Performing under his nom-de-blog Rees Morrison, that ever-popular raconteur of ratios, the nation’s nimble narrator of numbers, regales the YouTube world with inimitable insights about indices and magical moments on metrics! This live, uncut performance, filmed al fresco, ad hoc, without makeup or script writers, and away from the klieg…
This enormous multinational, with revenue of $104 billion, operates globally in consumer electronics, mobile communications, home appliances, chemicals and more, according to strat.+bus, Summer 2011 at 44. Even so, “the corporate core limits its voice to brand-building, R&D expenditures, high-level human resources decisions, and capital investments.” Not a word at…
Marc Firestone, the general counsel of Kraft Foods, told an audience at the SuperConference about his law department’s steps to define what his lawyers mean when they use non-quantified terms. Non-quantified terms – called “estimative language” by the National Security Agency – include “strong probability,” “poor chance,” “pretty good odds,”…
The law department administrator from The Williams Companies, speaking at Mitratech’s Interact 2011 Conference, mentioned that her department of about 70 lawyers averages 1,500 matters a year. That ratio grabbed my attention since I have not seen a metric such as 20-30 matters per lawyer per year. Of course, that…
At the SuperConference yesterday, Carrie Hightman, the general counsel of NiSource, offered her thoughts on a panel about relations with the CEO, CFO and the Board of Directors. She stressed how important it is to have a “good working relationship” with each of them and offered four particular recommendations. Be…
A verse from Matthew in the Gospels says “For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance.” Some people refer to the Matthew Effect where skills and ability beget wealth, and more wealth, such as well-favored law firms getting more and more high-value work. This…
Our word ostracize comes from votes in Athens written on broken pieces of pottery called ostrakon. The politician named most often on the pottery pieces was barred from the city for ten years — ostracized. This shard of history and etymology comes from Len Fisher, The Perfect Swarm: The science…
An astute observer of the legal scene remarked during a recent presentation that “the best marketing tool of a law firm is its invoice.” What he views as enhancing a firm’s image is the value of being shown that a partner has written off time so that you see tangibly…
Law department managers complain about the level of ignorance their outside firms suffer from regarding knowledge of the company. They gripe, but what can they do to raise the level? At a recent conference, I heard about a telecomm law department that invites its key law firms to gather and…
When researchers gather data for statistical analysis, there is always some slippage, by which I mean that the results would likely vary within a calculable range if the researchers duplicated the study. Statisticians refer to that variability of results as margin of error or sampling error. Here is a good…