For several years I have shown a slide during speeches that estimates the percentage of time general counsel spend (1) serving the Board, CEO and peers, (2) handling their own legal work, (3) guiding other lawyers in-house on substantive legal matters, and (4) running the legal department (See my post…
During a discussion on management with Cheryl Solomon, general counsel of the Gucci Group, she mentioned that she does quite a bit of actual legal work. It includes review of contracts, negotiations, pleadings, and work product created by other lawyers. When do general counsel stop doing real legal work? Even…
The simplest time tracking system asks lawyers to estimate the percentage of time they worked on individual matters each time period, such as a week or month (See my post of Nov. 22, 2008: internal time tracking with 16 references.). General counsel adopt all manner of time keeping methods, but…
Any general counsel on a panel, many journalists finishing off an article on in-house departments, and all consultants in pitches to general counsel scatter this phrase everywhere. Gospel it has become that workloads are up and resources are down. I wonder. I wonder how you prove the claimed imbalance and…
In-house lawyers who have a masochistic streak might swing a scythe against the invasive species known as corporate policies (See my post of Nov. 2, 2009: corporate policies with 12 references.). James Nortz, the director of compliance for Bausch and Lomb, plants six seeds of ways to “hoe the line”…
A study done in 2007 found that “our minds drift away from our tasks fully one-third of the time.” That tidbit from Wired, Nov. 2009 at 56, set my thoughts to wandering … about moments of time off at work. No one works hard all the time; everyone slips in…
The Practical Law J., Vol. 1, Nov. 2009 at 70, describes several aspects of the 100-lawyer department of Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), primarily those related to its current strategic plan (See my post of June 25, 2008: strategic plan with 10 references.). My first observation is that CSC’s legal department…
A general counsel I know, well respected and a veteran, states this and believes it to be profound. He is mistaken, I think. Nothing dictates a cause-and-effect link between an amount of business activity and how much legal work it generates. At the one extreme, many business people conduct all…
Richard Susskind, speaking at ILTA 2009, expounded on the distinction between project management and process analysis. Project management is a sophisticated discipline with many tools and best-known methods. Project management controls and coordinates non-routine legal work that lasts for a period of time. Process analysis, as Susskind defined it, decides…
A report on talent from the Corporate Executive Board identifies 38 attributes of an “Employment Value Proposition.” Sorted into five broad categories, one is “People” and includes “camaraderie” and “collegial work environment.” How might a general counsel measure the “friends factor” in his or her legal department? A general counsel…