One of the most common management activities among law departments, of all sizes, is the offsite (aka retreat, legal conference, annual meeting, etc.). As my article describes , these gatherings can have wonderful events.
I have just completed helping with two retreats, one for a law department of three lawyers and one of thirty lawyers and I feel even more the importance of doing them right.
More and more I feel that (1) getting to know each other is by far the most important activity, (2) boredom rules the day for most people most of the time when they attend a retreat, and (3) for most of the attendees, it is a chore. Sigh, because the potential is so great (See my post of Feb. 12, 2008: with eight references cited; Feb. 17, 2008 #3: Insights Preference Evaluator as a tool at a retreat; and Feb. 25, 2008: virtual reality games as a retreat.).