Here are some findings about the health benefits of an environmentally sound offices. Not that general counsel have much say as to their office environs, but a first step is to know more about options and benefits. Bus. Week, Dec. 7, 2009 at 15, describes a large study of tenants…
E-mail productivity and security tips accumulate everywhere. I thought I had covered the field comprehensively, but four more good ideas appear in the NYSBA J., Vol. 81, Nov./Dec. 2009 at 58-59 (See my post of Aug. 26, 2009: 30 e-mail effectiveness tips with 9 references.). Fill in the address box…
“As chief legal officer for Anheuser-Busch InBev, [Sabine] Chalmers estimates she spends 50 percent of her time circling the globe in order to execute her lawyerly responsibilities.” It aches just to read that (See my post of July 16, 2009: frequent travel demands stamina; and July 17, 2009: circuit-riding visits…
For those of you who face too much work and too little time, it sounds contradictory but give yourself ten or fifteen minutes between meetings. This tip from the ABA Law Practice Management Section e-letter set me to thinking. Many benefits can follow from the built-in margin. You feel less…
Although chary of broad-brush topics, I still try constantly to pull together material from this sprawling blog. So, here are six steps that a general counsel should take to ratchet up lawyer productivity in his or her department. But first, the term “productivity.” Productivity for a law department means doing…
“Experience teaches us that if you conduct a very good early case assessment that looks at the facts and the law and the witnesses and the documents that you will know when you complete your ECA, 80 percent of all you will ever know about this case.” Coming from PD…
“Libel law in England is not just expensive and wide-ranging …; it also is one of the most claimant-friendly systems in the world” notes the Economist, Nov. 14, 2009 at 18. Lawsuits with miniscule connections to England are filed there. Somewhat like the Eastern District of Texas, infamous for its…
“Countless studies show that proper lighting and acoustic levels play a key role in increasing workplace productivity.” The point is made in an article in Law Practice, Nov./Dec. 2009 at 39 by experts at PDR Corp, that it is better to “reduce your overall ambient light levels and incorporate task…
I wrote once about general counsel and the significant percentage of time scheduled for them by others, time that is not in their control (See my post of Sept. 8, 2008: you need a good administrative assistant to manage your calendar.). Cheryl Solomon, general counsel of the Gucci Group spoke…
If you are a general counsel frustrated by how hard it is to change ways of working in your department, perhaps it is some solace to understand why. From my experience as a consultant to legal departments and therefore a purported catalyst for change, I list six personality-based obstructions to…