Most of what takes place in a law department would not be handled any better if the activities were codified. A small number of repetitive processes, however, such as how to handle subpoenas or to take care of options that are exercised by senior executives, might be done better –…
As described in Counsel to Counsel Connections, Vol. 3, Summer 2003 at 12, Genentech, the biopharmaceutical firm, had at the time a web-based compliance program that offered or complemented six functions. The program displayed the company’s Code of Ethics and also Good Operating Principles. It had “policies, procedures and controls…
Early in the last decade of the twentieth century, total quality management (TQM) washed like a tsunami over U.S. companies. Drenched also, law departments started quality circles, read Deming, prepared fishbone analyses, struggled to apply defect and variance control, prepared histograms, and otherwise drank the TQM Kool-Aid. Today, many of…
Several algorithms and methods of document search, useful in litigation support, have been patented (See my post of Feb. 23, 2006 about four of them.) and certainly nearly all of the software and legal publications used routinely by law departments are under patent or copyright protection. But a troubling question…
Beta has been a traditional measure of risk, which companies use to estimate the cost of capital. A beta greater than one means that the company’s share price is likely to move in the same direction as the market but by a greater amount. The share price is more volatile…
I thought that extranets maintained by law firms have been much sound but little fury (See my posts of Aug. 27, 2005; Oct. 21, 2005; and Feb. 12, 2006 – all dubious about the value and popularity of extranets.). Then I read about Foley & Lardner in Law Firm Inc.,…
Every activity in a law department is part of a process, although processes vary hugely in their granularity (See my posts of April 27, 2006 which defines processes; May 1, 2006 about the breadth of the term; June 28, 2006 on their importance; and Aug. 13, 2006 on components of…
The torrents of documents that pass through a law department include some of the company’s most sensitive. Those proprietary and confidential documents – executive severance agreements, plans for reductions in force, settlement negotiations, and internal investigations – are vulnerable to improper disclosure – unless the department uses a shredder. Shredders…
A recent survey on diversity in law departments, InsideCounsel, Oct. 2006 at 56 et seq., states that “377 in-house attorneys responded to this survey. 19 percent of them were general counsel. 70 percent of respondents identified themselves as white; 14 percent as black; 7 percent as Hispanic; and 7 percent…
The Fin. Times, Aug. 22, 2006 at 5 ,cites an unusual offering of the UK law firm Addleshaw Goddard. The firm has an organizational consulting unit “that has helped clients such as BT Group, Aviva and J. Sainsbury structure their legal functions.” It would be boorish to wonder about the…