Articles Posted in Productivity

This riveting topic no doubt keeps many general counsel awake at night. For that reason, and because of a plethora of best practices in this heatedly-debated area, I will now announce the winners. Open the envelope, please!

Some law departments have an array slots, boxes or hanging file folders with one box or folder for each person in the law department. Ah, but who puts the mail in those receptacles?

Other departments have a delivery person who strolls the halls and distributes the mail. That person picked up the mail from a central mail room.

According to Robert H. Frank and Philip J. Cook, The Winner-Take-All Society (Penguin Books 1995) at 8, at least 80 percent of us “think of ourselves as more productive than the average worker.” The authors cite studies to support this statement.

If levels of excess self-esteem like that hold true among in-house counsel, if nearly all of them regard themselves as very hard working compared to their peers, it is no wonder that even dogged efforts to improve the way things are done soon founder. Why would a lawyer who is already an exemplary worker-bee venture improvement or even pay much heed to misguided efforts to ratchet up productivity (See my post of Aug.18, 2006 about super lawyers being much more productive; June 30, 2007 about narcissism.)?

Lawyers in a well-oiled department write competently. Because of that somewhat tenuous link to law department management and more because I try to write well, I began a series of posts on writing tips. I produced 21 of them and drew a scattering of comments. Nevertheless, it has been months since I last posted on writing, so when I read the following on Hannah Hasl-Kelchner’s Legal Literacy blog on Nov. 17, 2007 I thought it appropriate to explain why I have stopped.

“Ray Ward discusses the value of short sentences and cites Joanne Young’s 10 Commandments for Writing. And for lawyers trying to battle legalese, some plain language guidance is offered by The Party of the First Part and Wayne Schiess’s Legal Writing Blog with a special tip of the hat going to Sun Microsystems for putting plain language into action with its newly revised contributor agreement.”

Along with the five blogs on legal writing linked to above, there are consultants aplenty who can help in-house counsel write better (See my post of May 13, 2007 for names of some.) and there are courses. In the face of this much expertise, I decided to end my own, self-taught posts on prose style and effectiveness. Advice on how to write well should come from those who can.

As a generalization, in house counsel and their law firm confreres focus on getting the work done, not on thinking about how to do it better. For example, neither side conducts post-mortems (after-matter reviews) to codify what they have learned from a recently concluded matter (See my post of Dec. 10, 2005 on post-mortems.).

Nor is there much attention paid, indeed if any, to training the other side except as the knowledge is immediately necessary to the tasks at hand (See my post of May 24, 2007 regarding the lack of training by law firms of their in-house teammates.). Doing something differently has many shackles (See my post of Nov. 24, 2007 on creativity, obstacles to it, and references cited.).

With cost consciousness at the forefront in law departments, the attention of both sides is on productivity – get it done in the least time and at the lowest cost – rather than on innovation – improve how the process works (See my post of Feb.6, 2007 and 17 references regarding processes.).

Each of us has some kind of system to help us keep track of what we need to get done. Organization is a hallmark of productivity.

1. Lists of tasks to be done are very common (See my post of April 18, 2005 on the power of to-do lists.).

2. Daily planners and other organizers do the trick for some of us.

Antoine Henry de Frahan comes right out and says it: “I believe that the concept of “legal risk” is meaningless and useless.” Below are some quotes extracted from his longer post (See my posts of Nov. 15, 2005 and references cited which grapple with definitions of “legal risk”; Jan. 10, 2006 on enterprise risk management; Jan. 13, 2006 on uncertainty vs. risk; and March 1, 2007 on compartmentalization and legal risk.). Frahan subscribes to the same view that I do. I will let his words speak for me.

“Major risks are not either legal, or financial, or strategic, or reputation, or whatever else. They are legal AND financial AND strategic AND reputation.”

“The real question is, in the presence of a major risk for the company, whatever its nature, “What can lawyers do about it”? Legal risk management should be understood as a shortcut for “lawyers’ contribution to risk management”. So, the better lawyers are, the more they become familiar with and involved in dealing with risks that are not primarily branded as legal. Good lawyers have a deep understanding of financial tools, strategic options, business process, operations of the company, and the evolution of the business environment.”

Having offered some thoughts on ergonomics (See my post of April 23, 2006.) and the physical layouts of law departments (See my post of June 5, 2007.), I turn on now to lighting. Talent Mgt. Mag., Vol. 13, Dec. 2007 at 12, recommends “softer illumination … [and] mixing indirect lighting to reduce glare with directly targeted lighting to eliminate points of focus.” Perhaps Judy Garland pink? Also, “add antiglare filters to older computer screens.”

Most offices have dreadful overhead fluorescent bulbs glaring down. Try a soft-bulb lamp or two.

It might be good to have motion-sensitive on-off devices for lights, if only to save energy (See my post of April 27, 2007 regarding environmental sensibilities.).

In one law department where I consulted, there are no coffee makers. Instead, at 10ish and 3ish a cart trundles around, bell ringing, and people flock to it for their donuts and cup of joe. Other law departments have no alcove with coffee pots and creamers, but the cafeteria provides what you want all day, sometimes for pay, sometimes for free. Still other departments boast fancy machines that turn small cups of grounds into your chosen drink, including espresso, cappuccino and mocha grandes. Moving up the amenity grade, other law departments array not only shiny, high-end libation makers but also soft drinks, fruit juices, teas, and small munchies.

How coffee is made available to in-house counsel says a great deal about the culture of the department and company it serves (See my post of Dec. 17, 2007 on culture.). It speaks to the economics of the department and probably correlates with total legal spending as a percentage of revenue. The ethnographic revelations about shared experiences, water-cooler chats, and freedom of expression are apparent. Even semiotics can draw on the configuration and style of the coffee pantry (See my post of Jan. 25, 2007 on semiotics.). In café veritas.

Most in-house lawyers who must prepare a contract simply mark up the closest version they can find on their hard-drive or shared directory. A few of them use document assembly software (See my post of March 24, 2005 on if-then, rule-based document assembly software; and June 18 2007 with two references cited.). A third choice is for the lawyer to pick and choose from clauses stored in a clause library.

A fine article in ACC Docket, Vol. 25, Dec. 2007, at 60, 62, urges law departments to assemble clauses, with explanatory materials and annotations, for their most common contracts. The co-authors recommend software called QShift, from Ixio Legal www.ixio.com because of how it facilitates the efficient selection and combination of approved and annotated paragraphs and clauses.

A lawyer can still use a precedent contract, but the clause bank lets the lawyer supplement and improve it more easily.

An excellent article in ACC Docket, Vol. 25, Dec. 2007, at 60, offers all kinds of insights into how to improve your contract processes (See my posts of Jan. 3, 2006 and Dec. 3, 2005 about my article on thirty ways to do so.). One of the co-authors, Ken Adams, hosts a blog that covers many more ideas and resources about drafting.

The article stresses the importance of templates – framework documents that guide not only the contract itself but also the how the transaction should be handled. All of us have heard about forms of contracts and collections of them, but another step is available – a style guide.

“Consider adopting. and training your personnel to use a style guide – one that doesn’t simply specify typographic conventions to follow and a few usages to avoid, but instead addresses more broadly the language and layout to be used in your templates.” They sound like a useful idea for a law department that churns out many contracts.