It’s good to be an in-house lawyer. Many surveys ask those lawyers what they like about their job, and so did the 2011 In-House Counsel Barometer, produced by the Canadian law firm Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg In association with the Canadian Corporate Counsel Association (CCCA). Actually, the question had…
An article in New England IN-HOUSE, February 2012 at 12, discusses whether in-house counsel who leave a law department are free to join a competitor and practice law. It explains Rule 5.6 of the Rules of Professional Conduct which prohibits restrictions on the right of a lawyer to practice law…
Diversity & The Bar, Jan./Feb. 2012 at 47, published last year’s survey results that gathered data from hundreds of companies. The full report is available at the website of the Minority Corporate Counsel Association. http://www.mcca.com/data/global/images/Research/mccacldd_book.pdf For the initiatives discussed in the article, only law departments of much size carry them…
I propose that the term “direct report” should apply only in those law departments that have at least one lawyer reporting to at least one non-GC lawyer. By this criterion, a six-lawyer department where all five report to the general counsel would have no “direct reports.” Yet, add one junior…
Those who manage in-house lawyers sometimes interchange the terms “talent” and “skill.” They have, however, different meanings and it is our loss to blur them. “Talent” concerns innate abilities, along the lines of a melodious voice, athleticism, humor, intelligence, and spatial sensibility. Bestowed at birth, perhaps genetically programmed, plastic under…
Diversity & The Bar, Jan./Feb. 2012 at 47, provides data from 390 companies regarding the percentage of men and women lawyers who are direct reports to the general counsel. Those companies had 2,330 direct reports. (By the way, that works out to almost exactly six direct reports per general counsel.)…
The NY Times, Feb. 26, 2012, at BU4, wrote about a part of the brain called the Brodmann area 10. “This region of the frontal cortex is believed to be associated with our ability to make inferences about others’ preferences and beliefs based on their actions.” I take that to…
The most recent ALM Intelligence metrics survey asked about 26 practice areas, including “Other.” They allowed me to examine data provided by about 70 US legal departments. Of them, eight practice areas accounted for two-thirds of all the lawyer positions. Litigation and Commercial each accounted for around 15%, while Intellectual…
One question asked in the most recent ALM Intelligence metrics survey was about the source of lawyers who had been hired during 2010 by the respondent law departments. As it turns out, 44 lawyers were hired from law firms and 36 were hired from other law departments. Most readers of…
Two out of three general counsel (or chief legal officers) who responded to last year’s benchmark survey by ALM Intelligence also serve as their company’s Corporate Secretary. That is, of 80 respondents, 58 held the dual title and 21 did not. This finding leads me to speculate that privately held…