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Our times revere expertise. Lawyers with deep experience in an area of law, such that they write articles, publish books, speak on panels, head committees, and lead task forces, have mastered their domain and achieved recognition. Whether or not met with external acknowledgement, experienced inside lawyers build up incredible knowledge about specialized areas of law (See my post of Oct. 22, 2008: SMEs with 7 references.).

Expertise comes at some cost, however, so let’s consider several downsides. Expert lawyers may:

  1. Use outside counsel more because they spot arcane issues and recognize (or welcome) where they want advice or a sounding board (See my post of Nov. 8, 2005: more use of outside counsel by specialists.).
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“Take no man’s word for it.” I subscribe wholeheartedly to the motto of the Royal Society (London) in the enlightened version: “Take no person’s word for it.” As a partisan of empirical evidence in law department management or at least explanations that try to be objective, I look for proof, not anecdote or assertion (See my post of July 20, 2011: the principle of charity.).

No-cost Federal Mediation Conciliation Services. I was told during a consulting project that the FMCS provides free intermediation when impasses develop between unions and employers. The service has professional mediators who are quite good. Who pays for this reduction in legal fees for certain companies (See my post of May 15, 2005: Nat. Labor Relations Board; Aug. 30, 2006: Industrial Relations departments deal with unions; and Dec. 22, 2006: long-serving GC of Steelworker’s union.)?

Calendar year or fiscal year for benchmarks. Benchmark data typically covers calendar years but perhaps it should cover the fiscal year of the participants. That cutoff might make it easier for law departments to assemble the data on spending when their company is not on a calendar fiscal year. I don’t think the data would be distorted by seasonality (See my post of July 8, 2011: seasonal fluxes of invoices.).

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With the promotion of Laura Witte to General Counsel at $108 billion Cargill, more has come out about that huge conglomerate and its legal group. According to Corp. Counsel, July 2011 at 38, the company has 131,000 workers spread across 66 countries. Of the 200 lawyers in-house, 120 of them are located in 30 different countries outside the United States.

To have 6 out of 10 lawyers internationally based places Cargill at the high end of that particular benchmark. Witte puts it well: “Our legal team footprint really matches the footprint of the businesses and the company.”

With 655 workers per lawyer, the ratio for Cargill has dropped significantly since 2008. Finally, at 1.8 lawyers in-house per billion dollars of revenue, Cargill – quintessentially a commodities and business-to-business enterprise – not surprisingly ranks very low on legal staff as a percentage of revenue.

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Abbott Laboratories was clobbered on a patent infringement case, a smack-down jury verdict in June 2009 for $1.67 billion. The article about the ensuring appeal, in Corp. Counsel, July 2011 at 21, vividly conveys the pressure Abbott’s general counsel was under as a result of the huge adverse award. The law firm of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr had represented Abbott in the defense and trial. The Wilmer partner in charge offered to step aside for the appeal Abbott took, and was surprised when Abbott retained his firm for the appeals round.

The point made in the article is that trial counsel who lose expect to be terminated. Another firm, with a fresh viewpoint and objectivity about what was done during the case below, typically takes over. Admittedly, appeals are very rare, but those “terminations” shouldn’t be counted in the same category as “firing” a firm.

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Every now and then an in-house lawyer may learn of proposed legislation and alert clients to its possible effects. Here and there a lawyer passes on advice based on a court’s ruling or experience from a deal. Lawyers can sometimes be ahead of the game.

And yet: mostly, law departments handle work when clients initiate it or fall into problems. A law department can try to be as prepared as possible, but shouldn’t jump the clients’ gun. The over-use of the term “proactive” stems more from wishful thinking than from reality (See my post of Sept. 17, 2006: proactive counseling criticized as a term; Oct. 16, 2006: attribute of outside counsel; Feb. 10, 2007: desired attribute of inside counsel; Feb. 14, 2009: clichéd term; May 21, 2009: Nestle and its claimed proactivity in the legal department; and Jan. 28, 2011: a jargon giant.).

Law departments are service functions; they serve when another function – the commercial side of the business – creates a need for their services (See my post of Sept.22, 2009: Peter Kurer’s comparison of business managers and lawyers.).

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This blog, proud as I am of it and hard as I toil on it, still remains scattered, opportunistic, abbreviated, and idiosyncratic. Right, it’s a blog. Why don’t I craft a fuller, more thoughtful book instead?

As Amy Winehouse sang, “No, no, no.” Books inevitably push you to fill in the holes with blather. You can’t know enough so you pontificate or bloviate. Second, they consume huge amounts of time in the writing and more in the publishing and marketing. Who pays for books anymore or reads them if they do? I think this blog has more chance of making a difference. As James Joyce closed Ulysses: “Yes, yes, yes.”

In any case, many books about law department management already beckon the interested reader (See my post (See my post of Nov. 16, 2009: books about law departments with 8 references; and July 27, 2011: several more books.).

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“Ariba Inc., the maker of one of the main reverse-auction software tools, claims that around 40% of today’s market for legal work – a threefold increase from just a few years ago – is contracted through electronic, online means, most of which involve a reverse auction, according to Sunda Kamakshisundaran, a marketing manager for the company.”

This statement is risible. Today’s “market for legal work” in the U.S. likely exceeds $100 billion. If “most” retentions of outside counsel “involve a reverse auction” – with real-time bids submitted online and revised downward, I’ll eat my hat. The Wall St. J., Aug. 1, 2011, which published this in an article about the purported rise in reverse actions, should know better. A vendor’s self-serving, ambiguous, preposterous assertion should not be printed unchallenged.

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As the primary source of data on legal spend, both inside and outside, the accounts payable function services many law departments. Especially small departments, one and two lawyers, turn to their finance group for what totals and breakouts they can obtain. It is the stand-in for matter management software or for spreadsheets and home-grown databases.

My most recent column online for InsideCounsel, published under Morrison on Metrics on July 18th, considers some of the difficulties of that arrangement.

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Informal get-togethers at lunch, sometimes known as brown bag lunches and sometimes referred to as lunch-and-learns, can serve a variety of purposes. Low cost, convivial, flexible, they offer many pluses, although they also impinge on people’s personal time.

My previous posts have touched on them in terms of improving morale, training and educating, communicating policies, and helping interns feel at home (See my post of April 14, 2005: boost morale with brown bag lunches; May 1, 2005: spread CLE knowledge to the rest of the law department; July 9, 2007: technology Lunch & Learns; Jan. 2, 2009: knowledge management with lunch-and-learns; Dec. 7, 2009: interns at Bristol Myers Squibb; and Dec. 17, 2010: Shell and learning lunches.).

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Part LVII in a series of collected metaposts embedded previously

  1. Admission of in-house attorneys to practice law (See my post of July 5, 2011 #2: in-house lawyers admitted to practice through reciprocity with 6 references.).
  2. Best practices, why none (See my post of July 31, 2011: unicorns of best practices with 8 references.).
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