You can read a full account of the arrangements between Levi Strauss and two firms it selected to handle large swathes of its work on a fixed fee (Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe for corporate and commercial work and Kilpatrick Townsend for IP work). The article in the ACC Docket, July/Aug.…
A wonderful article in the ACC Docket, July/Aug. 2011 at 29, describes how the law department of Reckitt Benckiser Group, a global consumer products company, had all its 44 in-house lawyers take a psychometric assessment. It was one of several available for law departments, specifically the Caliper Profile (See my…
According to an article in the Met. Corp. Counsel, Oct. 2011 at 41, the U.S. law firm Drinker Biddle & Reath, with approximately 650 lawyers, “became the first major law firm to hire a chief value officer.” Law departments that care about the value they obtain from their outside counsel…
What I have referred to on this blog as “document assembly” software others refer to as “contract automation” software. An article by Gabrielle Walker, the general counsel of a leading provider of contract automation software, Business Integrity, offers three points for comment. The article is in the Met. Corp. Counsel,…
We constantly hear that change is being forced on law departments because of cost control, technology, and globalization. The third, globalization, looks at the increasing international trade and location of companies and presumes associated complexity or amount of legal services needed. It turns out, however, that law firms who pursued…
In the “anything else” category of law department software, the 54 respondents to this year’s ILTA survey of its legal department members came up with a range of software. Workshare for document comparison had the most mentions (8) while the other 10 packages in eight categories had only one each:…
The general counsel of inefficient law departments don’t want to provide comparative data that confirm they are operating inefficiently. They are probably less likely to choose to participate in benchmark surveys than their fitter counterparts. Not that anyone sees any specific company’s numbers, because the data are aggregated and normalized.…
An article in Sloan Management Review, Fall 2011 at 21, reports 2004 data on the concentration levels of the four largest competitors in 50 industries. That is, in Aircraft the level almost reaches 100 percent, because four companies (Boeing, Airbus, Bombardier and Embrair?) dominate the market completely. Helicopters, smart cards,…
Some lawyers describe their department as “hierarchical.” I have tried to unravel the concepts in that term because it has many. Five of them are summarized below. Rank has more than its share of privileges. Distinctions in levels manifest themselves in many ways. Hierarchy has to do with special perquisites…
Not giving junior lawyers exposure to senior business people harms their development. It helps them feel more engaged and more in the flow of the business. Most law departments suffer from the problem of top lawyers who hoard access to top clients, to put it harshly, or who fail to…