If only a lawyer’s sexual orientation was not even worth mentioning! The General Counsel of Constellation Energy, Charles Berardesco, is profiled in Diversity & The Bar, Sept./Oct. 2010 at 46. The piece makes much of his being gay and public about it (See my post of March 17, 2006: gay…
Real morsels! Another law department diversity cookbook. Among the efforts by Shell’s law department to encourage diversity, according to Assistant General Counsel John Esquivel in Diversity & the Bar, Nov./Dec. at 16, are a recipe book and “learning lunches” (See my post of Jan. 21, 2010: MetLife and its ethnic…
World-wide, the notional amount of outstanding derivatives contracts stands at $450 trillion. Awesome, and as the world knows some awfully complicated lawsuits can ensue when counterparties wrangle. To sort out those tussles, many of which pull in disputants from different countries, a new permanent body might resolve issues outside of…
IMHO, here are the acronyms that crop up the most frequently when the topic is law department management. FYI, for each I added my most recent post that uses the acronym. Don’t LOL, but think of these staples as the marquee TLAs (three-letter acronyms). PDQ, let me know your nominations!…
The concept of baseline external spend by legal departments and a call for clarity (Oct. 3, 2010) Law departments needs a defined, consensual term such as “baseline external spend” for the normal pace of spending. In terms of reducing costs, innovative sourcing easily bests innovative pricing (Oct. 4, 2010) The…
An interview in Worth.com, Dec./Jan. 2011 at 120, describes the new medical company Expert Consensus. Its founders charge about $12,000 to convene a panel of experts to consider a patient’s major medical decision, such as treatment for stage-four lung cancer. They collect and organize the electronic data, find the experts,…
A subtle addition to MFN. It interested me to see that one careful law department define the term “most favored client” to exclude pro bono clients. Clearly, the rates charged pro bono clients could be very low or zero (See my post of April 30, 2009: MFN impositions with 8…
Consider ten management concepts that in my opinion ought to have more currency among enlightened managers within law departments. Concept visualization: display ideas in visual space to see their importance and relationships (See my post of May 15, 2009: idea relationship software with 6 references; and Feb. 10, 2010: visual…
The plural of general counsel is general counsel (no s). Under the entry for “counsel,” no less an authority than R. W. Burfield, Ed., The New Fowler’s Modern English Usage (Oxford 1996) at 187, pronounces “(pl. unchanged: [long quote ending with] five prosecuting counsel”).” The magisterial book on usage offers…
I write blithely about contracts and the associated role of internal legal departments. Negotiation of contracts has seemed to me a fairly straightforward matter of knowledge of the business, recognition of leverage and ultimately allocation of risks. How naïve! My underestimation of the complications involved became apparent as I read…