Articles Posted in Thoughts/Observations

The J. of the Legal Writing Inst., Vol. 15, 2009 at 266, tells about asking law school students to try haikus. Seventeen syllables. I tried my hand.

In-house lawyers,

Silos or teams,

Ten more embedded metaposts (See my post of Aug. 14, 2009: Part XXXVII), each conjoined with the number of its back references.

1. Benchmarks hyperpost (See my post of July 19, 2009: ten metaposts on benchmarks.).

2. Email effectiveness rules (See my post of Aug. 26, 2009: 30 e-mail effectiveness tips with 9 references.).

Back references to metaposts on this blog. In the first 224 posts after number 4,500, I included back references to 215 metaposts. That is nearly one per post. Since I have 370 metaposts, almost anything I write could point to a previous collection of posts. At times, now, I grow weary, and just write the post without historical citations on this blog.

Four-month secondment of attorney to Legal Aid Society. A chapter in Robert Haig, Ed., Successful Partnering Between Inside and Outside Counsel (Thomson Reuters/West 2009 Supp.), Vol. 1, Chapter 17 §17:23 fn. 3, explains that in 2007, UPS sent an attorney to Legal Aid on a four-month secondment (See my post of Aug. 24, 2008: pro bono programs of law departments with 12 references.). That is a significant commitment to the cause!

Bucket of cold water on Delphi technique. As written in William A. Sherden, The Fortune Sellers: The Big Business of Buying and Selling Predictions (John Wiley 1998) at168, a psychologist pored over an extensive set of studies that had used the Delphi method and concluded in 1991 that “no evidence was found to support the view that the Delphi method is more accurate than other judgment methods … consensus is achieved mainly by group pressure to conformity” (See my post of Dec. 9, 2005: Delphi method, the nominal group technique.).

An exercise for the mind is to catalogue beliefs held by lawyers legal departments that are myths, that serve some felt need but are inaccurate, that exhibit prejudice or wishful thinking not borne out by facts. For example, the easy and ample availability of comparably-skilled lawyers (See post of Aug. 24, 2006: talent is spread around everywhere; and Nov. 17, 2008: neither side sees the other as fungible.).

Several mythical misimpressions lurk on this blog in a variety of posts (See my post of May 4, 2005: quality of life in-house; May 15, 2005: changing behavior; Sept. 10, 2005: software systems; Oct. 4, 2005: of law firms about legal departments; April 23, 2006: employment law suits; Oct. 30, 2006: more myths cherished by law firms about departments; March 23, 2007: records management; March 23, 2007: two more myths of records management; and March 27, 2009: by in-house lawyers regarding outside counsel.).

The CPR International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution www.cpradr.org is a non-profit initiative of general counsel, law firms and legal academics “whose mission it is to install alternative dispute resolution (ADR) into the main stream of legal practice.” More than 4,000 operating companies have committed to its Corporate Policy Statement on Alternatives to Litigation©, according to Robert Haig, Ed., Successful Partnering Between Inside and Outside Counsel (Thomson Reuters/West 2009 Supp.), Chapter 57 at §57:47.

Reminded of the Call to Action, a widespread commitment signed by general counsel in support of diversity, aware now of this commitment to ADR, bearing in mind the LEDES undertaking by a number of legal departments, and suspecting that there is at least one statement of support signed by many general counsel regarding pro bono involvement, I predict in the next year or two a collective commitment by legal departments to sound environmental practices.

Visitors from 29 non-US sites in the last 100. About 80 percent of the readers of this blog come from the United States. But a significant number of international visitors also come. For example, SiteMeter tells me that of the last 100 visitors (at about 9:00 AM on Friday, August 14, 2009, there were visitors from 29 sites around the world. Many are in different countries, but some, like Australia, have multiple visitors in that group (See my post of Sept. 25, 2008: this blog and posts about it, with 41 references.).

A project to identify best practices for appointing a panel of external counsel. From Legal Strat. Rev., Summer 2009 at 41: “the general counsels of FTSE 100 companies are working together to determine best practice for appointing a legal panel. It is part of the Chief Legal Officers Programme for General Counsel, operated by John Jeffcock, CEO of Winmark Europe (See my post of April 18, 2009: law firm panels with 6 references.).

