Articles Posted in Thoughts/Observations

You are all invited, at least those of you who review and approve legal bills, to test drive my new polling capability. The question is on the upper right, below my blook notice. Pick your answer from the choices and we can all see instantly how the results shape up. By the way, the polling software discloses nothing about you. I see the same results, and only those results, that you see.

If polling works, I plan to ask questions periodically and then write about the results. If you have a question about law department management that you would like to ask, email me rees@reesmorrison.com and I will try to include it in a poll.

There is no way for me to tell if someone is legitimate or if someone votes more than once, so I will assume every one of my readers is on the best behavior.

Polar diagrams. Florence Nightingale used a polar diagram, similar to a pie chart, to depict illnesses and injuries, according to Gregory Berns, iconoclast: a neuroscientist reveals how to think differently (Harvard Bus. Press 2008) at 43. A polar diagram shows the magnitude of a quantity in several directions. A global law department might describe its dispersion of lawyers or legal spend with such a diagram (See my post of May 7, 2008: methods to portray data with 9 references and 22 cited in one of them.).

ASP  SaaS. What I thought of as an ASP (Application Service Provider) is now sometimes referred to as Software as a Service (SaaS). SaaS software is not on the client’s server, and requires only a web browser, security clearance, and permission to access the website. That availability over the Internet is a benefit because a law department does not require any hardware and, whenever there is a product enhancement, it can be rolled out seamlessly without a need for the client – or its hard-pressed IT department – to do anything (See my post of March 26, 2006: IT departments and ASP’s in terms of support; Feb. 6, 2008: an ASP matter management system; April 26, 2006: IT referees the decision regarding ASP; July 5, 2006: ASP compliance systems; April 22, 2007: e-billing systems as ASP; and April 7, 2006: advantages of ASP e-billing in terms of data availability to vendors.).

Another matter management system, with e-billing. CSC Matter Management enables users to define templates, custom screens and data fields. CSC E-Billing is an optional module available within CSC Matter Management (See my post of Aug. 5, 2008: matter management systems with 35 references.).

My friend and fellow blogger, in-house counsel Hanna Hhasl-Kelchner,
has kicked off a new way to help people with legal management questions. People are invited to submit questions and I will do my best to answer them.

On her “Ask the No Nonsense Lawyer” website she recently posted an announcement about the opportunity and the interview with me. Click here to see how Hanna presents this fun thing to do.

Here are the most recent embedded metaposts with URL links (See my post of Jan.30, 2009: Part XXIV.), each of which shows the number of references cited within them.

1. Accounting concepts such as accrual (See my post of March 18, 2007: accounting terms with 15 references; Aug. 12, 2008: options expensed; Sept. 5, 2007: compensation over $1 million; and Dec. 3, 2007: cash basis and reserves and P&L.).

2. Best practices (See my post of Feb.14, 2009: best practices with 24 references and one metapost.).

Until I spoke recently with Elizabeth Chambliss, a professor at NY Law School, I had only thought of law firms, some of the large ones at least, as having a single (and perhaps part-time) “general counsel” (See my post of Sept. 22, 2006: general counsel of law firms.). Chambliss mentioned that a number of the sprawling firms have multiple in-house lawyers, some of whom resolve conflicts issues.

It makes sense. If you have 2,000-some practicing lawyers around the globe, you spawn enough legal issues to feed a group of out-house in-house lawyers. Wait until law firms go public!

Ironically, this blog’s coverage of how law departments supervise law firms may also provide guidance to the internal law departments of those very same firms.

After a corporate spin-off, such as when Kraft left the Philip Morris orbit, Catalent emerged from Cardinal Health, or Cendant broke itself into pieces, a spanking new law department enters the world (See my post of March 2, 2008: spin-off; and April 9, 2006: mentions Tyco, Cendant and Wendy’s.).

