Recently I took in-house counsel to task who fail to consult with outside lawyers if they get in too deep. Ken Grady in turn took me to task and made some good points. “Do in-house counsel err from time to time – sure. Do outside counsel – at least as…
An article in the Admin. Sciences Quarterly, Vol. 54, June 2009 at 272, somewhat ponderously defines strategic plans as “formal documents that articulate organizational goals and the means by which to achieve them over a specified period of time and propose to promote effective management by prioritizing goals under resource…
According to a study some years ago by the General Counsel Roundtable, contract management poses four key challenges for lawyers in-house: 1) “standardizing and simplifying the drafting of contracts.” This is the domain of templates, retrieval of prior form agreements, and automated creation of contracts (See my post of Feb.…
The general counsel of Novartis spoke at the recent Legal Week Corporate Counsel Forum. His presentation covered the strategic planning process his 200-lawyer group started in 2006. Of the three components in the plan – organization, people, and culture – the cultural goal was to “play at the top of…
For many fundamental reasons, the practice of law within corporations breeds caution and circumspection. Setting aside whether those who choose to attend law school start off more risk averse, or whether those three years foster it, other forces strengthen the aversion during a career. The world is extremely complicated and…
Some observers believe Microsoft was wrong footed on open source. Was it the nay-saying of lawyers? “One of the reasons Microsoft seemed so ill-informed about open source was that its lawyers had forbidden its engineers from working with it. The license that Linus and similar open source software uses, known…
This is high-level stuff, but it helps to put several pieces and terms in place. Start with an image of an upside-down pyramid where the top level is your corporation’s goals. To further those corporate goals – why the legal department exists –– usually finds expression in a department’s mission…
“A legal department which claims a high degree of self-sufficiency and prides itself on doing as much as possible in-house can be a cause for concern“ writes Mark Prebble, Managing In-House Legal Services: Providing High Value Support for Your Organisation (Thorogood 2009) at 18. I agree. Begrudging the use of…
There are benefits to having your department written about approvingly for its programs and management efforts. Most CEOs like it when their people and units get kudos. The members of your department feel proud and more engaged (See my post of Aug. 26, 2009: the performance boost from engagement.). Other…
In-house attorneys face occasional challenges to their professional status, notably as to the attorney-client privilege when they give business advice, the degree of their objectivity as employees of their client, and whether they are admitted to practice in a given state or court. A further limitation I had not known…