Attorney-client privilege and the Akzo Nobel decision. Regarding the scope of the decision by the Court of Justice of the European Commission, I appreciated the article on it in Met. Corp. Counsel, April 2011 at 29. Akzo’s disavowal of the privilege applies quite narrowly, to “in-house counsel who render legal advice to foreign affiliates in EU anti-competition proceedings.” That’s a small window, not a wholesale abandonment of the privilege (See my post of Feb. 16, 2008: attorney-client privilege with 18 references.).
More corporate legal documents made available for free online. In Met. Corp. Counsel, April 2011 at 31, an item mentions that Goodwin Procter runs the Founder’s Workbench, which at no charge “provides access to critical forms, memoranda, best practices and other resources to enable capital efficient company formation.” The law firm uses ContractExpress, a leading document assembly package, to power much of the offerings on the Workbench (See my post of April 19, 2011: Fenwick & West offers something similar.).
Software that specializes in adaptive conjoint software survey tools. I wrote a while back about a decision-making system where evaluators make pair-wise analyses, such as when choosing a law firm in a competitive bid (See my post of Aug. 28, 2006: paired comparison analysis.). A company called Sawtooth Software specializes in that kind of software.
The HiPPO phenomenon on who makes the final call. Little Bets: How breakthrough ideas emerge from small discoveries, by Peter Sims (Free Press 2011) at 75, explains the acronym HiPPO. “[T]he highest paid person’s opinion (HiPPO) usually dominates how people make decisions inside most organizations.” So true in law departments!