Articles Posted in Thoughts/Observations

The difference between a business plan and a strategic plan. A session promoted at an upcoming conference about business plans for law departments suggests that a business plan aligns with the company’s goals for the year and describes the tactics for how it will meet those goals. A strategic plan has a multi-year time horizon and is more visionary. A business plan is to a strategic plan as management is to leadership (See my post of June 25, 2008: strategic plan with 10 references.).

“Subscribe to listservs,” to hear about management techniques. J. Martin Acevedo, general counsel of Companions & Homemakers, recommends listservs in ACC Docket, Vol. 26, Nov. 2008 at 20. According to its website, the Association of Corporate Counsel maintains listservs for Chief Legal Officers, Law Department Executive Leaders, Pro Bono, and Diversity. Are readers aware of other listservs that contribute to law department management?

Statistics about this blog. I have 69 subscribers under BlogLines http://www.bloglines.com/myblogs

Hear a document to help you proofread it. Text Speaker, software from New York’s Deskshare, states on its website a feature some in-house counsel might like: “Have the computer “read aloud” any text document. When you’re proofreading, hearing the words aloud makes it easy to catch common typing errors.” Nevr thot of thaat.

Matching gift donations – not included in fully-loaded costs of lawyers. In the midst of the gift-giving season, I realized that corporation matches of charitable contributions by in-house lawyers are not reflected in law department budgets. (Actually, the amounts might be buried in some overall administrative charge to the department.) The amounts are small, admittedly, in relation to the internal budget of a legal department, but my point is confirmed: what it costs a company to maintain an employee lawyer is understated (See my post of Aug. 27, 2008: fully-loaded cost per lawyer hour with 31 references.).

Total respondents to a survey does not mean respondents to a particular question. It is not enough to know how many people responded to a survey. For a particular question in the survey, you want to know how many of the respondents completed it (often shown as the “n,” such as “n=34”). I have pored over a survey that had about 50 respondents, but noticed that on several questions, only half of them or so completed it (See my post of March 2, 2008: surveys of law departments with 72 references.).

Software that helps to review promotional materials. I heard during a consulting project about software that reviews advertising, developed for Unilever’s law department in Australia. Apparently, business managers down under have some legal responsibility regarding contract review, unlike in the US, so they had more incentive to build a software aid (See my post of Jan. 28, 2007: artificial intelligence and the long view.).

Reversal of a District Court Judge who does not think much of in-house objectivity. See In re Oracle Sec. Litig., 829 F. Supp. 1176, 1188-90 (N.D. Cal. 1993)(applying Delaware law, holding that “in-house attorneys are inevitably subservient to the interests of the defendant directors and officers whom they serve,” and rejecting a special litigation committee’s recommendation to terminate litigation.). I reverse and remand for consideration in light of Rees Morrison v. Out of Date View, 1 L. Dept. Mgt. 85 (C. Princeton 2008) (“outside attorneys are inevitably subservient to the interests of the fees they hanker to collect”).

Companies that track proposed legislation and regulations. MultiState Associates notifies clients of proposed bills and regulations and when they pass. There are a handful of companies that provide similar services (See my post of Feb. 25, 2008: Benchmark Legal.).

With this post I have reached 210 embedded metaposts with URL links, each of which shows the number of references cited within them (See my post of Nov. 9, 2008: Part XX.).

1. Billing rate increases (See my post of Dec. 5, 2008: rate increases by firms with 18 references.).

2. Charge-back of internal time (See my post of Nov. 9, 2008: charge backs of internal lawyer time with 8 references.).

Discipline in law departments is milder than on British ships of the 18th century. Of the 1,556 sailors on 15 British naval vessels that sailed into the Pacific from 1765 to 1793, 21.5 percent were flogged. Michael Shermer, Science Friction: Where the Known Meets the Unknown (Time Books 2005) at 113, offers this little-known fact about keeping workers in line. General counsel can discipline lawyers, even to the point of terminating them (See my post of Feb. 8, 2006: real-estate lawyers laid off; Aug. 24, 2005: exit interviews; Feb. 4, 2006: non-competes; June 20, 2007: risk of job loss by GC when new CEO arrives; and Sept. 17, 2005: severance package.), but corporal punishment is not in vogue.

