Law Department Management Blog
In-house counsel app. Thomson Reuters has released what it believes is the first iPad app delivering corporate counsel specific information. Called GC Advisor, the app offers information, technology and legal research tips, as well as articles and CLE classes. There is also an RSS feed to CLE-accredited webcasts from the West LegalEdcenter and to Twitter feeds. The app is available from iTunes, according to Charles Christian’s American Legal Technology Insider, May 2012 at 5 (See my post of Feb. 1, 2011: app industry for matter management functions; and April 15, 2011: information delivered in-house by mobile apps.).
How many in-house lawyers practice full-time in New York State. Under a rule promulgated in 2011, Part 522, “All in-house counsel employed full-time in New York as of Part 522’s effective date, April 20, 2011, were required to apply for registration within 90 days of the effective date.” This update comes from NYSBA Inside, Spring/Summer 2012 at 16, which is devoted mostly to the attorney-client privilege. Here is a way, perhaps, to find out how many in-house lawyers are in one of our largest states, and perhaps even how many law departments! To learn more about the New York requirement, write one of the co-authors, Vincent Syracuse (See my post of May 23, 2012: in-house attorneys in the United States.).
Extravagant number of lawsuits in Brazil would skew metrics. It seems innocuous to ask on a survey for “your number of pending lawsuits.” Then I read in Alternatives, the newsletter of the International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution, May, 2012 at 120, about Brazil, “with 70 million court cases now pending.” A Brazilian litigator observed that “It’s very cheap to litigate in Brazil” and that cases routinely drag on for 10-15 years. It would totally distort a world-wide count of cases, such as for a benchmark study, if a company doing business in Brazil has more there than everywhere else combined.
Scale analysis. John Brockman, Ed., This Will Make You Smarter (Harper Collins 2012) at 185, offers a discussion by Giulio Boccaletti on scale analysis. The author claims that scale analysis is “one of the most robust bridges between the linear and the nonlinear, the simple and the complex” (See my post of Aug. 25, 2009 #4: law departments as complex non-linear adaptive systems; and Nov. 26, 2011: chaos theory and legal departments.).
Gender difference in raises expected for joining another company’s law department. From the ACC Docket, May 2012 at 18, which draws on a study done by a recruiter, comes a troubling finding. “Men, who said they would require, on average, a 19.2 percent rise to move, expected more than women, who expected only 13 percent.” The recruiter suggests that women take more into account that just salary, but it could be that women need to have more confidence in their abilities and the compensation they deserve.