The New York Times (May 15, 2005 at BU5) ran an article about SOX and compliance. It quoted an editor of Compliance Week: “The big story is that Sarbanes-Oxley has shifted the power center at public companies by homogenizing the roles of the general counsel and the compliance officer.” Homogenized…
The German word schadenfreude, the split feelings of laughing when you see someone slip on a banana peel but then bad for laughing, may describe what general counsel feel when one of their stars is proclaimed by a magazine as a future general counsel. You burst with pride, then you…
Here is an example, from a legal group in Altria, of raising the capabilities of lawyers (CounseltoCounsel, May 2005 at pg. 11). First, the group developed a skills and competency profile for each lawyer position. The profile captured the needed skills in four categories and ranked the competency level the…
Several years ago I attended the Harvard Business School program, Leading Professional Services Firms. Of the 50+ attendees, about 20 were partners at law firms, all of whom were British-based firms. It was a mind-expanding week, expensive but full of perspectives, examples, and provocative ideas about managing professionals. A program…
Managers of effective corporate legal groups take time to evaluate their lawyers. To some degree, inevitably, evaluations compare the performance of a particular lawyer to the performances of that lawyer’s peers. What’s unusual, however, is to explicitly rank all the lawyers against each other. (An article in 28 Legal Times…
The legal search firm of Seltzer Fontaine Beckwith has upended some of the prevailing perceptions about in-house quality of work life compared to law firm life. First, fewer hours worked has lost its in-house advantage as headcount constraints clash with increasing workloads. Second, no pressure to develop business finds its…
This encouraging datum came from Susan Daicoff ’s article, “Lawyer, Know Thyself,” dated October 13, 1999. I have quoted the summary, for which the citation was Chiu, 1998 at 533, referencing M. C. Fisk, “A measure of satisfaction,” Nat’l L.J. S2, S9-12 (May 28, 1990). Fifteen years have passed since…
In November 1998, the Eastman Kodak legal department in Western Europe, having then ten lawyers in four countries, introduced a new structure. A three-page summary of the changes included such measures as creating “horizontal” teams by the six E-K business units, rather than continuing with national lawyers handling national legal…
In late 2003, the average age of the lawyers in the Bombardier law department was, according to its general counsel, 35. Speaking at a Canadian conference, the general counsel seemed proud of that average. I can’t come to a conclusion. Perhaps, given age discrimination laws, I should not even touch…
At a conference in late 2003, the General Counsel of Manulife, a Canadian financial services company then with 125 lawyers, estimated that one or two of his lawyers transfer each year to a non-lawyer role on the business side. His offer to them was to hold their position for three…