Here is an informative paragraph from the 2010 In-House Global Salary & Benefits Survey conducted by Laurence Simons (pg. 9). “Over a third (37%) of respondents found their current role through recruitment consultancies like Laurence Simons. The second most common route was through personal contacts (15%), nearly 12% had been…
In 2010, the bonuses that were slashed in dismal 2009 have started to return. Many more in-house lawyers may have something extra to look forward to at the end of this fiscal year. Likewise with my posts on bonuses. After an initial metapost, my items tailed off but recently more…
Some general counsel encounter a business unit executive who would like to give a bonus to a particular lawyer who has done excellent work for that unit. Such clear-cut client praise, of course, is wonderful, but if the general counsel manages a consolidated law department that has one compensation scheme,…
My consulting projects rarely address the heterogeneity of law firm lawyers. Other people passionately, tirelessly, and creatively push for diversity. So, I will merely note here five steps new to me but probably commonly known to some readers. Set your primary firms a goal of more hours worked by diverse…
An interviewer for strategy+business, Winter 2010 at 118, spoke with Vineet Nayar, the CEO of HCL Technologies, a $2.6 Indian billion business and information technology services company based. Nayar started a blog and encouraged employees to ask him questions. “The only rule I made was that when you ask the…
I have long had in my mind a metaphor to describe specialist in-house lawyers. It hearkens back to my law school years: courses on anti-trust, corporations, environmental law, intellectual property, labor and employment, litigation, and tax. Larger law departments have one or more lawyers who concentrate on issues that arise…
In a creative twist on the standby of having a law firm come to the legal department and train, consider turning that inside out. The general counsel of Hitachi Data Systems, Chris Leslie, brought nearly 20 lawyers from the department to Baker & McKenzie’s offices for in-depth training on the…
A question on a LinkedIn group asked about the commonness of signing bonuses for law department lawyers below very senior levels. I answered that I think these are infrequent. A general counsel might approve a bonus if the salary structure does not permit a sufficient base offer, so the bonus…
I recently took part in an all-lawyer conference for a very large legal department. The general counsel laid out clearly a set of beliefs of what characterizes a classy law department. At the end, for more than 30 minutes, the general counsel fielded questions from the 200-plus lawyers. Nearly all…
General counsel need to become accustomed to repeating key messages when they speak with members of their department. The repetition of fundamental points, such as the value of teamwork, partnership with internal clients, respect for each other, and communication – may sometimes grow wearying. They may assume there’s nothing more…