Articles Posted in Productivity

Broad categorizations of contracts may be a method to improve how we assess productivity and quality among corporate counsel. In PricewaterhouseCoopers’ View, Issue 12 at 47, the author discusses “contractual alliances,” “outsourcing,” “distribution agreements,” “virtual joint ventures,” along with four forms of so-called structural alliances. A clever chart depicts these forms of business alliances as differing on “degree of complexity” against “degree of commitment.” In the previous sentence I listed the four contractual forms of agreement by the author’s estimate of their increasing complexity.

As a methodology, this suggests that experienced lawyers can categorize types of contracts by their general complexity. If done responsibly, a matter management system that tracks contracts handled by a law department could quantify complexity, which would shed light on quality, workload, and productivity.

Stress levels of corporate lawyers were asked about in a survey of Dutch law departments by the Dutch law firm Houthoff Buruma. As reported in the European Lawyer, Sept. 2010 at 34, the respondents fingered three main causes of pressure: “poor internal communication, colleagues’ lack of legal awareness and tight deadlines resulting in rush jobs.”

As I interpret those stressors, lawyers’ sense that they lack knowledge of what might be going on is the gist of poor internal communication. A general counsel who worries that notice of legal problems or opportunities for counsel does not get through would have every reason to worry. It also stands to reason that clients who don’t understand enough about the law to spot problems in time to come to the law department would cause heartburn. And to be requested to parachute in and review a document or assess something without enough time to does a decent job would also elevate stress levels.

The specific findings may be Dutch but the applicability is surely international.

A clever and useful distinction for managers uses the terms exploration and exploitation as a way to describes search modes. These concepts for how to find new ideas and improvements make sense for general counsel. General counsel need to push for efficiency, which corresponds to exploiting available resources in step-by-step improvement, while at the same time they need to push for innovation, in the sense of exploring new ways of working outside the typical boxes. Another way, think about the distinction as local search (exploitation) compared to distant search (exploration).

The terminology and conceptual differences come from Admin. Sci. Quarterly, Dec. 2002 at 676 et seq., which explains research that found some diminishment of innovation where TQM, Six Sigma, ISO 9000 and other process management disciplines had taken hold (See my post of Jan. 27, 2007: process management tools may stifle innovation.). Structured ways to analyze processes – maps, streamlining, measurement – deter in-house counsel from trying out something new. They stay with incremental exploitation rather than more radical exploration.

The article puts the point well. “More generally, work in learning and evolution has suggested that increased routinization and coordination in an organization’s activities may speed responsiveness in stable environments but also contributes to resistance to change, competency traps, and inadequate or inappropriate response in changing environments.” Local search (exploitation), as found with a focus on incremental, kaizen fine tuning, has an important role; distant search (exploration) has higher risks, higher access costs, but potentially higher octane improvements.

The website of Time Savvy Attorneys refers to all lawyers and notes that “Our productivity is a function of the choices we make and the approach we take to making those choices.” It then lists “seven essential practices [that] provide a powerful structure for taking control of your choices and your workflow, and thus, your time.”

Each practice deserves a comment or two.

1. Engage in effective planning (daily, monthly, and project). For example, simply list the six most important tasks you should complete tomorrow (See my post of June 26, 2008: priorities with 6 references.).

Time tracking by in-house counsel as a department-wide obligation does not appeal to me, I will admit, but I feel differently about an individual lawyer who keeps a personal record of what that lawyer does. Once you recognize that you only have so much time to devote to work and that you should spend it frugally and thoughtfully, it is a short step to keeping some notes on how you spend your work time. A person could do this back-of-the envelope recording at the same time they set priorities for the next day.

