Articles Posted in Thoughts/Observations

When authors prescribe what should be done, they can get carried away. An example comes from the Int’l In-House Counsel J., Vol 2, Autumn 2009 at 1408, where the author discusses in-house counsel and risk management.

“The in-house legal counsels should periodically perform an overall assessment of all legal risks impacting the business operations, and report to the general counsel on the status of these risks and actions to control them.”

Easy to write but give us a break! Only in the Elysian fields of legal practice would anyone even contemplate such a comprehensive – in fact, unachievable – objective. Assess all legal risks and control them. Right.

Economics. Supply and demand; marginal cost; utility curves; comparative advantage; resources and productivity – all these explanatory concepts fall into economics, a powerful framework to illuminate a host of problems and solutions. It is the best set of tools for thinking through how to manage a law department (See my post of March 3, 2006: economics with 16 references; Sept. 19, 2008: economic concepts with 43 references; and July 23, 2009: sub-disciplines within economics.).

Psychology also offers many insights into the lawyers and non-lawyers of a legal department. For example, it clarifies risk and return, incentives, timidity and aggressiveness. Eventually, psychology may be subsumed by neuropsychology (See my post of June 22, 2008: neuroscience with 32 references; July 21, 2006: psychology with 24 references; and April 22, 2009: psychology with 16 references and 9 metaposts.).

Sociology is the third discipline that especially helps us understand that particular group of people, the tribe of law departments. It brings to bear such important managerial concepts as peer pressure, hierarchy, turf, competition, rumors and trust (See my post of July 21, 2006: sociology with 14 references.).

Ban on software customization of source code. One legal department has decreed that it will not ask for any changes in the source code of any software it licenses. The cost is too high, the rate of success too low, and the time to complete too long (See my post of June 3, 2009: customized software written for legal departments with 12 references.).

Another definition of “high-potential.” Having just written about the concept of high-potentials for in-house counsel (See my post of Dec. 19, 2009: information processing ability is key.), I read in talent mgt., Dec. 2009 at 34, that “High-potential employees are defined as those who have the ability to advance two levels above their current position.” That makes quite a barrier for lawyers who report to the top lawyer, one level up! According to the article, the candidate’s ability to “move into at least two other departments across the organization” also marks them with distinguishment. Quite a few experienced lawyers could clear that hurdle.

Webinar series from Corporate Counsel Technology Institute (CCTI). The Corporate Counsel Technology Institute (CCTI) at Widener University School of Law is developing a 12-part webinar series based on a new book about the DuPont Legal Model, The New Reality: Turning Risk into Opportunity through the DuPont Legal Model. www.cctinstitute.org (See my post of June 7, 2009: E.I. DuPont with 32 references.).

Publicly-traded companies significantly dealing with legal departments; know any others? Do readers know of any companies that are both publicly traded and gain a significant amount of their revenue from legal departments? Some that have come to my attention are Bottomline Technologies, an e-billing vendor (NASDAQ: EPAY), Jurimetrics, a litigation investment fund (a London Stock Exchange/AIM-listed company); Acacia Technologies, also a litigation investment fund (ACTG); and Slater and Gordon, an Australian law firm. Previously I mentioned several firms that do some consulting with legal departments (See my post of Oct. 13, 2009: five publicly traded consulting groups – CRA International (Nasdaq: CRAI), FTI Consulting Inc. (NYSE: FCN), Huron Consulting Group (Nasdaq: HURN), LECG Corporation (Nasdaq: XPRT) and Navigant Consulting (NYSE: NCI).

Security certification and e-billing. According to an ad by Serengeti, a leading provider of e-billing capabilities, most vendors obtain a Type I certification “which only verifies the existence of controls covering their data center.” Serengeti’s Type II certification goes further. It confirms the existence and effectiveness of physical and logical security, quality assurance, and change control.” Both certificate Types come under SAS 70 (See my post of April 28, 2009: ISO certification and legal department vendors.).

In-house lawyers micro-blogging and networking online. Consulting firm Leader Networks determined from a survey that six percent of in-house lawyers use Twitter or similar micro-blogging services. As reported in Legal Strat. Rev., Winter 2009/10 at 10, “58% of the lawyers surveyed said that they were members of online professional networks such as LinkedIn” (See my post of Sept. 22, 2008: professional networks such as LinkedIn, with 7 references.).

Jurídico de Saias, or Women in Skirts. I am indebted to Laurence Simons and their newsletter for highlighting this group of in-house women lawyers in Brazil. I suspect the English translation should be more like Lawyers in Skirts (See my post of Nov. 10, 2007: gender differences with 10 references.).

