Articles Posted in Talent

Where do law department administrators come from? Data from the First Law Department Operations Survey, published by InsideCounsel and Blickstein Group, identifies the three most common sources. Of the 33 who responded to the question, about a quarter joined from a similar role in another law department, a quarter were promoted into the position from within the law department, and a quarter moved from within the company into the law department.

You can poach an operations manager, promote one into the role, or persuade someone from elsewhere in the company to fill the position. Some search firms probably provide external candidates for major openings for administrators.

Consider another finding from the First Law Department Operations Survey, published by InsideCounsel and Blickstein Group in cooperation with Huron Consulting and David Cambria, Director of Operations, Law Department, Aon Corporation. The survey obtained responses from 50 administrators, and among other questions asked them to choose from 10 attributes the three they thought were most important for managing law department operations.

The attributes chosen most were “law department knowledge” (67% put it in the top 3), “business acumen” (50%) and “business process” (50%). The leading choice, “law department knowledge,” differs from the other two in that you can’t possess it until you have worked for a while in a law department (See my post of Dec. 23, 2008: two thirds came from another law department or were promoted internally.). Indeed, that term encompasses all other attributes of administrators.

“Business acumen” resembles one of the most valued attributes of in-house counsel: knowledge of the client’s business. Here, though, I think the term means “think like a business person, not like a lawyer.” A later question found that about 10 of the respondents had either an MBA or were a CPA, so they bring educational oomph to the role.

Every law department that allows its lawyers to work from home has to consider how it should deploy technology to permit that telecommuting to be productive (See my post of May 30, 2006: telecommuting with 5 references.). An item in 8-K, Vol. 4, Fall 2008 at 32, lists nine technologies that contribute to off-site worker productivity. The tools come from “Web Commuting and the American Workforce,” by Citrix Online 2008. The percentages state the share of remote workers the study found who use the tool:

Mobile phone (84%)

Email (72%)

Some people break down the current workforce into four groups: ”Traditionalists, baby boomers, generation X, and generation Y (sometimes referred to as the Millennial generation).” These generalizations (pun fully intended) cast a wide shadow (See my post of June 13, 2006: age differences and extroversion; June 30, 2007: age differences and narcissism.). Put differently, “The incoming generation of law students seems to be seeking transportable skills and doesn’t necessarily measure success by tenure within an organization,” 8-K, Vol. 4, Fall 2008 at 18.

Generational diversity is present in most law departments that have existed a decade or more (See my post of March 16, 2006: long-in-the-tooth veterans and knowledge loss; Sept. 4, 2005: demographics of law departments; Sept. 25, 2005: lawyers work an average of 6 years before moving in-house; Feb. 7, 2007: demographics tip against law departments; Nov. 14, 2005: related to demographic changes; and April 30, 2006: demographic change.).

The top lawyer of a global law department ought to think about how to create a one-world department. Shared culture, shared training, and shared experiences knit a geographically dispersed legal team. The general counsel of Synnex, the $7 billion IT information provider, has lawyers in China. According to the general counsel, Simon Leung, in 8-K, Vol. 4, Fall 2008 at 12, “I’m in the process of getting the visas for one of my Beijing attorneys for a two-or three-year secondment so she will be totally ingrained into the Synnex way of doing things and the Synnex culture.”

Not many general counsel can transplant a lawyer from one continent to another for few years to indoctrinate and train them, but for those who have just the right circumstances, it might make sense over the long haul (See my post of Nov. 16, 2008: considerations before staffing a lawyer overseas*7.).

As stated in Corp. Counsel, Vol. 15, Dec. 2008 at 111, the merger of Akzo Nobel and International Chemicals in early 2008 created a combined legal department of 240 lawyers. Within a few months that number had fallen to 180 lawyers, a 25 percent reduction.

Mergers result in layoffs, including in legal departments (See my post of Aug. 4, 2008: Nextel-Sprint was about 30 percent; Sept.13, 2005: Honeywell – Oracle as well as El Paso – Coastal; Feb. 19, 2007: BellSouth – AT&T; and May 5, 2008: turnover after mergers.).

Some headcount reductions may result from dispositions of business units and the lawyers who serve them. A few result from the elimination of duplicate positions; you only need one general counsel or one head of litigation. And disappointed contenders for the top spots may fall for the siren song of headhunters. My question, however, is whether many post-merger losses are short term. For example, some lawyers may decline to transfer to the new locations, but their positions will fairly soon be filled.

At the American Kennel Club, its law department of three lawyers and two staff attorneys is certainly dog friendly. According to its general counsel, Margaret Poindexter, in Corp. Counsel, Vol. 15, Dec. 2008 at 105, “Our building is full of dogs” – but the dogs must have the “good canine certificate” the AKC gives after a basic obedience test. Would that we had the same kind of certificate for lawyers!

Poindexter likes dogs “I can’t tell you the number of times when I’m having a stressful day, and I see someone’s dog in their cubicle; it is a huge stress release to have that kind of canine contact.” Well, maybe, unless you are allergic to dogs or afraid of them. At least one other law department I know accommodates our canine companions, but to imagine it is a trend in law departments is to bark up the wrong tree.

I couldn’t resist searching among my 14.4 megabytes of posts for references to dogs. Sure enough, a pack of dog metaphors are littered throughout (See my post of March 3, 2008: dog in the manger; May 5, 2008: double-dog dare; Aug. 28, 2008: unleash the dogs of law; Oct. 11, 2008: dog-and-pony show; Dec. 2, 2008: dog’s breakfast; Oct. 19, 2005: bird-dog; Oct. 19, 2005: old dog new tricks; Dec. 8, 2006: dogfight; Jan. 4, 2008: let sleeping dogs lie; May 30, 2005: man-bites-dog story; and Dec. 9, 2005: watchdog.).

The general counsel of BAE Systems, Philip Bramwell, is on record that “his goal is to create a world-class legal department with specialists, rather than generalists.” His disparaging words in Corp. Counsel, Vol. 15, Dec. 2008 at 96, about in-house generalists were biting: “Who gets out of bed looking to be average?”

General (commercial) lawyers in law departments should not be anathematized as “average.” They may have average or below average intelligence, experience, or personal attributes, but so might the narrowest specialist lawyer. Meanwhile, their broad remit – handling all the legal issues they can for a business group – demands considerable legal talent. After all, every general counsel is a generalist. What more is there to say?

The lawyers who guide business executives in how to make a profit legally are the backbone of a company’s legal talent. Often, they are expert in the business of their company and the legal constraints under which it operates, not remote from transactions and business imperatives it like a legal specialist may be.

To be a manager need not only mean that people report to you. Indeed, every in-house lawyer is a manager, even if no one reports to that lawyer.

1. The lawyer must still manage her time (See my post of June 26, 2008: priorities with 6 references.).

2. The lawyer must manage clients, their demands, expectations and styles.

Should you have your employment lawyer, who advises clients on how to minimize litigation, also handle employment lawsuits? Should your patent lawyers prosecute in the morning and litigate in the afternoon? How about your environmental lawyers likewise playing offense and defense?

And then the ultimate. Should transaction-oriented business lawyers, generalists who mostly handle contracts and the range of legal issues that arise for a business unit, also handle the litigation that arises for the client?

I think not. Litigation is a specialty and a very expensive one, sometimes played for high stakes. An anti-trust counselor, or indeed any other non-litigation lawyer, may be a very poor manager of litigation. Even worse is a situation where the lawyer’s earlier efforts led to the lawsuit, since they could hardly remain objective.