Combinatorial optimization. This sexy term stands for the algorithms behind business-to-business sites that match buyers and sellers using more complex factors than just price. Portfolio, May 2008 at 118, says that a website, CombineNet, conducts such matching auctions (See my post of May 2, 2008: Esq.-harmony to match law firms and law departments.).
Opinions on offshoring as not unauthorized law practice. An email from LegalEase advised me in an email about three opinions on offshoring. “Bar committees in New York City, San Diego County, and Los Angeles County have ruled that lawyers may contract with foreign lawyers not admitted to practice in any jurisdiction in the United States, or with nonlawyers outside the United States, to perform legal work for U.S. clients. Importantly, these authorities hold that foreign legal outsourcing does not constitute aiding the unauthorized practice of law. NYCBA Formal Op. 2006-3; SDCBA Formal Legal Ethics Op. 2007-1; LACBA Ethics Op. 518.” (emphasis in original)
Secondments. GC California Magazine, May 20, 2008, has an article by Lorelei Laird that discusses secondments by law departments (See my post of Jan. 23, 2008: secondees and references cited.). Your blogmeister is quoted.
The first law of information theory. Edward Russell-Walling, 50 Management ideas you really need to know (Quercus 2007) at 63, explains that “the first law of information theory tells us that every relay doubles the noise and cuts the message in half.” I wonder whether that applies to a law department lawyer who relays what a clients needs done to an outside lawyer. Or every time you delegate and give instructions do you double the useless information and halve the useful (See my post of March 23, 2007: communication frequency drops off with distance; Oct. 19, 2005: communication tools for remote offices.)?