Home > Page 113
Published on:

By

My friend Jeff Hodge, Executive Director – Corporate at doeLEGAL, wrote a fascinating blog post about law suits per person in major countries. He cites research in Christian Wollschlager, Exploring Global Landscapes of Litigation (Nomos 1998) and testimony before the House Committee on the Judiciary in 2004 by Theodore Eisenberg, a law professor at Cornell.

For a fuller list of countries, see Jeff’s post. In short, over a decade ago Germany came tops in this dubious metric, with 123.2 cases per 1,000 people. The US, in the middle, had 74.5 cases per 1,000; and France was the lowest, at 40.3 cases.

Not having reviewed the underlying data and methodology, all I can say is that if the cases against corporations are roughly similar in scope and expense across countries this information should make law department managers of litigation re-think where their litigation load and cost arises.

Published on:

By

People who conduct surveys – I raise my hand high – should be wary when they throw stones at other surveys’ methodologies. Even at risk, I will continue to chide others on how they word questions and expect rocks through the windows of my own benchmark survey in turn.

So, consider this question from the Third Annual Law Department Operations Survey: “Are there plans to improve or evaluate a new matter management and/or e-billing system in the next 12 months?”

Start with praise, Rees: The topic, updating two important classes of software, deserves a question and the findings could be revelatory. Further, to put a time frame on the question gives it more precision – “in the next 12 months.”

Continue reading
Published on:

By

Here are some of my candidates, in alphabetical order. I welcome other nominations of general counsel of this stature who deserve extraordinary recognition for their managerial contributions.

Bob Banks, one-time GC of Xerox and a founding father of what is now the ACC

Mark Chandler, Cisco’s outspoken and innovative GC, in part for his rousing speech at Northwestern a few years back

Continue reading
Published on:

By

Hugh Trevor-Roper’s book, History and the Enlightenment (Yale Univ. 2010) collects essays by the distinguished British historian. Trevor-Roper saw in the Enlightenment historians a seminal perspective, which is broadly called “philosophical history.” It rejects the mere accumulation of detail and fact; it rejects primary reliance on splendid examples of heroes and battles; it seeks explanations of events from the past that connect closely to the society at the time.

If those who think about management in law departments were to adopt a counterpart, perhaps called somewhat grandly “philosophical management,” they would not just describe what this or that law department does, nor would they focus on magazine-cover general counsel astride their department as a trend setter. They would try to derive fundamental operational principles that apply across law departments and that have demonstrable consequences.

Published on:

By

One of the questions on the Third Annual Law Department Operations Survey asked respondents to “rank the top three challenges of managing law department operations.” Where three points went to a first place choice, two points to second, and one to third, “Driving/Implementing change” led the pack. It collected 95 points, whereas the next most acute challenge, “Identify opportunities for business improvement & cost savings,” lagged far behind at 56 points. The third-ranked choice, “Document ROI of the position to the corporation,” at 47 also has to do with change. For these respondents, their hardest task has to do with pushing colleagues to improve.

By the way, the total points allocated to the 10 choices was 448. Since each respondent could assign 6 points and perhaps a couple did not allocate all of their points, that suggests 75 respondents,

All ten choices, except “Other” that only got 5 points, were upbeat, success-oriented and high-level activities. Ordering supplies, planning meetings, preparing PowerPoints for the General Counsel, finding replacements for ill secretaries and other, more mundane demands did not make the challenges list. They also take time and attention but making the trains run on time is not a challenge.

Published on:

By

Looking at how some metrics varied from last year to this year, based on participants in both the 2010 and 2011 General Counsel Metrics global benchmark survey, I found it hard to reach momentous conclusions. On the whole, the year-over-year shifts were modest by industry yet that aggregation did conceal some significant changes between individual companies.

To read the entire Morrison on Metrics column from InsideCounsel Exclusives, click on this link.

Published on:

By

Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones, Clever: Leading your smartest, most creative people (Harv. Bus. 2009) at 77, state that “high-IQ individuals frequently performed badly when they were put together in a team. In competitive situations, [the researcher cited] found that teams consisting of less clever people typically outperformed teams of clever people.” Grant lawyers higher than average IQs and assume they are competitive: a bad mix for teamwork.

Eleven pages later the authors observe that “professional teams have a tendency to be willfully naughty.” In other words, they often display staggeringly low levels of social discipline. Lawyers on teams goof off, disrupt, act immaturely and often make a hash of coordinated efforts.

Goffee and Jones also write that teams of professionals seek to avoid feedback. Lawyers know they are smart so why hear what others think. Confident in their skills and abilities, they plunge ahead.

Continue reading
By
Posted in: Talent
Published on:
Updated:
Published on:

By

Beliefs of general counsel regarding how best to relate to outside law firms vary enormously. Those ideologies, I submit somewhat puckishly, could be characterized with the well-known spectrum of political ideologies. Let me sketch my sense of the matchups.

Reactionary general counsel favor turning back to days of yore when a few gentlemanly law firms handled everything of consequence, monopolized legal talent, eschewed sordid marketing, sent “services rendered” statements every now and then, and didn’t change partners from year to year. Tradition, loyalty, don’t rock the boat…

Conservative general counsel use more firms but still defend hourly billing, bow to decisions by the partner as to whom to staff, keep their in-house lawyers churning through basic legal services, reluctantly invest in matter management software, and review bills in hardcopy — sometimes.

Continue reading
Published on:

By

Part LII of a collection of embedded metaposts, perhaps a florilegium!

Florilegium: a collection of short literary pieces. Please enjoy my metapost florilegium!

  1. Awards to law departments (See my post of Feb. 21, 2011: honors bestowed on law departments with 9 references.).
Continue reading
Published on:

By

Programs that run full-fledged capabilities, including those that run on specific hardware, such as Apple’s or tablet devices, have the edge now over web-based apps. So-called native apps (aka platform apps) can be visually rich and lively. Now, as the newest generation of the code for designing Web pages, called HTML5 (HyperText Markup Language, 5th generation), spreads and browsers upgrade to take advantage of it, the functionality-and-appearance gap will narrow.

The in-houser of tomorrow – well, in the next few years – may find a raft of very specialized apps released by law firms, legal publishers, law schools or consultants that bring pinpoint information to their mobile devices. At some point, tech-savvy law departments might swap or sell apps they develop. Apps will show off intellectual capital, market the provider, collect and distribute useful data, and cement relationships.

The wide reach of the Web and its agnosticism as to devices and operating systems will enable HTML5 apps, as they compete more equally with native apps, to fill all kinds of gaps in what is available for law departments.

Continue reading