Articles Posted in Thoughts/Observations

So far, I have collected posts and created metaposts on Cisco, DuPont, FMC Technologies, GE, McDonalds and Microsoft. These six total 154 posts (See my post of Sept. 25, 2008: Cisco with 30 references; June 7, 2009: DuPont with 32 references; June 7, 2009: FMC Technologies with 15 references; July 7, 2009: GE with 35 references; March 26, 2009: McDonald’s with 12 references; and June 30, 2009: Microsoft with 30 references.).

Two other legal departments, serving UTC and Wal-Mart, have earned the right to a collection, although not a metapost (See my post of May 24, 2009: United Technologies (UTC) and four back references; and Aug. 26, 2008: 11 posts on this blog about Wal-Mart.). I have gathered other posts about the references to specific companies (See my post of Aug. 26, 2008: posts on the legal teams of the world’s five largest corporations.).

As part of a series on posts here about specific companies, General Electric deserved a festschrift for its 35 posts.

Many of the GC posts boast of costs and savings (See my post of Jan. 14, 2007: document management and savings from it; Aug. 5, 2008: savings from early case assessment; Aug. 5, 2008: savings from convergence; May 23, 2007: reductions in litigation cycle time; and May 7, 2006: total legal spending.).

Outside counsel selection and management represents many of the posts (See my post of Sept. 4, 2005: online auctions; March 12, 2006 regarding online auctions; Aug. 28, 2008: keep work inside; Aug. 29, 2008: sycophancy by law firm partners; April 7, 2006 about procurement; and April 16, 2007: US panel firms.).

Take notice of good counsel on the other side. “Some [legal departments] track their expenditures per matter based on the identity/quality of opposing counsel to determine the best advocate against a thorny opponent or to hire that opposing lawyer away.” Met. Corp. Counsel, Vol. 17, June 2009 at 11 (Marcus Linden), mentions this and I include it because your next choice of counsel might be the adversary who just opposed you and did a good job.

Hakia as a semantic search engine and pictures for “law department management.” Having heard about Hakia, I tried it and of course searched for “law department management.” Aside from the results, I was fascinated by the six or more images that nestled to the right of the list of search results. A few connected immediately to legal departments, but others appear to have been photos uploaded next to some comment that has the term in it.

A bit more on litigation financing. The NY Times, June 3, 2009 at B1, has a column on investments in portfolios of lawsuits. It mentions Juris Capital, “a Chicago firm backed by two hedge funds” and David Dresser, managing director of Juris. The article also refers to Anthony J. Sebok, a professor at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York City “who has studied the business” (See my post of May 21, 2009: lawsuit financing by groups with 8 references.).

F-statistic analyses. The F-statistic tests the equality of the means in a group of figures, which is used sometimes to separate sets of figures into categories, as mentioned in Laura Empson, ed., Managing The Modern Law Firm: New Challenges New Perspectives (Oxford Univ. Press 2007) at 99 (Brian Uzzi, Ryon Lancaster and Shannon Dunlap) (See my post of Jan. 20, 2007: statistics with 28 references and May 31, 2006.)

Half million lawyers on LinkedIn. Steve Matthews, founder of Stem, said at the 2009 ABA Tech Show in April that LinkedIn has 563,000 lawyers with profiles. That number, according to Ari Kaplan in Strategies: The Journal of Legal Marketing, Vol. 11, June/July 2009 at 8, has shot up from 406,000 in December 2008 and 118,000 a year before. My group, Law Department Management, has a paltry 200 members (See my post of Sept. 22, 2008: social networks such as LinkedIn, with 7 references.).

Definitions of global, international, regional and local. From a benchmark survey, I saw these definitions (See my post of June 26, 2009: what is a “foreign law firm.”). These make sense as nomenclature for legal departments:

Having collected posts on several other legal departments whose management efforts have been well-publicized, I decided to tally them for Microsoft. Setting aside any references on Law Department Management Blog to the software licensed by Microsoft, I found 30 references to what that company’s enormous and active legal group has pursued. The posts cover almost every category on this blog, so I have organized them in chronological order within the categories.

