A piece on PSLs – professional support or practice support lawyers – in the ABA J., July 2011 at 27, led me to ruminate why some law departments don’t agree to share a PSL. The large law firms cited in the article have non-practicing lawyers who “provide practice guides, up-to-date…
The longer a lawyer stays in the same law department the more embedded the lawyer becomes. Known to everyone in the company, familiar with the execs and the cleaners, politically attuned, a compendium of historical business knowledge leavened with legal savvy, the lawyer’s value grows proportionally (or faster) with tenure.…
No Road to Damascus vision causes a CEO to hire the company’s first house attorney. Rather, the CEO or CFO probably becomes aware of several arguments that compel the decision. Consider eight of them, in the order that I think they contribute to the decision (See my post of May…
The Council on Litigation Management (CLM) has teamed with Columbia Law School to host the Litigation Management Institute. According to a press release, “The Institute is the first certification program specifically designed to provide attorneys a comprehensive understanding of the business of litigation management.” The Institute, to be limited to…
From a presentation at the SuperConference, someone threw out the PIE theory of career success. They credit that theory with a quantification of what contributes to an upward career trajectory. I quote from the slide: “‘P’ for performance: it accounts for 10% of success ‘I’ for image: 30% of success…
My usual comments about titles in legal departments culminate in something about Associate Counsel being senior or junior to Assistant Counsel. That pair of titles seems quite common, and usually in that order of ascendancy. But the title stepping-stones for the home office attorneys at Allstate sit quite differently. From…
“No food or drink is allowed into the corporate offices.” Yikes! When I read that policy of the UPS Law Department, I remembered the stream of salads and sandwiches I have swallowed at my desk for lunch or the ubiquitous bottled waters and Diet Cokes seen everywhere, let alone the…
The ideal general counsel, as a selfless developer of people, mentors the lawyers below and helps them maximize their potential. We wish. In the rough-and-tumble real world, cautions Jeffrey Pfeffer, strong performance may harm you if your powerful general counsel refuses to play that nurturing game. “Power holders prefer to…
Some data from Booz & Company, in strat.+bus, Summer 2011 at 43, gives more insight into the frequency of the tumultuous period for a general counsel when the boss changes. A column graph shows that in 2010 CEO turnover in the U.S. and Canada hit about 12 percent. Of that…
A verse from Matthew in the Gospels says “For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance.” Some people refer to the Matthew Effect where skills and ability beget wealth, and more wealth, such as well-favored law firms getting more and more high-value work. This…