Going against the wave of offshoring, General Electric’s law department has begun to handle many more patents in-house, “a change that produces more and better patents with no increase in expenses.” No more details are in the article from Corp. Bd. Mbr., Vol. 11, July/Aug. 2008 at 76, that describes…
Puzzling over the data from a survey where law departments rated the performance of their law firms, it occurred to me to make a point of methodology (See my post of July 21, 2008: survey methodology and 48 references cited.). The article, from Inside Counsel, July 2008 at 47, explains…
Surveys of law departments frequently have multiple-choice questions, even though such questions are beset with methodological traps. Here are my blog posts on the topic. Strive to cover every reasonable choice and not have choices overlap (See my post of June 16, 2007: the test of Mutually Exclusive, Comprehensively Exhaustive.).…
During a presentation recently, the finance manager of a large law department mentioned that in 2007 his company’s internal audit group had reviewed the legal department’s processes. He proudly added that internal audit gave the department a “strong” rating. If you want headaches, invite internal audit to look at your…
Some law departments, usually larger ones, prepare a strategic plan (See my posts of May 14, 2005: tools execs use to improve the performance of their organizations.). Various techniques help general counsel craft a strategic plan (See my posts of Dec. 9, 2005: scenario thinking; Dec. 9, 2005: the Delphi…
Among the 16 tools for reducing costs I posted on recently were “rightshoring and outsourcing” (See my post of May 18, 2008: Oliver Wyman’s list.). Presuming that “rightshoring” means offshoring, I rummaged around and found a plethora of earlier posts on offshoring. For me, outsourcing is a broader topic, having…
The needs and desires of many people ought influence managers of a law department when they select department-wide software. For example, the law department of Saint-Gobain Corporation, whose 43 employees are part of the $60 billion Compagnie de Saint-Gobain, need to replace its document management package. The department, sensibly, created…
Caterpillar’s 179-lawyer department follows the problem-solving approach of Six Sigma (See my post of Feb. 13, 2008: Six Sigma and 18 references cited.). “They identify and solve problems by analyzing statistics, and measure the results to track their progress.” An application of that discipline at Caterpillar is set forth in…
Sloppy use of significant terms by those who care about the management internal legal teams creates clichés and robs the terms of their punch. Five such words are particularly prone to be sprinkled too liberally. Rarely can we say that some activity is a “best practice,” yet the over-worked term…
All manner of enterprises make a living off law departments. I term the teeming community the “cottage industry” and have picked out parts of it from time to time to highlight (See my posts of April 18, 2005; Oct. 18, 2005; May 30, 2006: the revenue that might go to…