The Law Department of the City of New York uses “hand geometry” scanners known as CityTime. The website of CityLimits.org #629, March 3, 2007, explains that the Ingersoll-Rand Hand Punch 4000 units clock workers in by reading the specific geometry of their hand. At least a dozen city agencies, comprising…
Here is the stumper of the day, a devilish question submitted to Gertrude Block, who writes a column called “Language Tips that appears in the NYSBA J., Vol. 80, Feb. 2008 at 54. “Isn’t it incorrect for a lawyer who is not a member of the corporate law department of…
Drawing on data from the most recent Hildebrandt benchmark survey, InsideCounsel, March 2008 at 59, lists the highest paid practice areas for in-house attorneys. Trademark Litigation $258,200 International $242,000 IP-General $234,500 IP-Licensing $234,000 Mergers/Acquisitions $231,000 Compliance $229,100 This curious set of figures deserves dissection. Patent litigation is much more common…
Cash compensation for the top four levels of legal department lawyers appear to decline from level to level by about a quarter. Eyeballing the figures in InsideCounsel, March 2008 at 56, it looks like the “General Counsel” level’s $564,000 in median cash compensation declines to about $380,000 for “Deputy General…
Organization charts barely rank when you list what’s important about how to run a law department, but they also serve who only box and line. It is still useful for general counsel to be able to depict their legal team and they need not unthinkingly accept how the chart looks.…
It seems plausible to me that there is a correlation between average profit margins of industries and average in-house pay (See my posts of March 24, 2005: differences between industries; and April 8, 2007: highly-paid practice areas.). Companies in industries that earn more as a percent of revenue than other…
Spectra Energy Corp., a huge natural gas transmission company, recently spun off from Duke Power. When that happened, Spectra’s legal team had 19 attorneys and 12 support staff in five offices throughout the U.S. and Canada. As a result of no longer being able to call on Duke Power’s corporate…
To translate a piece in the Harv. Bus. Rev., Vol. 86, Dec. 2007 at 101, to law departments, the point is that general counsel can set targets for lawyers to achieve, such as the reduction of outside counsel firms to a certain number, cost savings of a certain percentage, or…
The Directors Roundtable invited the general counsel of Ford Motor, David Leitch, to speak at a gathering in late 2007, and a Nat’l L.J., Vol. 30, Jan. 28, 2008 advertising supplement published his remarks. Leitch mentions that Ford, which has been losing billions of dollars a year, has slashed its…
Law department managers who use temporary or contract attorneys may find that one of the lawyers does great work, fits right in, wants to join the department – and there is an open position. If the law department hires the lawyer, the department may owe the temp agency an extra…