When I have written about the law departments of government agencies, mostly I have marveled at the size of them (See my post of Sept. 10, 2005: New York City’s Corporate Counsel Office, more than 650 lawyers; Nov. 6, 2005: US Department of Homeland Securities, roughly 1,500 lawyers; Pennsylvania’s Office…
Private equity firms invest in the legal cottage industry. This is a good thing for general counsel, because those firm inject capital and management experience, but it’s bad if potential acquires take their eye off the ball, if investments lead to turmoil, or if private equity acquirers fail to maintain…
Distinctions among law departments by market value? ISS, the rating agency, has announced that it will judge companies against a peer group of 14 to 24 companies, based on industry, revenue and market value. It is unclear to me how the market value of a company has an effect on…
Legal hold software and a cost metric for law departments. Consider an item from KMWorld, Feb. 2012 at S12. “BIA’s legal hold compliance SaaS solution costs less than $2 per user per month.” Does that mean per employee or only per employees who are “custodians.” If that metric can serve…
It is mildly exasperating and disappointing to hear the same examples time after time from the dais. Can’t speakers come up with something other than “Focus on strategic work, [pause as if pondering] such as bet-the-company litigation.” Can’t they offer something else? Or “Push your law firms to be innovative,…
Billing rates (See my post of Jan. 23, 2012: with 8 references.). Chief legal officer title compared to GC (See my post of Jan. 20, 2012: CLO vs GC with 26 references.). Client satisfaction II (See my post of Jan. 25, 2012: with 10 references.). Compensation of in-house lawyers ex…
A.C. Grayling, Ideas that Matter: the concepts that shape the 21st century (Basic Books 2010) presents the venerable British philosopher’s summaries of 130 major concepts. Most covered in 2-3 pages, approximately 30 of them have already appeared on this blog. One that has not is accommodation theory, devised in the…
UK matter management software. The UK’s largest friendly society LV= (aka the Liverpool & Victoria) has implemented Proclaim case management software from Eclipse Legal Systems for its inhouse legal and secretariat team to support internal clients. This item comes from Charles Christian’s Orange Rag, January 2012. Also, the legal services…
Two conclusions have clarified for me as I have tussled once again with a conceptual structure for what goes on in law departments. My previous forays have resulted in a farrago of ideas and terms swirling around concepts, toolboxes, processes, methods, and tools. It now seems to me that a…
Value of equity awards. I heard recently that a “binomial calculation” is more complex than Black-Scholes but more accurate (See my post of Jan. 17, 2006: Black-Scholes formula uses standard deviations; Jan. 24, 2006: software to calculate the formula; July 25, 2007: the binomial method; July 27, 2007: the lattice-binomial…