Articles Posted in Showing Value

Wandering around on GoogleScholar, I happened upon an application for a US patent, No. US 2003/0074354 A1, filed on Jan. 17, 2001 by Suzanne Hawkins (in General Electric’s law department) and Mary Lee. In addition to the 10-page application are 18 pages of diagrams, many of them of the GE Legal intranet site. The 13 screen shots from June 2000 give a good sense of a well-developed intranet site for a law department (See my post of Nov. 30, 2008: legal department intranet sites with 12 references.).

For example, there were portions for 17 practice groups, several regional structures, CLE information, Diversity Council material, open positions, and three items under “Legal Productivity”: Outside Counsel Management System/Preferred Providers, Outside Council Policy, and Legal Resources Preferred Vendors. The “Quality Initiatives” portion mostly concerned intellectual property.

In its terms, the patent sought would be comprehensive: “A legal management system (LMS), is a fully integrated on-line web-based company-wide communication tool.” The patent application sweeps grandly broadly across almost everything I can think of that might be on a law department intranet.

Strictly speaking, pro bono service is intended to encompass a relatively narrow scope of activities. While community services is encouraged, true pro bono service as envisioned by rules of professional conduct is limited to legal services for persons of limited means or for organizations designed primarily to address the needs of persons of limited means. The primary focus of pro bono service is to provide legal assistance without charge to those who cannot pay.

With this definition in mind, this blog will be more precise when it mentions pro bono initiatives, as compared to community service initiatives (See my post of Aug. 24, 2008: pro bono programs of law departments with 12 references.).

David Bilinsky, writing in Law Practice, Oct./Nov. 2008 at 51, draws on LexisNexis’s 2007Juris Law Firm Economic Survey. “Billed hours per lawyer in the top quartile firms averaged 1,582; in the fourth quartile firms, the average was only 1,314 hours.” These figures, even if they came from firms that haven’t cracked the lists of mega-firms, tell me (a) that egregious bill padding was not underway and (b) many firms have capacity to take on more work.

The low billable hours also calls into question the assumption usually made that insure lawyers work plus or minus 1,850 billable-equivalent hours per year. If that assumed figure is too high, if in fact their time that would be chargeable to the client if they were at a law firm were lower, then the fully-loaded cost per internal lawyer hour rises. That figure across the country might be about $180 an hour. If inside billable hours are more like 1,600 per year, the cost to the company rises 15 percent to $208 an hour.

The same study offered some data on billing rates. “The effective blended standard rate (billed hours) for top quartile firms was $236; for fourth quartile firms, it was $150.” Compare those Lilliputian rates to the Brobdignagian costs per fully-loaded billable hour (after subtracting disbursements) and the cost gap between fixed internal and variable external closes significantly.

An advertisement by Johnson Controls offers ten ways we can all contribute to environmental sustainability. Three of the steps are available to all law departments.

(1) In addition to printing on both sides for drafts, use the “draft” setting. “In one test, a typical inkjet printed 12 pages per minute (ppm) in regular mode but 36 ppm in the draft setting.” Faster printing uses less printer energy.

(2) Plug your desktop computer equipment into a power strip – and turn the strip off at the end of every day. “Even in standby mode, office equipment uses energy. You’ll save as much as 20 to 40 watts for each piece of equipment you plug into a power strip and turn off.”

Leonard Mlodinow, The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives (Pantheon Books 2008) at 203, urges managers to “focus on the ability to react to events rather than relying on the ability to predict them, on qualities like flexibility, confidence, courage, and perseverance.”

Instead of pouring hours into crafting scenarios of the future and guessing changes, law department managers should build in the capabilities and attitudes that emphasize preparedness and flexibility. The capabilities include cross-training (See my post of Oct. 19, 2008: cross-training and some surrogates.), professional education, sound talent management, and familiarity with resources that allow a department to go with the flow such as law firms, secondments and contract lawyers. The cultural assets include a willingness to change, an inclination to retrospect, and the willingness to tinker with or dramatically alter the status quo.

Blog posts are for reading, but read this one aloud and listen! Listening well is a skill, and clients and others want you to do so. Here are an earful of aids to better listening (See my post of April 13, 2007: listen, identify, and enhance; April 15, 2006: best lawyEARS; Dec. 8, 2006: encourage different viewpoints; Dec. 16, 2007: compete against Blackberries; Oct. 16, 2006: ranking outside counsel on listening skills; and March 25, 2008: a future of hypersonic sounds.)

When you listen to someone:

1) Practice empathy and perspective; put yourself in their shoes

Prof. Legal Mgt. Week Mag., 2008 at 62, proffers a number of ideas that all law departments could adopt to help the environment. The article urges every office to find out what they call its “carbon footprint.” A carbon footprint measures how much carbon dioxide some group produces in a year, so that you can figure out how much to conserve. Awareness is a first step to persuade someone to act more soundly.

Other ideas include replacing plastic cups with mugs and printing or copying on both sides of paper. You can put printers, fax machines and scanners on a 45-minute power save and use energy efficient light bulbs. Recycling containers should be next to printers. Motion detectors that turn off lights are another step any law department can take. The article also advocates recycled paper for all copying and reusable water bottles that can be refilled (See my post of April 23, 2008: environmental impact of filing cabinets; April 27, 2008: six steps to help the environment; Dec. 26, 2007: lights and energy-saving; and April 27, 2007: environmental sensibilities of recycling.).

According to IP Law & Bus., Sept. 2008 at 42, an IP department should agree with executive management as to the ultimate purposes of the department. I have paraphrased the three basic objectives.

Inside patent lawyers might focus on “freedom to operate,” which includes such steps as extensive patenting or even defensive publishing to prevent others from patenting.

Another strategic objective could be “maximizing value,” where the group might devote more resources to licensing patents that are otherwise unused.

A recent example of general counsel under the klieg lights was the joint appearance on Capital Hill of the general counsel of Yahoo, Microsoft, and Google.

Whether the general counsel takes on the role of spokesperson depends on such factors as the person’s comfort doing so, the availability of other senior executives, their familiarity with the subject matter, and their respect within the company. To the degree the topic has legal ramifications also tilts a company’s choice toward the general counsel as mouthpiece.