It is all too easy for the law department to don the mantle of responsibilities that have legal elements, but should be handled by others. This creeping legalization applies to such functions as electronic discovery, compliance, risk management, records management, contract administration, equity awards oversight, workers comp, and ethics. Each…
At one company on a panel at the Fifth General Counsel Roundtable, Dec. 6, 2007, summarized in a publication by the Economist Intelligence Unit, risk management is embedded within each business line. Risk management is overseen by a central risk committee on which the general counsel sits. Here is the…
According to a panelist at the Fifth General Counsel Roundtable, Dec. 6, 2007 cited in a summary produced by the Economist Intelligence Unit at 8, the four reasons, draw on several advantages of a general counsel and his or her law department. (1) The general counsel “touches more areas of…
Michael Helfer, the general counsel of Citigroup, addressed the Fifth General Counsel Roundtable, Dec. 6, 2007. As summarized by the Economist Intelligence Unit at 6, Helfer reflected on a fundamental management challenge: “managing a legal function so that it supports the company’s business strategy without being co-opted by any particular…
The Fulton County Daily Report, May 2, 2008, has an article by Katheryn Hayes Tucker that comments on the Association of Corporate Counsel Eighth Annual Chief Legal Officer Survey, released last month. The ACC invited 5,355 U.S. members holding the CLO or GC title to participate in the survey and…
In Corp. Counsel, Vol. 15, May 2008 at 98-99, you can peruse a list of 90 “top-ranked universities and the lawyers that head their legal departments.” In that illustrious grove of academe, however, lurk no less than six that lack a chief legal officer. The bereft six are the Univ.…
A piece in Counsel to Counsel, May 28 at 10, showcases the efforts of the computer manufacturer Lenovo to combat worldwide counterfeiting of its products. “As the company’s legal representative, inside counsel must ensure that processes are in place to watch for and identify counterfeit items early on, aggressively pursue…
How a lawyer writes mirrors how that person thinks. Depth of understanding, force of reasoning, and clarity of expression all blaze from a person’s pen. This blog has connected effective writing to effective lawyering in various ways (See my posts of May 13, 2007: writing instructors; Sept. 21, 2005: writing…
Much management of in-house teams depends on the term “matter.” For instance, managing attorneys often assign work according to matters (the British “file”) and visualize workloads by numbers of matters on someone’s desk (See my post of March 26, 2007: “a material increase (44%) in the average number of Legal…
The UK-based law firm Eversheds posted on Legal OnRamp a document about a conclave with its Advisory Board (See my posts of March 23, 2008: additional background and two ideas; and Aug. 3, 2005: Baxter’s Litigation Advisory Board.). A comment by one member of the Board rocked me: “In many…