Click on any of these ten embedded metaposts to see my prior posts. Each of these (See my post of Nov. 5, 2009: Part XLII) is shadowed by the number of its back references.

1. Books on law department management (See my post of Nov. 16, 2009: books about law departments with 8 references.).

2. Evaluations of law firms II (See my post of Nov. 6, 2009: law firm assessments with 19 references.).

3. Full-time equivalent (FTE) (See my post of Dec. 15, 2009: full-time-equivalent lawyers and others with 6 references.).

4. General counsel hyperpost (See my post of Nov. 18, 2009: general counsel with 6 metaposts.).

5. Malpractice (See my post of Nov. 8, 2009: malpractice of law firms with 8 references.).

6. Productivity through talent (See my post of Nov. 29, 2009: hyperpost on productivity and six talent steps, with 12 metaposts.)

7. Security of information and hardware, protection (See my post of Dec. 7, 2009: methods of protecting ideas and tools with 5 references.).

8. Train clients (See my post of Nov. 19, 2009: training methods for clients with 8 references.).

9. Transaction-cost economics (See my post of Nov. 19, 2009: Coasian analysis with 6 references.).

10. Weighted metrics (See my post of Nov. 10, 2009: weighted metrics with 12 references.).

Michael Mauboussin, Think Twice: Harnessing the Power of Counterintuition (Harvard Bus. Press 2009) at xix, counsels us not to overdo information gathering.

"Indeed, typical decision-makers allocate only 25 percent of their time to thinking about the problem properly and learning from experience. Most spend their time gathering information, which feels like progress and appears diligent to superiors, but information without context is falsely empowering. If you do not properly understand the challenges involved in your decision, this data will offer nothing to improve the accuracy of its decision and actually may create misplaced confidence.”

In-house counsel often want more facts before they make a call, we all want more facts. But Mauboussin’s point is solid: metathinking – how do I frame this decision and make it more effectively – increases the odds in favor of successful judgment more than continued data collection.

This assertion by James Potter, General Counsel of Del Monte Foods, pokes up its provocative head in David Galbenski,Unbound: How Entrepreneurship is Dramatically Transforming Legal Services Today (2009) at 192.

Oh that his conclusion were true: "consequently, our clients will increasingly insist that business consultants be brought in to analyze the internal processes of the legal department."

Aside from that self-serving thought, I believe Potter speaks too harshly. Blanket condemnations make good quotes but bad evidence. He cites nothing as an example of hidebound practices. My view is that many general counsel these days are quite current with solid practices but find it hard to maneuver given severe budget constraints. More fundamentally, no consensus exists regarding what exactly are best-in-class processes for legal departments.

Nearly all large legal departments find themselves with a single lawyer in one or more locations. Int’l In-House Counsel J., Vol 2, Summer 2009 at 1301, doesn’t mince words: “For those who will be the only lawyer on site at a location, seniority is a must.” It takes experience and grit to survive as an outpost. “Attempting to operate independently with anything less than seven to ten years experience in a relevant field is essentially doomed to fail.”

You have been warned! No solo whipper-snappers (See my post of Sept. 9, 2009: departments with only a single lawyer with 7 references and 1 metapost.)!

Int’l In-House Counsel J., Vol 2, Summer 2009 at 1299, comments broadly on the advisability in larger legal departments to divide into regions and appoint a top lawyer for each. “It is likely advisable to do so if the business is operating in more than 10 countries.” That is one trip-wire, but I believe that distant time zones and a babble of languages justify regional legal heads more than sheer numbers of countries. Europe can be one region even though it covers far more than 10 countries.

More deeply, I favor an organizational structure based on the client’s structure, so if the client operates around the world through business units, that is the better alignment for the legal department than geographic slices (See my post of Dec. 23, 2005: Royal Dutch Shell’s regional head lawyers; Feb. 15, 2006: Unilever’s regional counsel; March 17, 2006: five regional legal groups at HSBC; May 2, 2008: regional general counsel vs. business unit general counsel; Aug. 5, 2008: various allocations of responsibilities within global law departments; Oct. 24, 2008: Eli Lilly and its early counsel heads in regions; Feb. 13, 2009: Cadbury and its eight regional heads; and April 25, 2009: Schneider Electric and its three regional counsel.).

