Law Department Management Blog
Ways to encourage ideas. Patrick Lamb left a very good comment to my post about ways to encourage discussion (See my post of Feb. 18, 2009: ten suggestions on how to hear from everyone in a group.). “One of the techniques that I have used frequently that works very well is to distribute recipe cards to everyone, have them write (in pen, in caps) their idea / recommendation / suggestion such that I can then pick them all up, shuffle them, redistribute one to each participant and have that participant read the card aloud to the group.” Good idea, Patrick.
Complications with national, state and local taxes on law firm invoices. I had occasion recently to review the engagement letter of a law firm based in India. One provision covered certain employment-related taxes that would be added to the firm’s bills. It made me realize once again that invoices from firms are not just for professional fees and cost disbursements (See my post of July 15, 2005: tax complications; April 22, 2007: e-billing program that handles taxes; and Dec. 1, 2006 #6: US state taxes on law firm services.).
ISDA documentation done offshore by Deutsche Bank legal. The Financial Times reported this In Oct. 17, 2008 in a piece by Michael Peel. That kind of work, where documents are quite standardized but it is important to prepare them correctly and administer them, is perfectly suited for offshore service providers (See my post of June 25, 2008: offshore legal services with 27 references.).
Enterprise contract-management system for law departments. In the Spring of 2007, UK-based Altien released Altien for Corporate Legal, which it describes as “an enterprise CMS offering for legal departments that deals with the document management and workflow needs of in-house staff.” (See my post of Dec. 6, 2007: document management with 15 references.). The software runs on IBM FileNet Enterprise Content Management, the platform resulting from the 2006 FileNet acquisition by IBM.