Two posts hinge on benchmarks (See my post of Aug. 3, 2005: patents per billion dollars of R&D; and Aug. 4, 2005: benchmark study spurs more patents.).

Others cover cost controls (See my post of June 15, 2005: outsourcing to reduce costs; Nov. 3, 2005: savings on e-billing; May 13, 2007: litigation against patent trolls; Nov. 11, 2005: $100 million spent on patent litigation; and Sept. 3, 2008: savings from offshore patent support.).

The War of “Legal” Department vs. “Law” Department! The brawl over “Associate” vs “Assistant” General Counsel!! The vicious struggle between backers of general counsel (plural) and general counsels. The endless and cruel conflicts over word choices that go to the heart of one’s self and the meaning of life.

So, to hyphenate or not to hyphenate. The ultimate arbiter, the uber-crowdsource, Google, reports that a search for “in-house counsel” returns 638,000 hits. A search for the unhyphenated twin, “inhouse counsel” returns a meager 12,500. A 50-to-1 lead trumps even election returns in Iraq!

But solid empirical research demands more. “Inhouse lawyer” has 10,200 hits; “In-house lawyer” has 74,500 (7-to-1 ratio). “Inhouse attorney” barely registers at 809; “In-house attorney scales 62,100 hits.

Rapid growth of Starbuck’s legal department. Corp. Bd. Mbr., Vol. 12, 2nd Quarter 2009 at 46, says that after Paula Boggs became the general counsel of Starbucks in 2002, she “tripled the size of the legal department to 147 attorneys.” That is caffeinated growth and adds to this blogs collection of rapid expansions (See my post of May 10, 2007: Clayton Holdings; Feb. 19, 2006 #4: Home Depot; Nov. 19, 2005: Google; June 4, 2007: Wal-Mart; and June 11, 2008: an Abu Dhabi growth spurt and Caterpillar’s.).

Seyfarth Shaw and Six Sigma for litigation. According to a Bloomberg article by Cynthia Coutts, FMC Technologies chose this firm as a finalist in its ongoing selection process because it uses Six Sigma techniques to manage litigation more efficiently. Six Sigma is a business management system developed by Motorola Inc. that uses statistical analysis to improve the quality of processes (See my post of Feb. 13, 2008: Six Sigma with 18 references.).

Paying firms by credit card, quickly. FMC Technologies offers one especially sweet carrot to the firms it retains: It pays law firms by credit card within 15 days of billing, according to a Bloomberg article by Cynthia Coutts (See my post of May 11, 2008: prompt payment with 10 references.).

With 4,500 posts under my belt, I looked back over the distribution of posts by the dozen substantive categories I use.

Outside Counsel Mgt. (976)

Talent Mgt. (602)

Ten more embedded metaposts (See my post of June 7, 2009: Part XXXIII), each embellished with the number of its back references.

1. Law departments of Asia (See my post of June 13, 2009: Asian law departments with 12 references.).

2. Collective actions (See my post of June 10, 2009: joint collaborations by legal departments with 18 references.).

Imagine! An image on this stodgy blog. Inspired by What About Clients, I inserted an image into a recent blog post. Invoking the Three Tenors of opera fame, I found a picture of them online, figured out how to save it and uploaded it to TypePad, although I did not size it or scroll text around it. For a visual guy, which I am, it’s been a long 4.5 years to get to one tiny bit of eye candy (See my post of June 9, 2009: three publicized general counsel.).

Another online community for lawyers, ESQChat.com. ESQChat.com is a private legal community committed to providing an online meeting place for attorneys to ask questions, learn more about the law, and make new acquaintances. The most recent post on its blog is dated August 14, 2008, however, so the online chatter has died down (See my post of Sept. 22, 2008: social networks such as LinkedIn, with 7 references.).

Group for general counsel and chief legal officers on LinkedIn.