Articles Posted in This Blog

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Every post I write summons to mind earlier posts that touch on its topic. With 5,800 prior posts looking over my shoulder, I have to decide all the time what they are and whether to find and refer back to them, as in (See my post of May 16, 1952: auspicious day for Rees Morrison).

With no way to know how often anyone looks up the posts I reference, I nevertheless cite earlier posts to integrate my own knowledge. My penchant for metaposts – accumulations of six or more posts on a similar topic – demonstrates an even more diligent referencing effort. This blog’s tapestry of information about law departments and their effective management is woven one post and multiple cross-links at a time.

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A couple of weeks back I welcomed a law department blawg to the fold and now need to dust off the ceremony again (See my post of Aug. 22, 2010: In-House Rants.). Jon Olson, the top lawyer for Blackbaud, has been hosting his blog, General Counsel Diary, since May and has published 30 posts. Blog on, Jon!

On a side note I discovered that Blogger points you to other users of that software who have the same occupation. General Counsel Diary points to ten attorney blogs. It also conveniently shows the total number of posts on the blog.

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My loyal readers don’t miss anything because they subscribe through one of many services that handle RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds. During the past week, Feedburner tells me that this blog averaged 871 feed subscribers and 148 of them visited. They viewed 4,311 posts and clicked through to 1,661. My high point during the week was 907 subscribers and I add about ten to fifteen a month. Welcome to all of you!

On the upper right side, please click and subscribe, which is easy.

My number of subscribers has climbed steadily (See my post of Sept. 22, 2005: Really Simple Syndication from blogs; June 16, 2007: 200 RSS subscribers and 2,400 posts; March 30, 2008: 300 signed up; March 1, 2009: feed aggregators and 440 subscribers; March 9, 2009: January 16, 2007 – February 5, 2009 RSS subscribers clicked back 39,023 times to the site on 2,010 blog posts; Nov. 16, 2009: average of 620; Reach 124; Raw Hits 4,343; Clickthroughs 278; and Impressions 941; and Feb. 20, 2010: nearly 800.).

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Readers might want to know which of the posts on this blog offer the most value. I wish I knew! Meanwhile here are some methods to move toward an assessment of a post’s relative quality.

Each month I look back two months and pick the posts that intrigued me the most. A solipsistic method without question, but at least I try to pick the diamonds from the rough. Were there more comments on this blog, I could hold up the posts that attract the most controversy, but that is not possible here since comments appear so infrequently.

More impartially, I have drawn on Feedburner to spot the posts most viewed by those who have LawDepartmentManagementBlog on their RSS feeds (See my post of June 15, 2009: ten posts listed but no pattern observed.). The posts that the sage editors of Law.com and Corporate Counsel select must have something going for them in terms of perceived widespread interest. To the same tune, PinHawk picks up posts from time to time and they could be candidates for quality (See my post of May 28, 2010: Pinhawk.).

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Tim Corcoran, who recently left Altman Weil to join HubbardOne, posted a meaty piece on what he reads. In the midst were four blogs related to legal departments, including those of the ACC and Law.com. Third, Tim brought to my attention a new one for me and I quote his description.

In House Rants – written by an anonymous corporate lawyer, he or she shares frustrations with outside lawyers and their reportedly poor service and business skills. I very nearly deleted this because the author is sporadic and at times not very constructive… but then the title should have been a clue!

Modesty does not stop me from quoting him on the fourth: “the gold standard in providing information to the in-house community, Rees Morrison offers a tremendous volume of insight from book reviews, to critical analysis of surveys and products, to thoughtful discussion of metrics and other operational issues for General Counsel.”

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Mindsets that ought to undergird effective alternative fee arrangements (June 2, 2010)

Six ways of thinking need to mesh for a law department to have confidence that a law firm will perform well under an alternative fee arrangement.

The “standard hourly rate” is ephemeral – same timekeeper often bills different rates to different clients (June 3, 2010)

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While looking at Twitter yesterday I noticed “Lists.” With Lists, which cost nothing to start, Twitter users assemble (follow) Twitter posters in a topical area. My tweets, which are Twitter-sized repeats of what I write here, have made their way onto 18 lists that have to do mostly with the business of law and legal management.

Strangely, these 18 lists have a total of 4,150 Twitterers that they follow, but only 470 people following them. Lists haven’t caught up with law department managers as a filter of the flow of online commentary. The table below summarizes the 18 lists I’m on, sorted by how many Twitter users follow the list (“Followers” in the right column). The number in the middle column shows how many Twitter accounts the list covers.

List with LawDeptMgtBlog.com On List Followers

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Nearly 300 readers have subscribed to my newsletter, and I welcome more. If you sign up in the next few days I will send you the latest edition. It contains the four posts that were viewed the most during the past month and further reflections by me on each of them. When you let posts lie fallow for a bit, it is surprising how many additional ideas sprout!

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I reviewed all the comments posted here since the start of 2009, more than 300 of them. The retrospective got me thinking.

First, I very much appreciate comments and hope that they increase.

Second, I have not made it a practice to reply to comments, but I have written some posts where I quote a good comment and then offer my thoughts on it.