What your internal clients think of you is the essence of your department’s “brand.” One somewhat far-fetched way to burnish that brand is to seek professional help. A lawyer writing in Int’l In-House Counsel J., Vol 2, Summer 2009 at 1190, tells us that “I heard about a legal department that asked its company’s marketing department to re-brand its image.”

Yeah, dude, a chill logo, foxy service mark, ads with edge on the corporate intranet, models in the cafeteria, and toasters given to new callers.

A law department that devotes effort and corporate resources to invigorate its “brand” fritters everyone’s time (See my post of Jan. 30, 2008: publicity by law departments with 12 references; and June 11, 2007: publicity with 12 references.).

Every benchmark metric about staff ought to concern itself with full-time equivalents (FTE). The number appears to be plain vanilla, but reality serves tutti-fruity. It is not as simple as the normal adjustments for those who start and leave during the year. What about contract employees or temps; how do you factor in long-term consultants; and what about staff dedicated to you by other functions such as IT and HR? Do flex-time arrangements alter the calculation of full-time equivalents? Should you figure out maternity leaves and extended medical absences?

I won’t even mention open positions and funded slots. What if a person is assigned to a company-wide project; how can you integrate interns and secondees?

No, full-time equivalent can be a full-time headache (See my post of Oct. 18, 2005: FTE and internal cost ratios; May 2, 2007: common uses of full-time equivalent; June 28, 2006: full-time-equivalents of lawyers among non-lawyers; Dec. 9, 2008: “contract services law firms” instead of FTE; Dec. 31, 2008: support personnel at vendors; and Nov. 8, 2009: thousand trademarks per FTE trademark lawyer.).

E-mail productivity and security tips accumulate everywhere. I thought I had covered the field comprehensively, but four more good ideas appear in the NYSBA J., Vol. 81, Nov./Dec. 2009 at 58-59 (See my post of Aug. 26, 2009: 30 e-mail effectiveness tips with 9 references.).

1. Fill in the address box only when you are ready to send. Write the message, check the attachments, proofread, even pause to think a moment, and only then fill in the recipient’s name. A simple habit, but salutary.

2. Set up group email lists. If you are part of a deal or have any set of people you write to regularly, do the work once to set up the group email and save time thereafter (and don’t inadvertently omit someone).

3. Use an outbox feature. You don’t have to send your email immediately, while the keys are still hot. You can set your program to send all e-mails in the outbox at a particular time or only when you manually empty it. If even a small amount of time passes, you might reconsider whether and what you write.

4. Add “no reply needed.” Include a note that says the recipient does not need to reply or does not need to copy you on subsequent messages. I don’t know an acronym, but why not NRN?

Amidst all the hoopla about rating law firms online, along comes a respected organization that hopes to have online ratings of “neutrals” available in early 2010 (See my post of Nov. 5, 2009: collected assessments by law departments of their firms with 10 references.).

The ABA J., Vol. 95, Dec. 2009 at 29, explains that the International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution (CPR) has decided on a clever methodology. Of the roughly 600 mediators and arbitrators (called “neutrals”) the Institute has approved to provide services in complex business-to-business situations, those who sign up for the rating program must provide 20 references to a third-party company, Positively Neutral. That company will interview the references regarding a variety of categories. After Positively Neutral compiles the scores and anecdotes, the neutral can review the conclusion and agree to have the information posted or opt out.

I like the approach and can see it working with large law firms. If the third-party is tough minded, listens to what is said and fills in what is not said, and has a defensible formula for scoring and rating, the results would be useful for in-house lawyers who seek capable firms.

An attitude I warmly applaud, the speaker was Elisse Walter, a Securities and Exchange (SEC) commissioner. She was interviewed before she spoke at a recent conference. Her point was that in light of Sarbanes-Oxley and heightened regulatory scrutiny, companies should not pare back on activities “that are not profit centers but rather are functions, like the legal counsel that keep you on the straight and narrow.” The remark is in the ABA J., Vol. 95, Dec. 2009 at 28.

It is too rare to find high-level support for the vitality and contribution of the internal legal function (See my post of Feb. 23, 2009: Google CEO -- “have a large number of lawyers.”). The best praise for a legal department comes from the CEO (See my post of Oct. 28, 2009: CEOs with 27 references.).