A sidebar for an article on overseas legal teams, published in the ACC Docket, Vol. 26, Nov. 2008 at 51, pulls together several arguments in favor of adding a lawyer to your staff in a foreign country. “Language” – an obvious reason why your law department might want a local…
Strategy + bus., Iss. 53, Winter 2008 at 52, has a thoughtful, metrics-based analysis of how global dispersal of a company’s research and development correlates to its improved financial performance. “Overall, our analysis suggests that companies taking a more aggressive posture in globalizing their R&D footprint enjoy stronger sustained financial…
The controversy has been quelled: the top of the small law department ranges is exactly five lawyers, no more, no less (See my post of Dec. 27, 2008: arguments and metrics for that conclusion regarding “small”.). Next, let us solemnly affirm that between 6 and 12 lawyers constitutes a “medium”…
General counsel, consultants, vendors and others who swim in the law department pool would be better off if there were a generally-used definition of small law departments. Herewith are some of my thoughts on this small step toward standards. As a starting point, I would argue that number of lawyers…
The chief blogster here would like to know how many US companies have an employed lawyer. I had thought the tipping point where a company hires its first attorney was several hundred millions in revenue, since the overall median of lawyers per billion is about 5. Ergo, put crudely, at…
Law department administrators are responsible for operations of the department and a new survey offers many insights into that responsibility (See my post of Feb.13, 2008 administrators with 21 references.). This post kicks off a series about the First Law Department Operations Survey, published by InsideCounsel and Blickstein Group in…
Should transaction-oriented business lawyers, generalists who mostly handle contracts and the range of legal issues that arise for a business unit, also handle the litigation that arises for the client? Most law departments answer no, at least for cases other than the most routine and lowest risk. Litigation is a…
A post earlier this month considered the systemic prospect of headquarters staff shrinking in number (See my post of Nov. 30, 2008: HQ legal groups will shrink *1.). In support of that prediction, consider what happened after the merger of Akzo Nobel and International Chemicals in early 2008. Corp. Counsel,…
Let’s define three kinds of foci for inside lawyers: SPOC, specialist, and majors/minors. A Single Point of Contact is a lawyer whom clients in a line of business or staff group can call if they do not know which other lawyer to call. A SPOC is like a relationship partner…
Philip Bramwell, the recently appointed general counsel of BAE Systems, immediately kicked off a three-year plan to reshape the legal department. According to Corp. Counsel, Vol. 15, Dec. 2008 at 96, Bramwell’s overhaul of the 120-lawyer group includes “making sure each line of business has its own chief counsel, who…