Some general counsel might conclude that if they undertake an innovative, daring, and massive restructuring of their economic relationship with outside counsel, they should keep it quiet. One reason might be that a competitive advantage should not be bruited about. Another reason could be caution; new ideas often go blooie,…
In the thoughtful General Counsel Survey 2009 from the Belgium-based consultants, FrahanBlondé (at 19), the authors discuss how general counsel decide the services their departments should provide as compared to the services external counsel should provide. They distinguish between “core and non-core,” on the one hand, and “core mission” on…
An article in Legal Strat. Rev., Winter 2009/10 at 24, describes several management points made by Richard Tapp, company secretary and director of legal services at Carillion plc. The nearly $10 billion company has 27 in-house lawyers focused specifically on “the company’s four core business areas of corporate, construction, private…
Int’l In-House Counsel J., Vol 2, Summer 2009 at 1188, has an article about the plight of UK in-house counsel, who, the author claims, are too commonly “still perceived as draftspersons because traditionally that is what lawyers did” – their “job is to read and draft contracts.” The author, a…
In a reversal of the normal argument that external lawyers are more objective and forceful since they can walk away, Int’l In-House Counsel J., Vol 2, Summer 2009 at 1344, puts an opposite spin. In-house counsel are not muzzled and tethered by their employment position (See my post of Jan.…
An attitude I warmly applaud, the speaker was Elisse Walter, a Securities and Exchange (SEC) commissioner. She was interviewed before she spoke at a recent conference. Her point was that in light of Sarbanes-Oxley and heightened regulatory scrutiny, companies should not pare back on activities “that are not profit centers…
The Harvard Bus. Rev., Vol. 87, Dec. 2009 at 72, mentions Royal Philips Electronics and that it is “capitalizing on the more than 60,000 patents in its portfolio to earn hundreds of millions of euros annually from licensing.” I have mentioned patent licensing fees in several contexts (See my post…
Schumpter’s column in the Economist, Nov. 14, 2009 at 80, speaks to the “cult of the faceless boss.” It discusses some of the reasons for why there are so many bland CEOs who mouth platitudes, keep their heads down, and make no waves. But it concludes that “the corporate world…
“A particular bugbear of mine is the application of financial metrics to nonfinancial activities. Anxious to justify themselves rather than be outsourced, many service functions (such as IT, HR, and legal) try to devise a return on investment number to help their cause. Indeed, ROI is often described as the…
General counsel may seek to drive some revenue as a result of their department’s patent licensing efforts, but the imagined returns are four leaf clovers. An article in MIT Sloan Mgt. Rev., Vol. 51, Fall 2009 at 72, states that for only a few companies does patent licensing pay off.…