In August 2002 a “Benchmarker Survey” of 100 heads of legal departments in UK businesses, published by Legal Director, asked them to rank their priorities in the management, organization and structure of the legal services their departments provide http://www.legalit.net/ViewItem.asp?id=24483. On a scale of one (not at all important) to ten…
Rosemary Bloom, General Counsel Europe of Disney, speaking at PLC’s Global Counselors’ College in mid-2004 suggests giving clients a self-help option for routine legal matters. She urges in-house lawyers to give clients workshops, tools, checklists, standard form contracts, terms and conditions, “and make yourself available should they have concerns. They…
In mid-2004 PLC, with Howrey Simon Arnold & White, organized a Global Counselors’ College. At the College, Peter Plompen, the lead in-house counsel on competition matters at Philips, explained some of the things his group does to reduce anti-trust mistakes (See my post of April 13, 2006 on how they…
A study commissioned by Workshare in 2005 asked law departments about what issues they face when working with law firms on major transactions. According to a summary in Legal IT, June 16, 2005 (John Rogers), there was “a common theme: the difficulty of maintaining effective control during the drafting and…
A previous post mentioned some metrics about certified and not-certified paralegals (See my post of March 19, 2006 and the good comment to it.) The US Dept. of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics explains some of the levels of legal assistant certification. “An estimated 1,000 colleges and universities, law schools,…
Dr. General Counsel: You can motivate your staff lawyers, and boost the effectiveness of their brains, by stimulating their production of three neuromodulators. These chemicals, released when positive things happen, help someone process information – that’s the brain boost – and feel better, according to Forbes, Vol. 177, March 26,…
Economists know well the problem of the so-called free-rider. These parasites also appear in law departments. For example, where a law department builds a knowledge management system, those lawyers who do not contribute but who benefit and borrow from others’ efforts, are free-riders. For departments that are trying to cut…
A previous post observed the highly uncertain prospects of many patents (See my post of Jan. 3, 2006 that most patents cover only incremental improvements.). An item in the Economist, Vol. 378, March 11, 2006 at 68, reinforces the low odds that any given patent will reward its owner financially.…
An item on Law.com, of In-House Counsel mentions that about one-third of Sun Microsystems’ 170 lawyer-department “either works in drop-in offices or they work in the main campuses or they work at home.” (See my post of Nov. 8, 2005 on SEI and its tiny square footage and Nov. 19,…
The litigation group of a law department ought to analyze the process by which it handles litigation hold orders (See my post of Aug. 21, 2005 about not hiring a head of litigation.). Large companies must issue hold orders routinely, so some thought and preparation ahead of time will be…