Our times revere expertise. Lawyers with deep experience in an area of law, such that they write articles, publish books, speak on panels, head committees, and lead task forces, have mastered their domain and achieved recognition. Whether or not met with external acknowledgement, experienced inside lawyers build up incredible knowledge…
“Take no man’s word for it.” I subscribe wholeheartedly to the motto of the Royal Society (London) in the enlightened version: “Take no person’s word for it.” As a partisan of empirical evidence in law department management or at least explanations that try to be objective, I look for proof,…
With the promotion of Laura Witte to General Counsel at $108 billion Cargill, more has come out about that huge conglomerate and its legal group. According to Corp. Counsel, July 2011 at 38, the company has 131,000 workers spread across 66 countries. Of the 200 lawyers in-house, 120 of them…
Abbott Laboratories was clobbered on a patent infringement case, a smack-down jury verdict in June 2009 for $1.67 billion. The article about the ensuring appeal, in Corp. Counsel, July 2011 at 21, vividly conveys the pressure Abbott’s general counsel was under as a result of the huge adverse award. The…
Every now and then an in-house lawyer may learn of proposed legislation and alert clients to its possible effects. Here and there a lawyer passes on advice based on a court’s ruling or experience from a deal. Lawyers can sometimes be ahead of the game. And yet: mostly, law departments…
This blog, proud as I am of it and hard as I toil on it, still remains scattered, opportunistic, abbreviated, and idiosyncratic. Right, it’s a blog. Why don’t I craft a fuller, more thoughtful book instead? As Amy Winehouse sang, “No, no, no.” Books inevitably push you to fill in…
“Ariba Inc., the maker of one of the main reverse-auction software tools, claims that around 40% of today’s market for legal work – a threefold increase from just a few years ago – is contracted through electronic, online means, most of which involve a reverse auction, according to Sunda Kamakshisundaran,…
As the primary source of data on legal spend, both inside and outside, the accounts payable function services many law departments. Especially small departments, one and two lawyers, turn to their finance group for what totals and breakouts they can obtain. It is the stand-in for matter management software or…
Informal get-togethers at lunch, sometimes known as brown bag lunches and sometimes referred to as lunch-and-learns, can serve a variety of purposes. Low cost, convivial, flexible, they offer many pluses, although they also impinge on people’s personal time. My previous posts have touched on them in terms of improving morale,…
Part LVII in a series of collected metaposts embedded previously Admission of in-house attorneys to practice law (See my post of July 5, 2011 #2: in-house lawyers admitted to practice through reciprocity with 6 references.). Best practices, why none (See my post of July 31, 2011: unicorns of best practices…