Articles Posted in Talent

A survey conducted by Incomes Data Services, reported in Legal Week, Vol. 10, Jan. 24, 2008 at 3, found that the average salary for UK in-house lawyers was £114,658 (roughly $200,000). That average figure increased 6.8% from the corresponding figure the year before.

Two points. First, since compensation accounts for around three-quarters of the a typical law department’s internal budget, the upward pressure on that budget would have been in the same range. Second, if you tack on a benefits load of 25 percent and other overhead costs of 15 percent, at 1,850 chargeable hours per year (See my post of Feb. 17, 2008: that standard may be too high.) means an average of $151 an hour.

The law department of JPMorgan Chase and the US law firm, Kelley Drye & Warren sreid@kelleydrye.com, have launched a program to promote diversity. Law students from diverse backgrounds who are part of Kelley Drye’s summer associate program will have the opportunity to spend five weeks working at the law firm and then five weeks working in the law department. More about this joint effort is in Met. Corp. Counsel, Vol. 16, Feb. 2008 at 64.

I commend this combination and note that other law departments have joined forces with law firms on the recruitment front (See my posts of Sept.18, 2006: Citigroup and some NYC firms; Dec. 21, 2005: Lucent Technologies and Orrick Harrington; and May 23, 2007: Accenture and DLA Piper.).

When you bring your lawyers together for an offsite, you need some fun things for them to do. At one gathering, all the attendees broke into small groups and assembled bikes. At the end of the day, children from the community came in and gratefully accepted the bikes as gifts. Another gathering took a cooking class. Man, a flan with élan is good for the clan! Paintball provides an opportunity for some law departments to get down and dirty. Another fun activity I have enjoyed at a law department retreat is skeet shooting.

More about retreats lurks elsewhere on this blog (See my posts of Sept. 22, 2005: my most memorable retreats; March 25, 2005: my Rule of Three for retreat topics; Sept. 28, 2007: electronic name tags; May 21, 2007: gifts given at retreats; Sept. 28, 2007: invite a thoughtful general counsel to speak; March 26, 2007: useful take-aways; June 28, 2005: invite a facilitator to a retreat; March 12, 2006: electronic voting software.).

General counsel are most effective when they talk frequently and informally with their colleague lawyers (See my post of Sept. 25, 2006: open-door attitudes of general counsel.). To be continually closeted in meetings and barricaded behind closed doors is to be out of touch. Not only does morale suffer (See my post of Sept. 25, 2005: no on else but the general counsel.) but also the flow of information clogs (See my posts of Nov. 30, 2005: everyone clamors for more communication; and July 27, 2007: skip-level calls and meetings by general counsel.).

Every general counsel should make a point of walking the halls, sticking their head into offices, and hanging out in common areas. Management by walking around encourages a form of preventive law, role-modeling (See my post of May 2, 2007: stresses and strains.), and talent nurturance.

The other day the general counsel of a huge subsidiary bemoaned his department’s attrition rate of only about four percent per year. In this 400+-person group, he would actually like more people to turn over as he could then “refresh” the group (See my posts of June 24, 2007 on blaming the general counsel for high attrition;; Jan. 18, 2007 about the loss of top performers; March 4, 2007 on differentials in departure rates by levels; Dec. 12, 2006 on low attrition rates among UK departments; and June 24, 2007 on the career-path quagmire and the likelihood that some talented lawyers will leave the department.).

I have written about some of the consequences of low turnover rates (See my post of Oct. 12, 2006.). They include gray law departments, vitiated forced ranking, diminished succession planning and training, fewer policies in writing, and departures of younger stars. Other marks against low attrition rates include the following.

Stunted career progression. One lawyer’s career path clarifies because of another lawyer’s departure.

To earn more, general counsel need to supervise larger legal departments, according to a 2007 survey by Altman Weil. For general counsel in one-lawyer departments, the median cash compensation was $200,000, according to Law.com. The survey shows median pay climbed to $300,000 for two- to five-lawyer departments, $400,000 for six to 10 lawyers, about $500,000 for 11 to 25 lawyers, and more than $600,000 for more than 25 lawyers.

In other words, on the order of $100,000 per year of salary for every five or so lawyers up to around 25 laweyrs (See my posts of Dec. 26, 2007 about managerial demands rise faster than the size of the law department increases; and May 24, 2007 on big companies paying their top lawyer more.).

From New Nation News Jan. 14, 2008, comes this slice-of-life career progression that is highly unusual for US lawyers.

In 1994 Karina Dashko entered Moscow State University to study law. She also worked with the State Duma to develop programs for disclosing corporate information and protecting minority shareholders, and helped draft plans for the Russian security exchange regulatory body. Dashko also served as a legal consultant to the International Finance Corporation.

Upon graduation in 1998 she found work with Coudert Brothers, an international law firm. With this experience, in 2000 she entered New York University School of Law’s yearlong LLM program.

A piece in Atlantic, Jan/Feb 2008, Vol. 301 at 24, adds to our understanding of the many ways that pure legal ability is not the only way we assess in-house lawyers

The article explains recent research that shows that the more attractive your smile, the more money you make. The difference is even greater among women than among men. This may be a confusion of cause and effect (See my post of Jan. 25, 2008.).

I have written several times about physical traits that influence our judgments of others (See my posts of Nov. 9, 2006 about the advantages of height; April 7, 2006 about looks and height; and Jan. 8, 2007 on beauty.), but this new one about the “grin dividend” made me smile – self consciously. When you go for your next compensation review, brush, floss, cap and put on a happy face.

Craighton Goepple, now a senior lawyer with Starbucks, describes his experience as a secondee from Graham & James to the law department in Tokyo of ITOCHU. Starting in 1996, Goepple worked full time at ITOCHU for a year and a half. The article, in Bus. Law Today, Vol. 17, Jan./Feb. 2008 at 31, defines “secondment” as the “loan of a lawyer to a client to work in-house.” The article walks through five benefits to a law firm lawyer of being seconded as well as four “risks/challenges” but does not take up the advantages and disadvantages to a law department of having a secondee.

My previous forays into secondment leave lots of room for more information, and benchmark data, about this practice (See my posts of Sept. 21, 2005 on hiring secondees; Oct. 26, 2005 on reverse secondments; and June 13, 2006 on bilateral secondments.).

Several instances of the practice here and abroad have surfaced. At least five law departments have been noted here who have brought aboard secondees (See my posts of Sept. 25, 2006 on Minerals Technologies and LANXESS; Oct. 30, 2006 on Ikon Office Solutions; Feb. 25, 2007 on SAB Miller; Feb. 25, 2007 on Pfizer; and Dec. 21, 2005 #3 on South East Water.). The article cited above states that Starbucks also sips secondees.

An idea new to me is discussed in MIT Sloan Mgt. Rev., Vol. 49, Winter 2008 at 69. The idea is to use a bulletin board system to collect comments from employees. Someone then analyzes those comments and draws conclusions about morale, engagement and what factors influence those.

In other words, as a replacement or supplement for the customary employee-satisfaction survey (See my posts of April 8, 2005 on such surveys; and Feb. 19, 2007 on the Hackman and Oldman survey.) this indirect method, if employees actually leave enough comments on it, might give you a more nuanced and different view of what it is that drives moods. Anonymity, however, might be necessary for a law department. This technique is tantamount to an online water cooler (See my post of April 13, 2007 #4 on gossip.) where the chatter is recorded and studied.