Management Tools Used by General Counsel

Borrowing freely from the well-known study of Bain on management tools, I propose the following to be the most common 18 tools used by general counsel.

1. Balanced Scorecards

2. Benchmarking

3. Budgets internally

4. Budgets for outside counsel

5. Client satisfaction surveys

6. Competitive bidding by firms

7. Convergence

8. Document management systems

9. Electronic billing

10. Employee satisfaction surveys

11. Intranet site for law

12. Matter management systems

13. Mission statements

14. Off-site retreats

15. Personnel evaluations

16. Psychometric tests

17. Retainer letters

18. Strategic plans

How to define “tool?”  A known method for achieving a specific result, often used during a project of defined duration – sounds formal and fancy, and I welcome other people’s suggestions for these management aids.