Theories referred to on this blog. Regretting the lack of theories in law department management (See my post of Dec. 6, 2008: Darwin’s Dictum*6.), I realized a surfeit of other theories are bandied about on this blog (See my post of Jan. 1, 2008: Agency; March 26, 2006: Choice; April 2, 2005: Choice; April 5, 2007: Cognitive Dissonance; July 10, 2007: Cognitive; Dec. 19, 2005: Complexity; Feb. 18, 2006 #3: origins of Complexity Theory; May 21, 2008: Experience Curve; March 20, 2008: Human Capital; May 23, 2008 #4: Information; Sept. 5, 2007: Normal Accident; Aug. 28, 2005: Systems; and Jan. 8, 2008: Transaction Cost Economics.). Perhaps some of this theory rubs off.

Far-flung law US law department. From Diversity & the Bar, Vol. 10, Nov./Dec. 2008 at 34, we learn that Cargill, Inc. has 160,000 employees and operates in more than 65 countries. “Its global team consists of 192 lawyers, and another 173 personnel work in 25 countries” (See my post of Sept. 16, 2008: foreign locations of in-house counsel with 11 references.).

Many of my posts recount a law department practice. I rarely summon any theoretical framework because I cannot perceive for law department management any persuasive theories. No one has unified the field of managing in-house lawyers with fundamental principles that do not contradict at some point.

E=MC2 may someday also stand for Effectiveness = Mass (number of lawyers in a department) multiplied by the Speed of Thought Squared, but not now.

When Michael Shermer, Science Friction: Where the Known Meets the Unknown (Time Books 2005) at 71, states “Darwin’s Dictum” – extracted from a letter Darwin wrote in 1861 – I cringed for not complementing observations on this blog with some “view,” some larger theoretical construct (See my post of June 10, 2007: facts gathered depend on one’s theoretical understanding; Feb. 21, 2007: no “facts” without some theory and multiple explanations.). I wish I could advance over-arching theories, but, alas, such is not my gift, not yet.

Many people think of evolution as a process of nature that leads to the improvement of a species. In a Darwinian struggle to reproduce, a “better” species comes about over time. Analogously, observers of legal departments may believe that over the past two decades, law department management has “evolved” to a more skillful, understood, and effective level. Ours is a time of “better managed” law departments.

Other people think of evolution “as creating a richly branching bush, with each branch and twig shooting off in no particular direction, and no species more ‘advanced’ than any other. The reason is that evolution does not look to the future. Its guiding principle is the here and now – local adaptations to local environments in order to get your genes into the next generation. There is no long-term goal or progressive purpose to evolution.” The quote comes from Michael Shermer, Science Friction: Where the Known Meets the Unknown (Time Books 2005) at 45.

To the extent either evolutionary analogy holds, we should look at law departments as trying to adapt to and optimize for local environments in order to thrive the next year. The struggle is not against saber-tooth tigers, but outside law firms; not wooly mammoths, but executive peers who want to grab more of the corporate budget; not inexorable glaciers but clients who resist legal advice.

According to its website, “Global Leaders in Law is a forum, which has been established by a group of respected international GCs and former GCs united in the belief that as a group we can effect significant change in the perception of General Counsel as Global Leaders. Deepak Malhotra, the energetic general counsel of UK-based Constellation, has been one of the driving forces behind Global Leaders in Law.

Among the many groups that cater to general counsel, this one stands out for its international appeal, its independence, and its focus on executive leadership by top lawyers both within companies and on the global stage.

Offers of judgment under FRCP 68. Warning: I stopped practicing law years ago, so take the following comment as a lay understanding. If a party offers to pay an amount to the other side in settlement, and the other side refuses, then if the eventual award comes in at less than the amount offered, under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 68 no attorneys’ fees are available to the other side. I am sure there are many complexities to offers of judgment, but they sound like a potent tool for inside lawyers (See my post of July 21, 2006: parallel settlement and litigation counsel.).

Reactions to my views on large firms and their discontents. My article on why very large law firms have unremarked downsides has garnered a bit of attention. Carolyn Elefant on Legal Blog Watch notes the article approvingly. JD Hull, in his blog What About Paris, says that I “nailed” the points. Click here for a PDF of the article.

Russian Corporate Counsel Association. The Martindale-Hubble website announces that the Russian Corporate Counsel Association has more than 300 in-house counsel members, from 93 different companies – both domestic and international. Membership is restricted: “While the association is happy to work alongside lawyers who belong to legal, consulting or accountancy firms, such individuals are not permitted to become members of the RCCA” (See my post of Aug. 13, 2008: 10 other national organizations for inside counsel.).

PDQ learn these (See my post of Nov. 27, 2005: acronyms, jargon and corp-speak.):

EMEA (See my post of Nov. 13, 2007: Europe, Middle East and Africa)

CAGR (See my post of Nov. 26, 2006: compound annual growth rate.)