Mark Roellig, the general counsel of Mass Mutual, has published several thoughtful articles recently about law department management. His latest appears in the ACC Docket, March 2012 at 53. Deep in the piece he mentions something a few readers might have encountered and offers some advice. If a company selects…
For some time, I have fretted about an under-discussed obstacle to successful cost reduction. Law department managers assume their reports will diligently keep the brakes on law firm spending. Counter-intuitively, perhaps, those same lawyers may willingly tramp on the accelerator. My article last week in the National Law Journal lays…
Here are metaposts on seven domains of mathematics that play a role in legal department management. Bayesian statistics (See my post of April 5, 2009: Bayesian statistics with 6 references.) Bell curves and normal distributions (See my post of March 12, 2009: bell curves with 8 references.). Correlations (See my…
An item in the ACC Docket, March 2012 at asian briefings 1, notes that the Asian region of Deere & Company’s law department has grown from two to 20 legal department employees in the past five years. The lawyers for that global company are increasingly placed to match the footprint…
A couple of suggestions not covered on this blog heretofore can help tame the unruly beast of e-mail. They appear in Law Practice, May/June 2012 at 63. The author leads into one practical suggestion – send fewer e-mails – with some data. “For every five emails you jettison into cyberspace,…
You can find posts here on different conceptual frameworks. Each framework attempts to package and comprehend the multifarious components on law departments. McKinsey 7S model and similar frameworks. The alliteration is tiresome and forced but the terms cover a lot (See my post of Aug. 8, 2005: McKinsey 7S model.).…
A recent survey provided InsideCounsel with average total cash compensation for the five practice areas at the top. They were M&A ($288,962), Antitrust ($280,441), International ($257,097), Intellectual Property – Licensing ($252,948), and Tax ($250,209). These figures came from a data set that includes a fairly high proportion of large law…
Regular readers of this blog understand, or at least have heard of, distributions of data that look like a bell. Many toward the middle hump; tails of less frequent amounts on either end. Invoice amounts for large law departments follow that pattern, for example. Some readers might even speak comfortably…
“Despite the anecdotal perception that demand for alternative fee arrangements may have grown stronger following the 2008 collapse, there are no publicly available longitudinal data to evaluate such claims. Comprehensive empirical data on the market penetration of alternative fee arrangements, and the demonstrable benefits of those arrangements to corporate clients,…
A recent survey asked respondents about the bases for raises to their in-house lawyers. By far the dominant reason was “merit,” with 94% of the respondents checking that reason. A lawyer perceived as adding more value to the company deserves a fatter paycheck. Next came promotions, at 80%, where rising…