Categorical “best practices” often leave me disdainful and recommendations made when the recommender does not know the context of a law department leave me dubious. Yet as a consultant of 20 years’ experience advising lawyers on ways to manage better, it turns out that I have written a passel of…
Previous posts have covered how surveys by and of law departments should attend to the quality of their methodology. Left out in those posts were any comments about surveys in terms of their larger effects. Here are four considerations beyond methodology. Surveys may induce respondents to go beyond what they…
Any day now, expect the grand opening of “Second Life: The Law Department,” the massively multi-player online role playing game (MMORPG) where anyone can be a general counsel and fire the CEO’s favorite law firm, where law firm partners can compete and win to provide legal services for the King’s…
One-size-fits-all solutions to management challenges offend me. To demand that each practice group leader reduce the group’s budget by five percent, or that everyone increase their contributions to the knowledge management system by 10 percent, or that every law firm accede to a six percent haircut, may sound equitable and…
A brief statement in Met. Corp. Counsel, Vol. 15, May 2007 at 41, by an Eversheds partner should give readers of this post a new idea. Paul Smith mentions that some competitive bids “begin with an RFD – a Request for Discussion – when the company seeks ideas for its…
Several posts have referred to balanced scorecards, but this one collects ideas for how to compile one (See my post of Aug. 24, 2006 with references cited.). 1. To start, catalog the metrics that you currently maintain about the performance of your law department. These could include budgets, staffing numbers,…
The Economist, Oct. 13, 2007 at 10, makes a point that managers in law departments ought to take to heart. Generating ideas for what a law department ought to do is the easy part (See my posts of June 25, 2007 on innovation; and Oct. 29, 2006 on creativity and…
Previous posts have commented on SWOT analyses – Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (See my posts of Aug. 28, 2005 with five criticisms of the method; Dec. 9, 2005 #1 with an example from a large department; and Jan. 13, 2006 #3 about SWOT’s historical roots.). An article in MIT…
Two posts on the blog of one of the leading offshore companies, Pangea3, raise points worth noting. First, Pangea3 takes umbrage at those who question whether the use of offshore law-related services trigger any practice of law issues. The post takes the position that stuck-in-the-mud opponents of change are simply…
The Texas General Counsel Forum in the summer of 2007 had a total membership of 425 general and managing counsel. According to an interview of its CEO, Lee Emery, in Met. Corp. Counsel, Vol. 15, Sept. 2007, at 65, members “meet across the state for peer-to-peer sharing of best practices,…