Bain & Company’s Management Tools and Trends 2007 at slide 5, reports on the degree to which 1,221 international executives agreed to certain statements. The most consensus, where some 91 percent of the executives agreed, was for the statement that “culture is as important as strategy for business success.” This…
The set of concepts that law department managers can apply to improve their operations is actually quite small. I count a half dozen of them. 1. You can streamline a process (See my post of May 28, 2007 on five aspects of processes; and May 28, 2007 on Six Sigma.).…
For in-house counsel, meetings are both crucial and excruciating (See my post of March 27, 2005 on their productivity drag.). In addition to what I have written before (See my posts of April 2, 2007 and 10 references cited; and July 29, 2007 with six suggestions.), from my own experience…
From the voluminous literature on stress relieve (See my post of May 18, 2007 on in-house counsel stress and seven references cited.), here are some techniques that may help beleaguered in-house counsel. 1. Sort out those things that you can influence from those which you can’t control. For example, you…
A number of tips were discussed previously (See my post of Nov. 6, 2006 with three tips and six references cited; June 16, 2006 and five tips; and Dec. 28, 2006 with additional suggestions and comments.). Some law departments have even taken training on e-mail effectiveness (See my post of…
Everyone talks about working longer hours and working more thoughtfully but an article in the Harvard Bus. Rev., Vol. 85, Oct. 2007 at 63, argues that “the core problem with working longer hours is that time is a finite resource. Energy is a different story.” What I took from the…
All law departments need someone from time to time to notarize documents. To be sure of that resource, one law department paid for several of its administrative assistants to become notaries. The departmental budget covered the cost of their training, about $350, and picks up the costs of licenses, which…
InsideCounsel, Sept. 2007 at 56, recognizes IBM as one of its innovative counsel. IBM earned those accolades because it uses some 76 retired IBM attorneys for a wide range of patent-related matters. IBM had to solve some difficulties to create this extensive network. The law department needed to address issues…
More valuable than mission and vision statements, in my view, are summaries of a law department’s practices in certain areas. A statement of when budgets should be required by law firms and how those budgets will be reviewed and recorded makes sense. A summary of how to and when to…
Successful and productive in-house counsel often lean heavily on their administrative assistants (See my post of post of May 17, 2006 on the title and definition of this position.). If trained, motivated and capable, a secretary can handle a wide range of tasks (See my post of March 18, 2005…