An article in the Admin. Sci. Quarterly, March 2000, at 81, explores age of companies and their pace of innovation. Its discussion bears on law departments, I believe. Apparently there are two schools of management thought. Organizational ecologists find the liability of newness, others find the liability of senescence. What…
Every law department has proximal goals and distal goals. Proximal goals are to reduce legal risks of the organization, to deliver legal advice to it, to resolve legal disputes involving it, and to handle legal documents on its behalf. Those goals that are distal, secondary goals necessary to achieve the…
An interview of the eminent historian John Lukacs by Historically Speaking, Vol. 10, Sept. 2009 at 14, makes two observations about historical knowledge that apply to legal department knowledge about management practices. Lukacs points out that “we think in words, which have their own histories. Words are not finite categories…
Journalists covering the legal industry love to write about innovative practices. A scoop is a piece on the next big flavor. Some general counsel, too, would like to come up with the latest and greatest management technique. But a solid body of research into business success points out that businesses…
To implement a new idea is the essence of innovation (See my post of Oct. 4, 2009: innovation defined.). That post and this one survey what I have written generally about innovation in law departments since my first metapost on innovation in late 2005. It does not collect specific instances…
An innovation is any practice perceived to be new by a general counsel or other member of a legal department. That definition covers change of every kind and emphasizes internal perception: the innovation could be common elsewhere but if it is perceived by the adopting law department to be fresh…
Another thought or three on why I mistrust palaver about “best practices” (See my post of March 20, 2009: seven objections.). Best practices give short shrift to context of the legal department that is held out as fostering a best practice, alterable circumstances such as perseverance and the individual champions.…
If you have an interest in outside counsel management, making the most from the talent in your department, or your legal department’s structure, email me and I will be happy to send you any one of my blook’s table of contents and first chapter (tell me which one you want).…
Mark Prebble, Managing In-House Legal Services: Providing High Value Support for Your Organisation (Thorogood 2009) at 49, discusses support staff and both gives and takes advice: “Without getting bureaucratic it is worth developing an operating guide for support staff, which sets out respective expectations and acts something as an induction…
Project management skills come into play with project teams (See my post of Feb. 1, 2009: project teams of law departments with 39 references and 4 metaposts.). I have written about project management generally in legal departments (See my post of April 18, 2005: project managers; Feb. 1, 2006: project…