Lisa Damon spoke recently at a CTTymetrix conference and noted ten tools that her firm has used from the Six Sigma tool chest. Many of them I have written about; some are new to this blog. Here are thumbnails of them in terms of how law departments might apply them.…
Benchmark hyperpost (See my post of May 29, 2011: thirteen metaposts since the previous hyperpost.). Blogs blawgs in-house (See my post of May 16, 2011: blawgs by in-house lawyers past or present with 16 references.). Budgets on matters by law firms (See my post of March 25, 2008: matter budgets…
A group of large law firms in the U.S. has proposed that “sophisticated” clients be permitted more flexibility when they retain law firms. Recognizing large companies know what they are doing and can assume more risks, they would have more room to maneuver in such areas as potential conflicts of…
The legal department of WellPoint, the nation’s largest health benefits company by enrollment, supports operations in 14 states. Only ten of WellPoint’s 97 lawyers work in its Indianapolis headquarters. The rest work from 28 different locations. To attempt to bind together that dispersed assemblage, the general counsel, John Cannon, started…
“No food or drink is allowed into the corporate offices.” Yikes! When I read that policy of the UPS Law Department, I remembered the stream of salads and sandwiches I have swallowed at my desk for lunch or the ubiquitous bottled waters and Diet Cokes seen everywhere, let alone the…
Just because a law department assigns most of its work to a smallish number of preferred firms, there still remains a challenge when someone in the department needs to find an unusual legal specialist. When searching for a needle of expertise in the haystacks of hundreds of partners and associates,…
The appreciation executive managers have that patents can generate business-enhancing value was brought home in a presentation at Consero’s conference last month. Keith Chanroo, Chief IP Counsel at TSMC, spoke about what he calls the new paradigm for intellectual property. One of his slides offers this provocative projection: “Commercialization (monetization)…
How to get bulky board books to members of the board of directors has always been a problem, if only for the simple minded logistics of photocopying, collating, binding, and shipping the complicated tomes. Some corporate secretarial functions have turned to online software platforms to expedite delivery (and to benefit…
When a Corporate Counsel reporter interviewed Christine Jones, the general counsel of domain-name company Go Daddy, the resulting profile mentions that she, the reporter, had read some of Jones’ “tweets and blog posts.” My sleuthing turned up her blog, The Rudy Syndrome, and I officially welcome her to the fold…
Four general counsel who have had distinguished careers have come together through a law firm’s efforts as an advisory group. In January of this year, Rees Smith encouraged Carl Krasik, Lawrence Stein, William Mutterperl, and Michael Bleier to offer no0cost advice to any executive of a client of the firm.…