It’s probably not good for me, a consultant to law departments, to take law departments down a peg or two, but here I go. All the staff function, be they HR, finance, information technology, internal audit, facilities, PR, law, provide specialized input and support for business managers. Why lawyers should…
No self-respecting in-house attorney wants to be besmirched as a relay station to outside counsel. Client calls; inside counsel speed dials; partner does the work. It is fine and proper to be the switch when you judiciously choose the external firm, frame carefully what they are to do, and translate…
The lead story in Met. Corp. Counsel, July 2011, prints an address delivered to the Atlantic Legal Foundation. It slams litigation funders for (1) high interest rates and (2) the “perverse financial incentives funding creates when settlement discussions happen.” The story cites Counsel Financial, which it says is backed by…
The NJ Law Journal published its “2011 Directory of In-House Counsel.” It lists 1,944 individual names. It lists them on 55 pages by company, but does not state the number of companies (i.e., law departments). To calculate that, I counted the number of companies on every other page for the…
Regardless of your view of Rupert Murdoch, you have to be impressed by the physical boldness and quickness of his interim group general counsel. Janet Nova was the first person at Murdoch’s recent hearing in London to react to a protester’s approach. As the NY Times, July 21, 2011, put…
Good survey methodology urges the use of seven-point scales, known as Likert scales, such as Very improbable (rated as 1), Improbable, Somewhat improbable, Neither probable nor improbable (4), Somewhat probable, Probable, and Very Probable (7). Most respondents don’t do well with more elaborate scales, there needs to be a neutral…
For the 30 days preceding July 24, 2011, SiteMeter shows the web pages ranked by visitors they directed to my blog. Towering over all other sites is Law.com (245 referrals), in part reflecting the fact that this blog stands as one of the Law.com blog family and my posts circulate…
In an interview, Helen Gillcrist, the veteran administrator of the Liberty Mutual law department, was asked “If you were recruiting to replace yourself, what sort of background would look for in the candidates?” The surprising answer comes online on June 27, 2011, from Legal Strategy Rev (CPA Global). Gillcrist said…
As I came up with this list, it seemed useful to put them in declining order of legitimacy. In other words, the first few make sense, toward the end they make poor excuses. The lawyers like the services they get from the firms and feel the value delivered for the…
Galileo was forced to recant, but famously muttered the truth. Though often pushed to use other people’s words or to talk about best practices, my protests still echo. Even with my skepticism as expressed on this blog, from time to I refer to some practices as best (See my post…