Law Department Management Blog
Three times I have commented on how to train internal clients and I mentioned 11 different techniques (See my post of July 14, 2005: lecture, lecture discussion, film, small group discussion, case studies, role playing, practical exercises, and unstructured exercises; Dec. 19, 2005: “in-class training, computer-based training [CBT], and paper-based training; and Dec. 20, 2005: checklists of what clients need to gather before calling and posts on the intranet.). Nearly a score of additional training tools are available to law departments
- Explain your advice
- Publish answers to Frequently Asked Questions
- Circulate educational material
- Circulate horror stories of other companies who ran afoul of the law
- Post material online, such as compliance training (See my post
- Institute Requests for Legal Services that have on them some assistance (See my post of March 26, 2007: pros and cons of Requests for Services.).
- Assign a gatekeeper at each major business unit (See my post of Oct. 17, 2007: a client gatekeeper to review major bills.).
- Negotiate Service Level Agreements (See my post of March 6, 2009: service level agreements (SLA) with 6 references.).
- Make available document assembly applications that include question-specific help (See my post of Feb. 26, 2008: document assembly with 16 references.).
- Annotate documents with plain-English explanations
- Push back requests for legal services if the clients is not ready and explain how they need to prepare more
- Circuit ride and visit clients as a store-front lawyer (See my post of Oct. 10, 2008: visits by patent attorneys.).
- Conduct simulations
- Release an on-line game
- Email a “Legal Learning of the Day” (See my post of June 1, 2008 #3: Law in the Loo.).
- Distribute “cheat sheets” for common processes that involve the legal department
- Produce training videos (See my post of Feb. 25, 2007: video recordings as a knowledge management tool; and Oct. 3, 2008: ethics training at Lockheed Martin
- Record podcasts (See my post of Feb. 26, 2009: my podcast on management topics.).