A letter to the editor of the ABA Journal, Aug. 2011 at 7, lambastes the deplorable writing of in-house lawyers. The writer teaches technical writing to corporate employees. He claims that “universally, the people I teach say that they understand all the points I make and try to write this…
A glimpse of the future: In-house lawyers and their internal clients can access a portal run by a law firm that gathers large amounts of relevant information about potential deals. To be more specific, consider the site that the U.S. law firm ParkerPoe has assembled regarding Caribbean resort sites. The…
To the degree managers don’t make distinctions between concepts, they lose some ability to understand and respond to what is happening. For that reason, value vocabulary – each new word sharpens just a bit one’s ability to discriminate between concepts. The truth is, I relish lumping and splitting: joining concepts…
Breaking itself into three pieces, the ITT spinoff underway will result in the promotion of two of its lawyers to the new top spots. As laid out in Corp. Counsel, Aug. 2011 at 32, the former ITT corporate secretary, Burt Fealing, will head the lawyers of the new company that…
I am a broken record on my mistrust of the term “best practice” (See my post of March 20, 2009: seven charges against best practices.). At the same time, no relativist I where anything goes, some practices I condemn as mistaken. Not to review bills from law firms that charge…
On LinkedIn I came across references to three companies that provide contract management software, and law departments that are using (or about to use) them. Remedy was described as “a contract management and work allocation system. People who need legal’s help will send their request through Remedy and the managing…
Feeling compulsive after my marathon with posts that list 6 of something, I plucked out all the posts that give 7 reasons or suggestions or examples of something. I have organized them by the 18 in 2005-2008; and then the 16 in the remaining three years of this blog. For…
Some law departments set guidelines for how many timekeepers they will permit to charge time to their matters. They want a core staff to account for most of the billings. De jure, the firm has to get permission to add more. De facto this requirement breaks down under pressure. This…
An article gave some data on the number of U.S. mobile patents 11 major players in that market have applied for and have been granted. Bloomberg Businessweek, Aug. 8-14, 2011 at 37, shows a chart with data provided by MDB Capital. I eyeballed the numbers for the likes of Research…
So-called maturity models imply best practices and a desirable progression along a ladder of improvement (See my post of May 15, 2009: model for ethics and compliance function.). You can get a taste of one for leadership development in the Harvard Bus. Rev., April 2011 at 133. Its bottom rung…