598 intellectual property blogs collected by one site. Mikk Putk in Estonia added this blog to his collection of almost 600 blogs that concern themselves with patents and other intellectual property. I am astounded at the enormity of material available, at least theoretically, on blogs (See my post of Dec. 31, 2007: intellectual property licensing with 12 references; Oct. 2, 2008: costs of patent litigation, with 13 references; Jan. 23, 2008: patents related to law department management with 7 references; Feb. 19, 2009: invention review committees with 7 references; March 25, 2008: patent activities except litigation with 49 references; and Aug. 19, 2009: trademarks with 33 references.).

The importance to companies of their brands and trade protections is evident (See my post of May 27, 2008: intangibles like trademarks account for 1/3rd of value of companies; Aug. 14, 2005: 248,000 new applications for trademarks filed with the U.S. PTO in 2004; May 28, 2005: online applications for US marks; July 31, 2005: European trademark applications and electronic filing; Sept. 22, 2005: trademarks play second fiddle to patents; Nov. 27, 2005: International Trademark Association; Nov. 28, 2005: auctions for trademarks; March 29, 2009: IP review boards cover trademarks; Feb. 19, 2009: IP team at Bosch and its TM specialists; and Feb. 19, 2009: IP at Phillips.).

Naturally, many of the posts have to do with law firms that serve as trademark counsel (See my post of Nov. 30, 2005: CPA and its global network of trademark firms; April 10, 2006: whether to count foreign trademark associates as external counsel; Aug. 21, 2005: large numbers of foreign trademark counsel; Aug. 7, 2007: many international matters involve trademark local counsel; and July 13, 2008 #: Tampico Beverages and consolidation of trademark firms.).

Trademark litigation registers on this blog (See my post of Dec. 31, 2006: odds are even for defendants in trademark litigation; Jan. 16, 2006: more data on trademark outcomes; April 9, 2006: metrics on number of trademark lawsuits; and June 11, 2007: rise in trademark litigation.).

Ten more embedded metaposts (See my post of July 26, 2009: Part XXXVI), each coupled with the number of its back references.

1. Bad behavior by managers II (See my post of March 31, 2009: nine more posts on poor behavior.).

2. Employee satisfaction (See my post of Aug. 13, 2009: employee satisfaction with 11 references and 8 metaposts.).

More poll results about the positions of readers – have you taken the poll? Since about July 15th, 81 readers have taken my little poll about positions. As of Aug. 11th, poll takers from law departments rose from 58% to 63%; those from law firms dropped from 22% to 16%; and service providers stayed close, 14% to 16% (See my post of Aug. 3, 2009: first results from the poll.).

Wikipedia as a source of information about legal department vendors. I discovered this resource when someone clicked through to this blog from the Exari entry. How many other vendors have a Wikipedia page (See my post of Dec. 31, 2007: Wikipedia has no entry about legal department administrators.)?

Kenneth Arrow’s impossibility theorem torpedoes collective evaluations of law firms. Take a deep breath: “Arrow’s disturbing impossibility theorem has implications for the entire process of aggregating choices. In effect, one cannot achieve collectively rational choices by aggregating the individual choices of people with diverse values and preferences.” I quote this snippet from William Breit and Barry Hirsch, Lives of the Laureates – Twenty-three Nobel Economists (MIT 2009) at 216 (Douglass C. North speaking). If in-house counsel differ in their values and preferences, and they do, then their choices of outside counsel as expressed in evaluations, let alone collective evaluations, can never be reconciled (See my post of June 9, 2009: collective, shared evaluations of firms.).

Having published recently by first two blook reviews, (See my post of July 30, 2009: Leigh Dance book; and Aug. 5, 2009: Laura Empson book.), fairness urged me to recognize another pair of books.

First is a UK-published book that covers many topics, Ann Page and Richard Trapp, Managing External Legal Resources (ICSA 2007). I extracted five posts (See my post of March 6, 2009: beyond an SLA, a Legal Exposure Plan; March 6, 2009: British management terms; March 31, 2009 #4: newsletter for network law firms; March 31, 2009: single-question post mortem; and April 1, 2009: workshops with key law firms.).

The second, Peter Leeson, The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates (Princeton Univ. 2009), stimulated six ideas for posts. The well-written book has fascinating accounts of pirates all explained in the context of economic principles at sea (See my post of Aug. 10, 2009: transaction-cost economics; Aug. 10, 2009: “signals” by law departments that hire expensive firms; Aug. 10, 2009: dispersed benefits compared to concentrated costs; Aug. 10, 2009 #4: expenditures on lobbyists; Aug. 12, 2009: governance and the size of a department; and Aug. 12, 2009: rational-choice model.).