Bad things. Yet it’s not uncommon (See my post of Aug. 22, 2006 on the Peter Principal.). Less coyly, there are a few steps that are possible to ameliorate this predicament. The general counsel can appoint another lawyer in the group to serve as the managing attorney and handle much…
A previous post has defined the term “policy” (See my post of Aug. 26, 2006 while other posts have mentioned specific examples of law department policies: Oct. 29, 2005 on diversity among outside firms; Aug. 31, 2005 on billing policies at the Royal Bank of Canada; Nov. 6, 2005 about…
As explain in InsideCounsel, Oct. 2006 at 30, by Keith Newburry, chief patent counsel at Avery Dennison, the company’s worldwide database “creates a permanent record of every innovation, including the invention’s date and its creator.” The company had about 740 US patents in 2005 (See my post of Feb.1, 2006…
What do you think of this quote, from the Fin. Times, July 12, 2006 at 3? “Research from analyst Gartner [Group] claims that every hour of professional end-user IT training is worth at least five hours to the business.” Even if the metrics are dodgy, the point is that software…
It ill becomes this blawgster to bang on about consultants to law departments. Better to mute my own horn. But a panel of consultants tackled the question on every general counsel’s lips: “If consultants add any value, how?” Bear with me on a some modest suggestions, with contrived examples. A…
To many readers, this question may seem slam-dunk obvious or overly-intellectualized metaphysics. To them it’s either beyond argument that law departments these days stand taller within companies, have better staff and larger budgets, and are professional peers of their law firm counterparts – all evident signs of progress. Other observers…
Pulte Homes’s Law Department announced in mid-September that it was the first client to integrate CT’s service of process system with Serengeti’s matter management system. As a registered agent, CT receives and processes a blizzard of legal documents every day. These subpoenas, complaints, and other documents can now be automatically…
If we look at law departments by size in units of 10 lawyers, as in 10 to 20 lawyers, or 20 to 30 and so on, we see typical patterns of additional management activities. At the 10-to-20 lawyer mark it is as common as not to have a law department…
A portmanteau capaciously holds many household objects. One analogue in software is a program, BoardVantage, that holds a range of software capabilities. BoardVantage’s eponymous creator has built into the Swiss-knife program its own encryption software, its own email capabilities, its own electronic shredder, its own annotation tool, its own document…
Cogito, ergo bill. No, a philosopher would speak learnedly about epistemology — how do we know what we think we know about law department management (See my post of September 22, 2005 regarding what might be our fundamental inability to comprehend such complexity.). A philosopher would Socratically dialogue on ethics…