Law Department Management Blog
A charming and interesting note, from four perspectives, comes from ACC Docket, Nov. 2010 at 10, and online at its website. “Mozilla’s law department includes three lawyers, a paralegal, a host of legal contributors who provide pro bono services, and traditional outside counsel as well.” Wouldn’t all general counsel wish they had “a host of legal contributors who provide pro bono services”!
The item continues, “To help maximize the law department’s efficiency, client service, and workflow management, the law department uses “MoLegal” a customized version of Bugzilla, a free and open-source software development tool, as the basis for its matter management system for handling requests for legal assistance.” Wouldn’t all general counsel wish they had internal software coders who knew of such resources and could whip together something useful!
“Once the matter is assigned, guidance, conclusions, discussions and analysis relating to the matter are recorded and tracked within the system.” Wouldn’t all general counsel wish their lawyers, clients and outside counsel were so well behaved that they would consistently contribute to such a knowledge base!
For the fourth point, I quote again: “System reports include information on: volume and type of matters; Nature of Requests Coming to Legal Department (i.e. licensing, privacy, marketing, product); and time to close i.e. 30% of all matters are completed in less than 2 weeks, 50% in less than 1 month).” Wouldn’t all general counsel like to know how long everything takes to complete, or even to count every matter!