Articles Posted in Talent

Having read my post about general counsel and other inside lawyers who host blogs, Doug Hagerman, the progressive General Counsel of Rockwell Automation, took the time to comment. His experience deserves more than a mere thanks and follow-on remark.

“Hi Rees — I have a blog that is published internally — part of our intranet — and thus only available to employees of my company. Doug”

Glad to hear about this, Doug, and congratulations! Other general counsel might find the informality, interactivity, and low cost of a blog to give them a way to share their thoughts with their team and easily and informally get feedback and questions. I am not sure what the software platform would be, but there must be several choices on corporate intranets.

Do companies that lead in employee-friendliness, such as those honored by Fortune, have law departments that get mentioned for management prowess? No. Does that silence imply anything derogatory about their law departments? No.

I searched among my 6,153 posts for mentions of the top dozen companies in the latest list from Fortune (Feb. 7, 2011). My research took very little time, because none of these top companies appeared: SAS, Boston Consulting Group, Wegmans Food Markets, NetApp, Camden Property Trust, Nugget Market, Recreational Equipment, Dreamworks Animation, Edward Jones or Scottrade (listed in declining order). I did find posts about Google’s law department (#4) from back in 2005 and one about Zappos (#8) and its employee engagement surveys.

My assumption is that all the companies have in-house legal teams. That those teams have low profiles in terms of what I blog about says absolutely nothing about the quality of their operations.

Women lawyers are neurologically very similar to men lawyers. Inside the brain, there are no sex differences in mirror neuron functioning; no intra-brain communication differences because of lateralization and the larger corpus callosum of women; and foetal levels of testosterone don’t determine our cerebral destiny. Society does, but not brain functioning. These debunking statements come from a book review in the Times Literary Supp., Jan. 28, 2011 at 13, by the eminent researcher of sex-based characteristics, Carol Tavris.

Women have risen in law departments and become general counsel in increasing numbers because out of the stew of their socialization, education, culture, ungendered personality, and experience they have shown superior talent, not because of hard-wired genetic or neurological differences. It is easy, dangerously easy, to fall prey to sex-based prejudices for and against women, but the extensive, credible scientific research to date – as reviewed carefully in the book Tavris summarizes – supports no in-built brain biases directing, advantaging or disadvantaging women.

Everyone cares about how much money they make and whether their paycheck is higher or lower than peers. So, fueling the clamor, on the last day of January I published my column with InsideCounsel on some sources online for in-house counsel pay data. Click to be on the money, so to speak.

“Currently, the average U.S. manager stays with an employer for a median of six years, and about two thirds of the open positions are filled by outsiders.” Both figures from Perspectives, Nov. 2010 at 46, seem high if I consider turnover of senior lawyers in law departments – the direct reports to the general counsel and the general counsel – and where their replacements come from. The article claims that newly hired executives more often find their position through their own networking efforts than any other method, followed by through executive search firms. “Executive search firms fill about 54% of all U.S. positions with an annual compensation level of $150,000 and above,” based on data from 2003 (so perhaps $175,000 might be the comparable compensation band today).

Other findings, if applicable to law departments, discuss research that found that executive search firms favor luring senior lawyers from law departments of companies with strong reputations and performance. “The executive’s actual performance inside the high-status organization matters less, because it is difficult to obtain relevant information on the performance and because this status-based process produces ‘defensible’ candidates.”

Much as law firms hire associates from prestigious law schools, law departments that rely on search firms gravitate lawyers from ranked companies. One would expect many lawyers leading legal teams in the U.S. to have matriculated from Fortune 100 legal departments.

Rent-seekers, a term used by economists and political scientists for those who extort extra benefits because of their power, exist in law departments. A Deputy General Counsel who balks at agreeing to a new software package may get a pass on having her team have to use it for a year; another senior lawyer may withhold approval of a firm for the panel until her favored firm is added.

Free-riders enjoy the fruits of others’ efforts without doing any plowing, hoeing or watering: for example, they draw on the laboriously compiled corporate policies but never contribute any or work on them; they proudly talk about the innovation award won by the department but remain reactionary; they make ample use of the library’s resources but don’t serve on the committee for it.

An astute and observant general counsel will deal with power brokers and parasites. This blog has touched on the economic tems rent and free rider (See my post of March 22, 2006: free riders; April 27, 2006: rents; and July 29, 2007: economic rents.).

Alternatives for self-education range widely. As I thought back over what I have seen or read about during my consulting career, I came up with the following 17:

Brown bag lunches and informal methods (See my post of May 1, 2005: spreading CLE knowledge to the rest of the law department; and Feb. 19, 2009: collective learning by a leadership group.).

Conferences (See my post of Nov. 16, 2008: conferences aimed at inside lawyers with 11 references.).

A piece in Forbes, May 24, 2010 at 46, suggests that psychological testing of candidates for executive positions has become much more common. “Today, two thirds of 517 businesses surveyed … say they evaluate executives using a suite of behavioral, cognitive, critical and psychological tests.” The most arduous tests require candidates to respond to simulations. “Of those [companies surveyed], 46% put executives through the simulation wringer.” The post for the top lawyer ought to be considered important enough to justify such careful testing.

This blog has mentioned several assessment instruments, but Forbes adds a few: Raven’s Advanced Progressive Matrics (a standardized intelligence test), Watson/Glasere (an hour-long critical-thinking appraisal, and the Hogan Development Survey (assesses a leader’s propensity for failure) (See my post of June 24, 2009: the Hogan Personality Inventory.).

Morgan Stanley’s legal department promotes diversity in many ways. According to Sutherland Asbill & Brennan’s Partnering Perspectives, Winter 2010 at 17, the department (1) runs a summer intern program for first-year law students, (2) assists youth from underserved communities, (3) sponsors a South African attorney to comes to the US for six months and work in the department, (4) hosts forums on women’s issues, (5) provides mentors for diverse attorneys, (6) runs panels on diversity with its law firms and (7) collects diversity data by a survey of its top 50 firms based on billings. All this from its 45-member diversity committee.

As to asking law firms to provide data on diversity, I have written about several other law departments that have done so (See my post of April 4, 2006: GE collects diversity metrics from its law firms; Dec. 8, 2006: DuPont survey of its 38 PLFs; Jan. 14, 2007: diversity survey by Accenture’s law department; July 25, 2007 #3: possible issues with collection of diversity data through department’s e-billing system; Dec. 5, 2008: evaluations of law firms on diversity as good, adequate, or poor; July 4, 2009: shared and free database of law firm diversity data; July 13, 2009: Williams Co. ranks its law firms; and Dec. 7, 2009: diversity survey by Coca-Cola of its firms.).

My two recent posts on salary data from online sources drew tremendous responses as judge by click thoughts (See my post of Jan. 13, 2011: MySalary.com; and Jan. 18, 2011: Robert Half International.). Just maybe what in-house lawyers earn has some interest?

To research I went and found the Internet Legal Research Group site. It provides data on salary ranges for in-house lawyers, paralegals and legal secretaries. Each of those levels has three or four breakdowns by years of experience. For example, one is a lawyer with 10-12 years of experience and it showed a range of $128,250 to $218,000.

At the bottom of the webpage there is a slew of data on how to make regional adjustments. If you multiply the range by the adjustment most appropriate for you, the result is a range closer to your own situation.