Legal holds soak up time of law departments but not much has been published about the practice in the way of benchmarks. Law Tech. News, Vol. 15, Nov. 2008 at 32, offers a few as it summarizes a survey Global 1000 Companies about legal holds. Huron Consulting partnered with the…
In-house lawyers who handle contracts and agreements should always be thinking about the right balance between what the legal department does and what clients do. A handful of criteria (plus two) suggest whether the balance of work falls on lawyers or stays with clients. These distinctions may or may not…
Still unconvinced about the benefits of exercise? Weigh in your mind this heavy term: nonexercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT). From an item in Bus. Law Today, Vol. 17, Nov./Dec. 2008 at 7, it means calorie consumption from slightly increased activity levels that don’t reach the level of ”exercise.” NEAT “is very…
General counsel uniformly tell me, “My lawyers are almost all working pretty hard.” How do they know and how can they prove it? Let me offer some strawpersons, in declining order of usefulness, and then torch them. Time tracking. Few in-house lawyers have to track their time, and the data…
ACC Docket, Vol. 25, Sept. 2007 at 42, describes a Six Sigma project conducted by the Law Group at Becton Dickinson (BD). A team tackled the information-technology contracts process. During the define phase, the team “drew a process map reflecting each step in a typical contract negotiation.” One lesson from…
“By all accounts, procrastination is common, and rising (for reasons that are not yet clear).” This according to Richard B. McKenzie, Why Popcorn Costs so Much at the Movies (Copernicus Books 2008) at 217. “In 1978, the percentage of Americans identifying themselves as chronic procrastinators was 5%. In 2006, the…
As explained by Richard B. McKenzie, Why Popcorn Costs so Much at the Movies (Copernicus Books 2008) at 212, people discount their feelings associated with potential gains (or magnify the bad feelings about potential losses). Lawyer, most being people too, may do the same mental math. “One study fortified this…
Lawyers should interpret and apply laws and regulations, help executives set strategy to maximize gains and minimize legal backlash, draft legal documents, and give legal advice, but they should not run the operations that result from that work (See my post of Sept. 3, 2008: scope of legal department typical…
I have been meaning to write another post about a law department where the lawyers have double monitors (See my post of Jan. 18, 2008: multiple monitors.). As I spent time in a second law department so handsomely outfitted, I envied the double, large, flat screens everyone has. No more…
A well-managed law department that I have worked with promotes a five-word acronym to help everyone take care of meetings more effectively. (See my post of April 22, 2007: meetings with 9 references.) PACER stands for Purpose, Agenda, Conduct, Expectations, and Roles. My interpretation of PACER is that everyone should…