Judges and their views on changing law firms and transferring work. I have offered some thoughts on transfers of lawsuits from one firm to another, midstream. Much more remains to be said on this topic. A partner I spoke to recently said that judges mostly dislike changes of counsel if it appears the company is switching to hide something or has wrongly blamed the firm for not going along with something improper (See my post of Sept. 12, 2008: transfer matters to new counsel with 8 references.).

Purchase orders raised for each law firm matter! The quote from the “European Briefings” supplement to the ACC Docket, Vol. 27, Dec. 2009 after 64, implies that every matter for The Body Shop must have a purchase order (“One matter per bill; purchase order number included for tracking.” That sounds a heavy administrative burden (See my post of Dec. 2, 2007: purchase orders; and Oct. 25, 2007: PO’s and law firm budgets.).

Click on any of these ten embedded metaposts to see my prior posts. Each of these (See my post of Nov. 5, 2009: Part XLII) is shadowed by the number of its back references.

1. Books on law department management (See my post of Nov. 16, 2009: books about law departments with 8 references.).

2. Evaluations of law firms II (See my post of Nov. 6, 2009: law firm assessments with 19 references.).

This assertion by James Potter, General Counsel of Del Monte Foods, pokes up its provocative head in David Galbenski,Unbound: How Entrepreneurship is Dramatically Transforming Legal Services Today (2009) at 192.

Oh that his conclusion were true: “consequently, our clients will increasingly insist that business consultants be brought in to analyze the internal processes of the legal department.”

Aside from that self-serving thought, I believe Potter speaks too harshly. Blanket condemnations make good quotes but bad evidence. He cites nothing as an example of hidebound practices. My view is that many general counsel these days are quite current with solid practices but find it hard to maneuver given severe budget constraints. More fundamentally, no consensus exists regarding what exactly are best-in-class processes for legal departments.

David Galbenski, Unbound: How Entrepreneurship is Dramatically Transforming Legal Services Today (2009) at 219-224, includes an interview with Phil Crowley, a senior lawyer in the Johnson & Johnson legal department. I picked out some tidbits.

History: Ken Perry founded the law department in 1934. Someday I would love to write a history of legal departments in the US.

Purpose of in-house lawyers: One of the General Counsel at the company “used to tell candidates during their interviews that at Johnson & Johnson we don’t hire lawyers to practice law; we hire lawyers to drive our business in a legal and ethical manner.” The distinction is crucial for client satisfaction.

The Belgium-based consultants, FrahanBlondé, mention in a May 14, 2009 post that they had completed a study of large law departments. I have not seen the report but I want to point it out because of its relevance to readers of this blog, both inside and outside.

“We have conducted face-to-face interviews with 22 leading general counsel of major companies. The 60-pages report holds priceless information on all key aspects of general counsel’s collaboration with law firms,” says the website of the firm.

The report draws on remarks from the general counsel of AB Inbev, Delhaize, Solvay, Belgacom, KBC, Dexia, GDFSUEZ, ING, UCB, GIMV, Umicore, Ackermans van Haaren, Telenet, Mobistar, GBL, De Post, Bekaert, Cofinimmo, Elia, Fluxys and Omega Pharma. For more information on this survey, contact Sophie Peperstraete.

Weight-management programs at law firms coming to an RFP near you. In a 2008 survey of more than 450 employers with at least 1,000 workers, “Nearly three-quarters cited weight management plans as a chief strategy for maintaining affordable health care benefits.” The Harvard Bus. Rev., Vol. 87, Dec. 2009 at 30, explains the productivity and health benefits when employees avoid gaining too much weight. Someday we will see RFPs asking for the Body Mass Index (BMI) of the core team proposed by a law firm (See my post of July 10, 2009: health and welfare with 15 references and 4 metaposts.).

Unsexy, traditional, ineloquent, plain, and unstylish, the name of this blog has some old-fashioned values. Sometimes when I write, read, or hear the name of this blog I cringe just a tiny bit at its clunky, unclever, too-long ugliness. Then I take some solace in that it is very clear – law department management. Other blogs have cute names, oh-so-clever names. My stodgy name matches the tenor of its posts and intent: write clearly about solid ideas that matter to general counsel as managers.

Ranks of this blog on Technorati, Avvo and Justia. Technorati Authority measures a site’s standing and influence in the blogosphere “based on a site’s linking behavior, categorization and other associated data over a short, finite period of time.” Authority does not count links in blogrolls. This blog on Dec. 7, 2009 had an authority of 140 (on a scale of 0-1000) and was ranked 22,154 (out of 853,799). Technorati Rank is a site’s rank among the Technorati Authority of all sites where 1 is the highest rank.