One law department I consulted to arranges monthly lunches for its members. The lunches are in a conference room, and the department pays for sodas and some dessert. People who attend bring their own lunches. The department sometimes uses the lunches for very short presentations by a lawyer or paralegal…
General Counsel certainly don’t publicize it when they retain a coach for themselves. The truth probably is that few do. This is remarkable because the position has enormous pressures and the chief legal officer may not have a member of the department (or elsewhere within the company) to which he…
A very large law department of a company headquartered in New York City recently decided to replace its accomplished, long-serving administrator, who took another administrative position in the company, by a lawyer from the department. The lawyer will hold that position for two years and then rotate out, replaced by…
The Department of Law of the City and County of Denver posted its 2003 Employee Attitude Survey Results. The 37-pager offers much to consider. For instance, only 29% (54) of the 185-person Department of Law completed the web-based survey. And, of those 54, about 60% of them were lawyers. Those…
For years, I have said in speeches that if a law department can foresee $400,000 or more a year being spent on outside counsel in an area of law, it should consider hiring a lawyer inside. I think that statement is supportable, but there are more nuances. Cost management is…
Stanton Marris, a British consultancy (www.stantonmarris.com), has developed an Energy Index® questionnaire. As I understand it, if a law department used the questionnaire, it would have its members rate on a six-point scale how important and how true are a number of statements. Each statement bears on one of the…
Mark Hulbert, in the NY Times (April 27, 2005 at BU8), cited research that compared very successful to less successful companies in similar industries and circumstances. The “[less successful] companies … were far more likely to appoint white knights as their chief executives.” By contrast, the CEOs of more than…
In my recent article (http://www.hildebrandt.com/Consultant.aspx?Ppl_ID=3870) I described ten important steps for general counsel to take in preparation for appointing a successor to their position. The article made me wonder why legal departments don’t institute programs for sabbaticals. If a lawyer or paralegal has served well for five or seven years,…
Researching my book, Client Satisfaction for Law Departments, I concluded that many more law departments measure their clients’ attitudes than measure their employees’ attitudes. Odd, because contented employees are likely to serve their customers (clients) better (or so I surmise). They are more likely to go the extra yard, work…
Sophisticated general counsel do what must be done to have capable successors. Ideally, when the GC retires or leaves, the law department has one or more lawyers who can put on the crown. Internal succession is the best, I believe. If there are no capable or acceptable internal candidates, the…