Having covered each of these theories, at least with an introduction but sometimes with multiple posts, I thought it useful to pull them together.
Agency – a principal relies on an agent and problems arise (See my post of April 21, 2010: agency theory with 7 references and 1 metapost.).
Contingency – what’s best depends on context (See my post of July 5, 2010: contingency theory.).
The set of philosophical beliefs known as “positivism” holds that objective truth exists, that humans can accurately understand those truths, and that scientific tools best enable us to do so. Measurement, rationality, certainty, and comprehension are neither ironic nor useless terms; they connote reliable and effective beliefs that are backed up by known truths. Those who put metrics and benchmarks on a pedestal adhere to positivistic beliefs. This blogger believes that we can actually know and understand much about legal departments and how they operate.
In opposition to positivistic views of knowledge are postmodern views (See my post of Sept. 22, 2008: postmodern critiques of best practices.). Postmods do not believe in objective facts or that ways of thinking have primacy over other ways of thinking. Much or all of what we perceive and think we comprehend is mere social construction, relative to a time and a place, subject to epistemological weaknesses of all kinds. This blogger sort of understands postmodernism, intellectually, but feels that as a way of coming to grips with effective management of legal departments it offers nothing constructive. My bent is pragmatism shot through with positivism.
Agencies of the federal government have disclosure obligations that go far beyond what private corporations must do. For example, you can find all sorts of information for outside counsel engaged by the FDIC on its legal department website.
You can review the agency’s Outside Counsel Deskbook, Electronic Billing Deskbook, Outside Counsel E-billing Application Package, Legal Support Services Deskboo, Lists of Counsel Available; as well as Minority- and Women-0wned Law Firms on List of Counsel Available.
talent mgt., June 2010 at 17, contains an extract from a survey of 520 chief learning officers. They gave their views on what hobbles programs to boost informal learning.
“Too hard to measure and show ROI” (26%)
“Corporate culture hinders flow of information” (22%)
An intriguing idea comes from a supplement in the ACC Docket, June 2010 after 32. The supplement describes a number of managerial decisions by the legal team of Coca-Cola in Europe.
One change they are discussing is how “to increase efficiency by limiting the number of files created for any one particular matter.” Instead of an acquisition spawning an HR matter, an IP matter, a regulatory matter, and a corporate matter, there would be one master matter. The thought is that a single consolidated matter will streamline control, reporting, audits, and document management. Those objectives and benefits sound plausible.
A supplement in the ACC Docket, June 2010 after 32, describes how the 22 lawyers that make up Coca-Cola Europe’s legal team keep in touch. Located in 10 countries across Europe, they rely on telephone calls, email, video conferences and webexes, monthly lawyer calls, monthly reports, annual conferences, travel (to a limited extent), and periodic knowledge-sharing sessions.
But what stood out to me, for this post, is their use of “Same-Time,” which allows lawyers on the team to send short text messages (called “chats”) to each other. Like instant messages, these “pings” serve for quick inquiries and answers and to keep in touch more informally than email. Instant messaging contributes to communication, collegiality, and knowledge management in legal departments (See my post of June 14, 2005: loss of mental ability from distractions; Dec. 10, 2005: instant messaging and evidence of presence; Feb. 4, 2006: software that searches instant messages; Feb. 11, 2007: survey of software usage in legal departments; March 30, 2008: laptops used during meetings; June 4, 2008: IBM’s Sametime; June 20, 2008: GE and Sametime in Asia-Pacific; and June 15, 2010: software to buffer users from IM.).
An article in the Acad. Mgt. Exec., May 2005 at 15, devoted much attention to a reward system Siemens put in place to build usage and content of its knowledge management (KM) system. Siemens awarded “shares” to valuable contributions, those who relied on the system, and added value in other ways. Somewhat oddly to me, they were most generous with people who asked questions – “entered knowledge bids.” The rationale, I suppose, is that a question asked reflects a genuine need whereas content contributions might never help anyone. “Contributors gain shares for entering knowledge bids into the library, for reusing knowledge, for responding to urgent requests, and for appraising one another’s contributions.” The number of shares awarded depended on what the person did.
No corporate legal department has nearly enough members to sustain such an elaborate incentive system, but perhaps a consortium of legal departments could muster sufficient numbers (See my post of June 10, 2009: joint collaborations by legal departments with 18 references.).
An article in the Acad. Mgt. Exec., May 2005 at 15, devoted much attention to a reward system Siemens put in place to build usage and content of its knowledge management (KM) system. Siemens awarded “shares” to valuable contributions, those who relied on the system, and added value in other ways. Somewhat oddly to me, they were most generous with people who asked questions – “entered knowledge bids.” The rationale, I suppose, is that a question asked reflects a genuine need whereas content contributions might never help anyone. “Contributors gain shares for entering knowledge bids into the library, for reusing knowledge, for responding to urgent requests, and for appraising one another’s contributions.” The number of shares awarded depended on what the person did.
No corporate legal department has nearly enough members to sustain such an elaborate incentive system, but perhaps a consortium of legal departments could muster sufficient numbers (See my post of June 10, 2009: joint collaborations by legal departments with 18 references.).
A few general counsel relish the klieg lights of panels, quotes, and profiles, but the other 99 percent go about their business without leaving a trace for others to learn. Publicity trails a handful of spokes-GCs, and I have written about several of those whose management initiatives get cited all the time (See my post of Jan. 30, 2008: publicity by law departments with 12 references; and June 11, 2007: publicity with 12 references.).
Overwhelmingly, however, opacity rules. We simply do not know anything about the operations of most legal departments. The well-known ones are, well, well-known (See my post of July 13, 2009: Cisco, DuPont, FMC, GE, McDonalds, Microsoft, UTC and Wal-Mart with 169 internal references and six metaposts.)
The silent masses of general counsel, the thousands and thousands that have not shared their ideas and experiences about running a legal team, probably choose to do so because they are very busy, they feel they have nothing worthwhile to offer, they do not wish to share their effective practices, they don’t want to look like glory hounds, or they don’t care much about management. Like dark matter makes up most of the universe but we can’t see it, most of what happens in the oversight of internal legal teams passes unnoticed.
Having read about Collecta.com in Lawtech@alm.com, I searched on it for “law benchmarks”. Instantly the site showed me results for the last three days: blog and Twitter entries plus four retweets of my recent post on the 455 law departments in Release 1.0 of General Counsel Metrics.
Let me clarify. Through TweetDeck, my posts here are published in short form automatically under my account on Twitter. Sometimes followers or other readers of my tweets republish them as a “retweet,” often with a brief comment (RT @reesmorrison). Ron Friedmann, Sinch Legal, PhilCyLaw, and Gaston Bilder all did so.
It is amazing how information regarding legal departments and their operations makes its way around the Internet!
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