For some time I have thought that in the free market of ideas, where examples, experiences and exhortations about how best to manage an in-house team are widely circulated, the better ideas would rise to the top. Thereafter, the good ideas would become increasingly more common as a Darwinian selection process improves the fitness of the general counsel management-scape. Successful ideas would drive out losers. More ideas would mean more convergence on sound management ideas.
Perhaps not. In fact, a multiplicity of ideas about how to manage outside counsel, how to invest in technology, how to wring the most from the legal team may well lead to different paths taken. An ever-wider group of general counsel encounter more concepts, approaches, techniques and permutations to apply, so they spawn even more permutations and combinations (See my post of March 29, 2005: plethora of conferences; Oct. 26, 2006: progress in law department management; Nov. 13, 2007: publications for law department managers; Jan. 23, 2008: unusual sources of information; and June 25, 2007: ways innovative ideas spread.). What may just as well be true is that more ideas means more divergence on management ideas.