright disastrous when a law department sues a firm for malpractice. That is what…
“Over the years, the cost differential between external and in-house lawyers has narrowed.” This statement by Peter Turner, with no empirical backup, is found in Benny Tabalujan, ed. Leadership and Management Challenges of In-House Legal Counsel (LexisNexis Australia 2008) at 6. To assess this claim, we need data to support…