Law Department Management Blog
Doggedly, I compile these monthly summaries of the elite, but does anyone care?
Most firms in survey say that law departments ask for UTBMS code billing but give no guidance based on codes (July 5, 2011)
Three-quarters of the respondents said clients remained mute regarding any conclusions they might have drawn from coded bills.
The inherent back-and-forth grumbling between HQ lawyers and business unit lawyers (July 8, 2011)
Reasons why both sides point fingers at the other.
Two methods, somewhat brutal, to elicit views from everyone at a meeting (July 12, 2011)
A couple of ideas and more on the chilling effect of the top lawyer.
The single most flagrant obstacle to improvement in law department operations (July 12, 2011)
An unwillingness to step away from the flow of their work and think about how it might be handled more effectively.
The ethical line between RFPs that exploit good ideas and those that respect the proposers’ intellectual capital (July 15, 2011)
No law department should knowingly engage in a pretend RFP process or deliberately siphon off good ideas to benefit other law firms without some recompense.
Fourteen reasons, ranked by legitimacy, why a law departments doesn’t bring the hammer down on its law firms (July 21, 2011)
An ambitious list, iin declining order of legitimacy. A later post added a couple more.
Where do “matter management systems” end and other applications pick up? (July 26, 2011)
The ambit of matter management systems extends broadly.
In a competitive bid, a creative incumbent worries that the client may think: “Why have you waited?” (July 27, 2011)
Rather than lambasting incumbents, wiser heads understand that not many service providers volunteer to reduce their fees or profit and that competitive juices fire up the imagination.
Three major trends credited with transforming the legal industry, and thoughts from the law department side (July 30, 2011)
Increasingly sophisticated clients, international legal issues, and powerful information technology.
Ten myths, misconceptions and mistakes by general counsel about software (July 31, 2011)
Obviously, not just general counsel suffer from these technology-related mis-perceptions.