An earlier post discusses the four main strategic decisions a general counsel can take (See my post of Feb. 10, 2007.). Other strategic decisions that affect a law department might be made over the objection even of the general counsel. To sell or buy a major business unit, to form…
Whether by design or not, I thought this blog had made little room for items on the physical layout of law departments, but in fact this blog has been building quite a structure. Here is a blue print of what posts have been erected. A scattering of remarks concern conference…
The general counsel of a large corporation may have to travel quite frequently for transactions and other business purposes. But what if that top lawyer has responsibility for lawyers who are posted in distant offices? According to the Bisnow on Business E-Letter, May 2007, Marriott International has in-house attorneys in…
InsideCounsel, May 2007 at 66, profiles Beat Hess, the global corporate counsel of Royal Dutch Shell. That $220 billion company, the world’s third-largest oil company, has a 700-attorney legal team. Given that humongous number of lawyers, no wonder Hess has established a “one team” legal model, where he set common…
A study of French law departments, conducted by Juristes Associes in 2006, included almost 100 legal departments (See my post of May 6, 2007 for some other findings.). Of that group, 64 percent had between one and five lawyers; 23 percent had between 6 and 10; 12 percent 11 to…
A panelist at a conference where I recently spoke mentioned three arguments in favor of her company’s geographically dispersed law department. With a trio of far-flung locations, the lead lawyers have discovered that it is easier to recruit when drawing on the labor pool of three different locations. While it…
A survey for office furniture maker Steelcase, summarized in BusinessWeek, April 9, 2007 at 12, polled 9,300 white-collar workers. Their data reveals that “the typical private office has shrunk from 16 by 20 feet a few years ago to a more common 8 by 10 today.” I suspect the same…
A statement in Bus. Week, May 7, 2007 at 71, ought to astonish us all: “About 60% of the office space that companies pay so dearly for is now a dead zone of darkened doorways and wasting cubes.” On any given day, how many offices of legal departments sit empty…
Data from a recent study by LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell deserves a quizzical quantitative qualifier. The study focused on how midsize companies in Europe select and review their legal service providers, and is reported in Of Counsel, Vol. 26, March 2007 at 8. The study defines “midsize” companies as for-profit organizations that…
A profile of Peter Bevan, group general counsel of British Petroleum for the past 15 years, which ran in Law Dept Quart., Vol. 2, May-July 2006 at 41. The profile states that there are approximately 400 lawyers worldwide in BP’s group legal function. More pertinently, “The lawyers are based in…