Exec. Counsel, April/May 2010 at 26, in an article by Hildebrandt consultants, explains that a “leading utility company has been successfully working with its retired lawyers for the past five years.” The former lawyers can work much more flexible hours and at much lower rates than outside counsel. “The negotiated…
No, the first step is not to count to ten, although that can’t hurt. Instead, talent mgt., June 2010 at 37, offers these suggestions. They have a whiff of the therapists couch, “Give Peace a Chance,” New Agism and tie-died shirts in battered VW buses, but here you go. Don’t…
From talent mgt., June 2010 at 36, we can find out about five varieties of conflict. Each of them flares up in legal departments. Process: such as if two managers of litigation each believe that their way to handle litigation holds is the right way. Role: such as if the…
In his recent book, Amartya Sen refuses to elevate rationality above feelings. In fact, “reason and emotion play complementary roles in human reflection”(at 39), he observes, and later he reiterates the point. “Indeed, in celebrating reason, there is no particular grounds for denying the far-reaching role of instinctive psychology and…
I got a kick out of these two points about goals. A manager can set two kinds of goals for an employee. One kind, the most common, sets a performance outcome. For example, “You should submit applications for 15 patents this year.” Less well-known is a second kind, a high-learning…
Research indicates that selectivity in staffing is positively related to firm performance, according to an article in the Acad. of Mgt. Rev., 1996 Aug., at 952. Perhaps there lurks in that finding a comparative metric for law departments. If we had data from a number of law departments as to…
“To the dismay of many, relative to homogeneous groups, members of diverse groups display less attachment to each other, show less commitment to their respective organizations, communicate less with one another, miss work more often, experience more conflict, and take more time to reach decisions.” Ouch. This discouraging summary of…
A stimulating article in strategy+business, Summer 2010, at 80, describes research into the comparative performance of companies after CEOs are appointed from within (“insiders”) or from outside the company. “Four out of five times, boards around the world choose insider candidates when selecting a CEO, and that ratio has been…
An excellent panel at the SuperConference presented the top legal officers of Allstate, Ford, and P&G. Three of their comments may be old hat to veteran GCs, but they struck me as worth a mention. Discussing why all three had government experience on their resumes, two of the general counsel…
The only post here that discusses pros and cons of secrecy about high-potential lawyers comes down on the side of non-disclosure (See my post of June 24, 2007: identification causes problems.). But an article in the Harvard Bus. Rev., June 2010 at 54, observes “a growing trend toward transparency.” As…