“We evaluate courage as a behavioral characteristic of our lawyers, and we link this evaluation to compensation.” This comment, from John Donohue the General Counsel of Rhodia, Inc., probably refers to the intestinal fortitude in-house counsel need to take a position that is not favored by a client. It takes…
By contributing author Jane DiRenzo Pigott, R3 Group LLC A best practice in the diversity and inclusion world is diversity training. Many law departments conduct diversity training as part of their ongoing diversity efforts. Even so, for a number of reasons diversity training may be disruptive and detract from efforts…
Law departments are better places if their members are committed to it and to the company they work for. A pamphlet by Stanton Marris, Energizing the Organization, 2007, Issue 10, provides some data to energize awareness of this result. It cites the Corporate Leadership Council, Employee Engagement Survey, 2004 for…
Legal Week, in association with LexisNexis, recently canvassed 430 US and UK-qualified lawyers — including an undisclosed number of in-house lawyers. The survey looked at their needs for continuing professional development (CPD), and whether they believe the training currently being offered to them is “up to scratch.” All solicitors and…
Every now and then a general counsel, or any in-house lawyer who manages people, has two reports who just rub each other the wrong way. Here are six techniques for how to reduce the angst. a) Separate the feuders, so that they do not have to interact or so that…
As of 2004, MetLife’s law department, which had 200 lawyers at the time, conducted formal mid-year performance evaluations. It required all employees and managers to acknowledge, in writing, that they had reviewed all the employee’s goals and discussed the employees’ performance against important competencies (See my post of Aug. 16,…
A telecommunications law department that had 63 lawyers three years ago was suffering under budget constraints. It established an “Activities Team” (A-Team) to plan morale building and networking activities for the department. The A-Team held such events as monthly breakfasts, Halloween parties for department members and their children and, a…
Partners Healthcare, while it had 24 lawyers in 2004, sponsored a program for “Attorney Fellows,” who worked in the Office of the General Counsel for two year stints. At any one time there were two Attorney Fellows each with two-year positions. The program introduced lawyers to non-profit, healthcare and in-house…
The Harv. Bus. Rev., Vol. 85, March 2007 at 115, article on human capital management practices has spawned several posts (See my posts of May 11, 2007 with the first 9 practices and May 28, 2007 with the final 14; as well as June 10, 2007 on Leadership; June 11,…
According to some research, the youth of America exhibit higher levels of narcissism, “a positive and inflated view of the self,” than do their elders. Younger lawyers joining law departments may well be more self-centered than lawyers of previous generations, if we extrapolate from comments in Atlantic, Vol. 300, July/Aug.…