The September 2006 Verdict survey, summarized in Legal Week, Sept. 28, 2006 at 10, found very low rates of attrition in UK corporate legal teams. Nearly two-thirds of the respondents estimated their team’s lawyer attrition rate to have been zero-to-nine percent, about a fifth said it was 10-19 percent, and…
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) sets diversity goals for companies under its jurisdiction in the public utilities and communications sector. The law departments of those companies, if they want to get credit for the use of minority lawyers in their law firms, must take care. They must observe a…
The NJ Department of Labor, Occupational Employment Statistics Wage Survey, July 2006, gathered data from lawyers practicing in New Jersey who voluntarily responded. According to a summary in the NJ Lawyer, Vol. 15, Dec. 4, 2006 at 4, the survey reports 1,140 in-house lawyers with insurance and other financial services…
“The in-house market has been here before — building internal size and strength while the economy is good, but then retrenching as company-wide cutbacks target ‘non-core’ parts of the business.” It hasn’t come to my attention that law departments are widely considered surplus, peripheral, — non core. Nor do I…
According to David Sirota, chairman emeritus of Sirota Survey Intelligence, employee attitudes can have a marked effect on productivity. In the NY Times, Sept. 2, 2006 at C5, he singles out three things that especially pump up employee enthusiasm: “Fair treatment, such as equitable wages and benefits, a sense of…
Not only has InBev embarked on an ambitious training program (See my post of Nov. 24, 2006 on its academy.), but two other talent-development efforts in the UK are running along side. In the summer of 2006 the Commerce & Industry Group’s London branch launched a mentoring scheme. According to…
This blog speculated that accounting for option grants as a deductible expense, a rules change that took effect in 2005, would hurt the ability of law departments to attract new hires (See my posts of Nov. 14, 2005 related to demographic changes and April 30, 2006.). This blog speculated wrongly.…
InBev, a global drinks giant, has been talking with some of its core law firms about how to set up a three-year training program for the company’s most promising in-house lawyers. The “academy” would have in its first class 15 of InBev’s brightest in-house lawyers to start through a three-year…
Open-ended questions of job seekers allow employers to peek into new kinds of personal information, and importantly information that can’t be deliberately constructed. As explained in the Economist, Nov. 11, 2006 at 92, “by asking a person’s opinion of colleagues, the company he works for and where he sees himself…
An online survey in October 2005 by the Esquire Group found among 10 Twin Cities law firms that five had adopted the title “Legal Administrative Assistant.” That title (LAA) could be a contender in law departments (See my post of May 17, 2006 on whither the term “secretary.”). One law…