A former executive of two matter management and legal e-billing companies, Jeff Hodge recently wrote a white paper for Bridgeway, one of the leading providers of both kinds of software. Entitled Legal Spend Management: An International Perspective, it discusses at page 5 the migration of U.S. law departments to Europe…
Functions, linear and otherwise. A function of some variable is linear if the plot of the function creates a straight line when you plug in different values for the variable. Think of X=3Y. If you plug in different numbers for the variable Y, the function of that equate creates a…
The legal fees paid by Goldman Sachs in defense of a former board member were almost three-quarters of $30 million; Procter & Gamble picked up the balance. From the same article in the NY Times, June 19, 2012, at B1, Morgan Stanley paid $4 million in the defense of one…
A piece in Met. Corp. Counsel, June 2012 at 16, cites a survey published in December of 2011 by the New Jersey Law Journal. The sentence with the citation says that “54% of law firms have clients who will not pay for the work of first-and second-year associates.” The partner…
The Atlantic, July/Aug. 2012 at 68, has a piece on the leadership styles of introverts and extroverts. According to some recent research, “introverted leaders typically deliver better outcomes than extroverts, because they’re more likely to let proactive employees run with their ideas.” Later, the article suggests that extroverted general counsel,…
Kenneth Fredeen, the General Counsel of Deloitte Canada, mentions in ACC Docket, June 2012 at 114, that he uses strategic planning as a management tool. In fact, “His staff participates in the exercise annually.” I have cast doubt on the value of strategic planning by a group that is essentially…
Many of the largest companies in the world are owned in whole or part by a government. In Italy, for example, the government owns substantial stakes in Sace, an insurance group; Simest, a financial institution; Fintecna, a service provider; Eni, an oil company; Enel, a power utility, and Finmeccanica, a…
A presentation by the President of doeLEGAL, Tom Russo, addressed how to design what he calls litigation spend architecture. On a slide having to do with how to start a matter you have assigned to outside counsel, Russo recommends, “Within five days – outside firm must file [an] Assignment Acknowledgement…
A former general counsel, John DeGroote, has created Resolution Tree. An online service, it allows law departments to prepare litigation trees as needed for a fixed cost. An ad in Alternatives, March 2012 at 80, brought this to my attention. I have mentioned DeGroote before (See my post of Feb.…
CPR, the International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution, is a non-profit initiative of general counsel, law firms and legal academics “whose mission it is to install alternative dispute resolution (ADR) into the main stream of legal practice.” CPR has a National Task Force on Diversity. That task force has…