Some time back I assembled my posts on internal time tracking (See my post of Nov. 22, 2008: internal time tracking with 16 references.). Since then, nine more additions to that topic have been published here(See my post of Aug. 10, 2009 #3: Abbott Labs’ attorneys track pro bono time; Aug. 27, 2009: track time by percentages instead of actual; Nov. 5, 2009: lawyers see little personal benefit in database data entry; Nov. 10, 2009: arguments for and against tracking internal time; April 13, 2010: fully-loaded costs are more accurate with time tracking; May 18, 2010: track time by periodic screen shots; July 25, 2010: Chrometa tracking software; July 26, 2010: wrong to set minimum chargeable hours inside; and Aug. 22, 2010: rely on phone calls to estimate time.).

Gaston Bilder contributed a thoughtful comment on my post about claimed innovations that in fact assemble and build on many component parts (See my post of Dec. 28, 2010: using as an illustration DuPont’s convergence.). Gaston wrote, in part: “The next step – which is also critical from my point of view – should be the continuous improvement of this bundle of ideas, i.e. testing new additions (call them innovations if you want) and weeding out what doesn’t work.”

He is right. In my mind, a steady series of improvements to a process has as much or more clout as a light bulb idea. Visit Gaston’s blog for more insights, especially on corporate social responsibility. (See my post of May 15, 2009: continuous improvement with 6 references and one metapost.).

Data on the deluge comes from a deputy general counsel at Suntrust Banks, Brian Edwards. Edwards is quoted in Corp. Counsel, Dec. 2010 at 53, saying “People have an average of 30,000 e-mails per year per person.” Stunned, I converted that to the daily rate in the header but then mused that in-house lawyers could be on the higher end of that distribution. Plus, throw in the continuo of instant messages and notifications from intranet sites and matter management systems.

My earlier comment on the unheralded opportunities for productivity increases from e-mail discipline finds new support (See my post of Nov. 27, 2010: one-quarter of the work day on e-mail.).

The Law.com website devoted to in-house counsel periodically asks short poll questions. One of them concerned what lawyers do to lessen stress on the job. The results appear in Corp. Counsel, Dec. 2010 at 86, with whatever dubious statistical validity you want to attribute to credit them.

“Prepare in advance” (32%) appeals to the neurotic compulsive among us. “Breath of fresh air” (24%) presumably does not include window ledge debates whether to jump. “Playing music” (24%) could be Ride of the Valkyries blasting out ala Apocalypse Now or the Chorus of the Slaves from Verdi’s Nabucco. “Just stop working” (20%) implies a relatively short reprieve or it could increase paycheck stress.

On the whole, if you are under the gun and feel you just can’t cope, it does help to bite off a little and not procrastinate, it does help to exercise, put on a favorite track, and give yourself a short break.

The header’s question is rhetorical, I believe, even though it is one of five “business killers” seriously proposed by an article in Fortune, Dec. 6, 2010 at 71. The author tells about a CEO who “asked his assistant to take over and handle his e-mails two years ago.” The CEO claims big benefits from that liberation because he can now get out and around much more.

I just don’t see it. Without doubt a general counsel needs discipline and effective techniques to cope with incoming e-mail, but the suggested solution tosses lots of babies out with the bath water. A good administrative assistant might purge low-value messages, but many of them fill in the picture for the top lawyer and demand that lawyer’s experience and judgment, not to mention clout. Delegation of some filtering tasks could improve efficiency regarding e-mails, but abdication is out of the question.

Tips on e-mail productivity abound on this blog, yet in-house lawyers may not think of those techniques as they bear on the attorney-client privilege. A speaker at the Georgia Corporate Counsel Institute mentioned that wanton copying by clients of a lawyer on routine e-mails makes it harder later to defend the privilege for a particular e-mail. So, in-house lawyers should advise their clients against unthinkingly copying messages to them.

Another point picked on signature blocks automatically appended to messages. If every outgoing e-mail by you, an in-house attorney, claims to be privileged, you have weakened your argument. Sometimes you act in a compliance role or offer business advice, unable to claim privilege. Too facile a use of the automatic assertion of privilege vitiates it.

She closed with precautions about “reply all.” Even if you have chosen a key message that deserves protection and not blurred the privilege’s protection through over-use, if the recipient copies other people or if you casually click “reply all” and do the same, poof, the privilege can evaporate.