Scientists thrive on experiments, carefully designed and thoughtfully construed. Few general counsel, perhaps none, deliberately experiment with a management method and try to learn from the outcome. Some of them try all sorts of things but they don’t set up control groups, gather data over time, reduce variables, and adhere…
The Economist, March 3, 2012 at 20, describes a nascent movement of people who measure aspects of themselves over time. They describe an investment banker who wears a headband at night that tracks sleep quantity and quality by measuring brainwave activity. The data from that tool, along with other information…
A piece in the Economist, March 3, 2012 at 16, connects size of companies and creativity: “Size allows specialisation, which fosters innovation.” In my long-running series of discussions on why larger companies have less spending (in proportion to their revenue), I haven’t cited this link. It makes sense. A specialist,…
The 2011 In-House Counsel Barometer, produced by the Canadian law firm Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg In association with the Canadian Corporate Counsel Association (CCCA), asked respondents to break their work day into three categories: legal work, management, and business strategy or advice. The results from 864 total respondents to…
Legal agreements put off clients because they are dense, inter-connected, and one dimensional, in the sense that they are dense, linear text. Were there tools to show the provisions of an agreement visually, both clients and lawyers would gain. This blog has foreshadowed this idea but never explicitly proposed the…
At a fundamental level, the output of a legal department, both quality and quantity, depends on how diligently its members work. Ability counts, hugely, but sheer doggedness and concentration goes a very long way. So, when I read in the NY Times, Feb. 26, 2012 at BU8, about “research showing…
The data reported in Exari’s white paper, Corporate Counsel Contracts Survey Report, Dec. 2011 at 8, appears impressive but upon reflection offers little insight. The company’s recent survey of approximately 100 legal departments asked them to estimate the average time they spent reviewing each contract. A chart shows four choices…
Exari’s white paper, Corporate Counsel Contracts Survey Report, Dec. 2011 at 7, draws on responses from approximately 100 companies. They report that “an average of 67% of their contracts is created on their own paper and 35% of those agreements are renewals. Roughly 72% of contracts created by the respondents…
Paul Lippe, in his email to Legal OnRamp members of Jan. 17, 2012, offers “five phenotypes of change reactors.” They characterize general counsel (and all people) on a spectrum of willingness to try something new. • Innovators, who do new things because they like doing new things. • Early adopters,…
For years there has been a plain English movement that has sought to simplify and clarify government documents and commercial agreements. A further development may be Transparency Labs. Its goal is to help consumers understand so-called “fine print” in contracts. “Our team of experts starts by spending hundreds of hours…