In his column for the ACC Docket, Dec. 2011 at 4, Jonathan Oviatt cites “one of the most important findings in the CLO Survey is that 92 percent of CLOs remain satisfied with their careers.” The glow emanating from that cheerful factoid may be completely deserved. Or, it might deserve…
Back in the mists of time, I wrote about the 18 tools that general counsel most commonly use (See my post of April 14, 2005: based loosely on Bain’s annual studies of tools.). Seven years later, I would no longer include balanced scorecards, employee satisfaction surveys, psychometric tests and retainer…
Many invitations to complete surveys appear in the e-mail boxes of general counsel. Probably scores of them every year for U.S. departments and they seek all kinds of information. It is an incessant badgering, but how else can interested parties learn about what is going on out there more precisely…
How you manage your only absolutely finite resource – your fixed allotment of time – determines your effectiveness. That much may be accepted intellectually, but under the onslaught of pressure, emotions, and foibles, our best laid plans aft gae awry. We don’t schedule ourselves very effectively and, worse, for many…
An article in Atlantic, Dec. 2011 at 67, proposed this distinction: “[I]deological differences stem more from differences in people’s beliefs about how the world works than from differences in their basic values” It is hard for me to distinguish the two views in the context of a legal department. Basic…
This term, new to me, appeared in a catalogue of books from MIT Press. Here is a definition from George Ainsley’s website. “Picoeconomics (micro-micro-economics) explores the implications … that people (often) … discount the prospect of future rewards in a curve that is more deeply bowed than a “rational,” exponential…
A benchmark that shows up from surveys of law departments is the external spending per in-house lawyer. According to this year’s General Counsel Metrics benchmark survey, for more than 400 departments in the United States, that figure runs around $500,000 per attorney. Stated differently, for the median department, if each…
Penny Simpson, energetic, funny, generous of her time and talents, caring of those around her, a completely warm and loving person, and incidentally the very capable founder of an innovative legal technology consulting firm, lost it all two years ago from a massive heart attack. Amazingly, you could say, she…
Mitratech, a leading matter management system provider, acquired by private equity firm (Nov. 1, 2011) Vista Equity Partners, a private equity firm with some $6 billion in investments, acquired Mitratech. A reporting line to the board to assure the general counsel of more independence (Nov. 3, 2011) A general counsel…
Wordnik.com shows how English words are actually used in books and other publications. I searched for “law department” and found most of the references were to the law programs at universities, but with one charming exception. “After he took her picture, just as a lark, and displayed it in his…