Stimulated by a question asked of me by a leading general counsel, I researched the differences between the titles “General Counsel” and “Chief Legal Officer.” Some posts here offered background (See my post of March 23, 2005: title expansion and more frequent appearance of CLO; March 22, 2006: differentiates “general…
TyMetrix has produced the “Litigation Rate Snapshot,” based on its LegalVIEW data warehouse of billing and matter information. Covering $15 billion in fees submitted by 147,000 individual U.S. billers, a table shows average rates paid associates and partners in five industry groups. For three of them (Finance, Investments and Banking;…
TyMetrix has produced an 8-page handout, the “Litigation Rate Snapshot,” based on its LegalVIEW data warehouse of billing and matter information. The full report covers $15 billion in fees submitted by 10,000 U.S. law firms and 147,000 individual billers. The total hours reached 39 million. At the most aggregated level,…
For years there has been a plain English movement that has sought to simplify and clarify government documents and commercial agreements. A further development may be Transparency Labs. Its goal is to help consumers understand so-called “fine print” in contracts. “Our team of experts starts by spending hundreds of hours…
Value of equity awards. I heard recently that a “binomial calculation” is more complex than Black-Scholes but more accurate (See my post of Jan. 17, 2006: Black-Scholes formula uses standard deviations; Jan. 24, 2006: software to calculate the formula; July 25, 2007: the binomial method; July 27, 2007: the lattice-binomial…
If general counsel understate the cost of an in-house attorney hour, perhaps by assuming a high number of chargeable hours a year or only including base salaries, they are mistaken. In the ABA J., Jan. 2012 at 26, for example, a general counsel of a huge real estate management firm…
In 2005, a group of in-house counsel coalesced, all women, all the top intellectual property lawyers in their respective companies. They cleverly called themselves Chipsters – CHiefIP lawyers – and they have continued to meet. The lawyers worked or still work at such IP powerhouses as Apple, Alta, Cadence Design…
I like some rules promulgated by Nick Jarrett-Kerr of Edge International in the firm’s latest Communique. Written for law firm managing partners, the advice holds true for general counsel. “Rule 1: not many decisions are very important. Rule 2: the most important decisions are often made by default.” [Jerrett-Kerr doesn’t…
An interview of Thomas Russo, general counsel of AIG since early 2010, appears in Corp. Counsel, Dec. 2011 at 18. It says that Russo has fifteen direct reports, which crowns him champion of that list in my book. That is a very large number of people to evaluate, respond to,…
An interview of Thomas Russo, who became the general counsel of AIG in early 2010, appears in Corp. Counsel, Dec. 2011 at 18. In addition to being a senior executive of the company he views his role as having another component: “administering a department that has approximately 1,400 people in…