A co-panelist with me recently mentioned that her law department regularly compares its fully-loaded hourly billing rate for lawyers with the average rate charged by outside counsel. The comparison has a fair amount of validity, but some faults can mar the match (See my post of June 29, 2009: insurance…
Many companies have spun off parts of themselves, thereby sundering their legal departments (See my post of March 12, 2011: spin-offs with 6 references.). Perhaps none of them created a new law department of the size of Motorola Solutions’. According to Diversity & The Bar, March/April 2011 at 14, the…
“Would it kill you to say you’re sorry?” blazes the huge type at the top of the Taco Bell ad. Never naming the law firm, the ad starts “The law firm that brought false claims about our product quality and advertising integrity has voluntarily withdrawn their class action suit.” No…
Aficionado that I am of metrics, I started slicing and dicing the revenue figures from the 215 law departments that have submitted data so far to the GCM global benchmark survey. Those companies reported $2.4 trillion of combined corporate revenue for 2010. (For those reporting in Euros, British Pounds and…
To manage is to be interrupted. Too often, however, we are distracted, a minor detour such as the ping of incoming emails, or interrupted, which suggests a more important break in your attention such as someone at your door. Either way, a writer in the NY Times recently suggested keeping…
The NY Times reports on April 19, 2011, at D6 an oddity about learning. “[I]f you study something twice, in spaced sessions, it’s harder to process the material the second time, and people think it’s counterproductive.” So, to explain further, if you have pored over a decision or a debenture,…
Whether or not responsible for them in their budgets, general counsel should track and report capitalized legal costs. The accounting treatment of a legal expense doesn’t whisk away the cost to the company. Checks written are real (See my post of July 30, 2005: capitalized legal expenditures; Nov. 25, 2006:…
During the past fortnight I have labored over an article on in-house value. The word value perplexes everyone who thinks about it and tries to articulate what it entails. I won’t pretend to breakthrough insights but here I can certainly be the Pied Piper to my posts on in-house value…
General counsel hold their settlement data close to their vest. They fear repercussions in litigation if those amounts or terms leak out. Therefore, those who want to collect data on corporate settlements for benchmark purposes should dispense with direct inquiries yet try oblique ones. Surveys could ask for the average…
Career paths for in-house attorneys occasionally wend out of the practice of law. It’s a tough transition, however, and controversial. The large number of references on this blog to émigrés from the legal team are perhaps the notable exceptions that prove the rule (See my post of April 18, 2005:…