Someone needs to convince me that a summary of a law department’s aspirations – aka mission statement – makes any provable difference to the department’s effectiveness. Common in business they may be (See my posts of May 14, 2005 and June 9, 2007: Bain survey results.), but of unproven value…
InsideCounsel, March 2008 at 44, gives an overview of “Web 2.0,” and a useful way to distinguish it from Web 1.0. Web 1.0 had one-way information sources, where you could read what someone who ran a particular site posted. You sent emails from a different system. Further, most participants on…
Imagine a three-lawyer department where both reports to the soon-to-retire general counsel are in competition with each other for the promotion. If each lawyer rigorously controlled the costs of the law firms he or she manages, both would be better off because, let’s postulate, they could both be paid more.…
Implicit in the claim that something is a “best practice” is the assumption that another department’s circumstances are the same and problem is the same. Then the transplanted practice will take root and flourish. What may be a best practice under one circumstance may not hold true if those background…
A tool that some general counsel use to keep track of their key metrics is the balanced scorecard. A few posts on this weblog have poked and sniffed at balanced scorecards. Several law departments that actually user balanced scorecards are on display (See my posts of March 8, 2006: a…
Benchmark Legal Research LLC has an ad in Inside Counsel, Feb. 2008 at 40. I do not normally highlight individual service providers but the service Benchmark Legal provides was new for me. According to their ad, they track and report on bills and regulations. Many law departments monitor potential changes…
The Program on the Legal Profession, based at Harvard Law School, is collaborating with the American Bar Foundation (ABF) on a project to examine the processes by which the legal departments of large corporations go about finding, selecting, and evaluating outside counsel. The project’s approach is to use in-depth interviews…
The College of Law Practice Management (of which I am a member) sponsors the InnovAction Award, which is designed to identify and honor innovation in law practice management. If your legal department has done something innovative – whether with technology, talent management, outside counsel, organizational structure or otherwise – please…
Online networking sites that in-house counsel might find useful seem to be surging. The promise of linking with other lawyers who have like interests is infectious. I have written about LinkedIn (See my post of Jan. 19, 2008.) as well as LawLink.com (See my post of Jan. 30, 2008 #2.)…
Six Sigma is no doubt a tool for law department managers (See my posts of July 31, 2005: general introduction; March 7, 2006: terminology; May 7, 2007: a report on Six Sigma in law departments by KPMG Forensics. A law department that succeeds with Six Sigma projects can not only…