Law Department Management Blog
I hope these ten interest you also and compel you to click on the link to read the entire post. Meanwhile, I have been toiling with the set from the full year since I started. This blog will scoop everyone with the findings!
Value from a law firm: defined ex post but not ex ante (May 10, 2010)
It is fruitless to define value of legal services in advance (ex ante); it can only be
an ex ante proposition.
Expand productive time by reducing supervision of unchanged tasks (May 12, 2010)
“Most administrative departments … use as much as 20% of their budgets to supervise and coordinate their own activities.”
Track time by periodic screenshots analyzed with recognition software! (May 18, 2010)
Screenshots of a worker’s desktop can track time.
General counsel, like CEOs, might succeed more often when promoted from inside (May 18, 2010)
A general counsel promoted from within may fill the role more successfully than a general counsel recruited from outside.
Why insist on alternative fees when you could pay and explain the value you perceived you got? (May 20, 2010)
Say for new matters familiar to it and a trusted law firm, “We will pay you what we think each month’s work was worth AND we will explicitly state why we gave it that value.”
You manage people better through improving their understanding than directing their behavior (May 20, 2010)
To focus on the behavior of workers is less effective than to focus on their values and understanding.
Save on services: average renewal by a vendor offers a discount of 4 to 6 percent (May 24, 2010)
“The average renewal by a vendor offers a discount of 4 to 6 percent while a competitive process can mean a savings of 12 to 22 percent – often with much improved terms.”
Not speaking truth to power comes more from futility than fear (May 25, 2010)
Reluctance to speak honestly is less fear than futility.
Does the metabolism of change decline the longer a general counsel serves? (May 25, 2010)
Perhaps the long-serving general counsel has done a good job and the company has prospered, so why change a winning game?
A benchmark consequence if revenue falls faster than total legal spend (May 28, 2010)
Calculate a nominal improvement after normalizing by industry-wide changes. If everyone improves, only a relative improvement against peers should count.