The first year or so may be traumatic for the spin-off legal team as everything descends on them, including an extra load of transition work, and promised backup from the parent company may fall short of what is needed. Some of the best lawyers may elect to remain with the other company. Also, many spin-offs start out deliberately under-nourished because senior management wants to be lean at the beginning and build corporate staff only as needed.

In To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch calmly deals with a rabid dog. He shoots it. Similarly, a number of statements quoted on this blog have triggered in me a metaphorical desire to do the same. After telling off another quote I disagree with (See my post of Feb. 15, 2009: critical legal issue is reducing business risk.), I unearthed other quotes that irked me and prompted me to level my rhetorical rifle at them.

“Delaying resolution [of a lawsuit] spreads defense costs into next year’s budget. A case with a defense cost of $75,000 per year for three years actually looks better than a case resolved in one year with a $100,000 defense cost” (See my post of Feb. 20, 2008: GCs do not deliberately prolong litigation.).

“In many cases, management has no idea how law departments spend money” (See my post of Jan. 23, 2009: GCs should be ashamed if they fail to educate executives about activities and expenditures of law department.).

Cost savings in discovery from the use of translation software. If discovery produces documents that are not in a language you or your litigation lawyers can read, t can be dramatically cheaper to have software do the brunt of the translation before people review the documents that remain. This, according to a comment in InsideCounsel, Jan. 2009 at 38, could mean a difference like “$15 per page for human translation to 15 cents using translation software” (See my post of Feb. 9, 2006: translation software for non-English speaking lawyers; March 23, 2007: machine translation and its growing capabilities; Feb. 6, 2008: matter management system that translates; and June 4, 2008: IBM’s real-time translation software.).

Ethics/crisis hotline providers. For ethics/crisis hotline, the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) 2008 Law Department Survey at 11 lists Global Compliance Network Service – 11%; Ethics Point and the Network – 5%. Some other provider besides these three serve 14%, while “internal processes” are in place for 48% (See my post of Dec. 31, 2006: ethics hotlines and compliance officers at Raytheon; Dec. 19, 2005: BP hotline for employees and online ethics training; May 8, 2007: third parties who answer hotline calls; and July 5, 2006: the genre of software as a cottage industry.).

Two more advantages of offshore legal work. InsideCounsel, Jan. 2009 at 45, mentions that “the workers that offshoring companies employ … tend to be better educated and more dedicated than temporary employees in the U.S.” Offshore they are permanent employees and proud of their job; onshore temps might be biding their time while they search for another job. The second point is that time zone differences allow work to be done in India, for example, while lawyers in the U.S. are sleeping.

Venture capitalists might struggle to find bonanzas in these startup ideas that aim at legal departments, but at least a dozen ideas for aspiring entrepreneurs have appeared on this blog. Some are fanciful, some are practical and all are waiting for someone to seize the business opportunity (See my post of May 2, 2008: esq-Harmony; Oct. 29, 2008: neural nets and litigation costs; May 14, 2006: databases; July 21, 2005: more database prospects; June 30, 2006: search powers; Sept. 22, 2006: invoice readers; Feb. 21, 2007: OCR invoices; Feb. 15, 2006: prediction markets; and May 4, 2005: stock trading based on patent litigation.).

Fame and fortune (OK, your admin will know you and the irregular cash flow) await someone who builds on these ideas and others (See my post of Feb. 16, 2006: wiki technology; July 29, 2007: ambient orbs; and Nov. 18, 2007: training on virtual worlds.).

More broadly, all the cottage industries that swirl around legal departments evince entrepreneurial energy (See my post of July 21, 2006: cottage industry with 10 references.).

Write me. Break radio silence. Feel the guilt of the lurking proletariat. Toss timidity to the winds. Bring a smile to the face of a blogger with even an “Attaway!”. Click here to email Rees Morrison and let me know whether the enormous amount of time and energy I pour into this blog has made any difference to you or what would help you.

Better, what should I do with the next 4,000 posts and all that stand behind them? I have been doing a huge amount behind the scrim; any ideas?

Thanks, all you readers.