My three blog books (outside counsel management, talent management and structure) each compile several hundred posts on their topic, offer additional commentary to the structured layout, offer recommendations, and include many forms of indexes and search tools.
Starting today until Thanksgiving, when you buy one you will receive the other two blooks for free.
Click on the box in the upper right hand corner and add some holiday reading to your stuffing!
General counsel compete with their peer executives in a company. Humans being what they are, proud and possessive, it follows that general counsel compete at least some of the time with their peer executives. Notwithstanding the internal exchange of legal services for technical, personnel, financial, and physical support from other staff groups, each functional head elbows and crowds for budgetary funds, recognition from the CEO, additions of responsibility, headcount, respect and other prerogatives. The fates of some legal departments hang in the balance.
Varieties of correlation tests. A common type of correlation, known as the Pearson Product Moment Correlation, is appropriate when both variables are measured at an interval level. A wide variety of other types of correlations apply in other circumstances. For instance, with two ordinal variables, the Spearman rank Order Correlation (rho) or the Kendall rank order Correlation (tau) are appropriate. When one measure is a continuous interval level and the other is dichotomous (i.e., two-categories like yes or no) you can use the Point-Biserial Correlation. For other situations, consulting the web-based statistics selection program, Selecting Statistics (See my post of Oct. 29, 2009: how to determine the statistical significance of a correlation.).
Concordance analysis of my nearly 5,000 headers. The first 4,937 headers I wrote for posts on this blog reveal a sensible distribution of frequent words. The ten most commonly used are ”law” (1,569), “departments” (640), “counsel” (584), “department” (573), “firms” (509), “legal” (500), “lawyers” (401), “management” (342), “general” (302), and “in-house” (292). My software, Concordance, says the collection of headers includes 7,352 words (32,347 tokens). Word tells me the file has 50,564 words in it.
Enterprise risk management software at Computer Sciences Corporation. OpenPages is the software CSC uses for enterprise risk management. How would a legal department use such software (See my post of Aug. 17, 2009: controlling legal risks with 13 references and 2 metaposts.).
Posts read from an iPhone! When you see iconfactory.com/twitterrific as the referral source from a visitor, you know that the person was using Mobile Safari on a small screen. That was a first! On October 3rd I noticed the referring site. Amazing that someone read a post of mine on their iPhone.
Ten more embedded metaposts (See my post of Oct. 25, 2009: Part XLI), each bedraped with the number of its back references.
CEO and influence on law department (See my post of Oct. 28, 2009: CEOs with 27 references.).
Corporate policies (See my post of Nov. 2, 2009: corporate policies regarding the legal department with 12 references and 1 meta.).
Executive education for in-house lawyers (See my post of June 15, 2008: executive education with 8 references.).
Lawyer per support staff (See my post of Oct. 27, 2009: one-to-one ratio of lawyers to support staff with 9 references.).
MBA (See my post of Oct. 29, 2009: MBAs and legal departments with 9 references.).
New general counsel (See my post of Oct. 28, 2009: newly-appointed general counsel with 12 references.).
People management bad sides (See my post of Oct. 25, 2009: ugly sides of people management with 9 metaposts.).
Shared ratings of law firms (See my post of Nov. 5, 2009: collected assessments by law departments of their firms with 10 references.).
Strategic plan II (See my post of Oct. 30, 2009: long-range plans for operations in legal departments with 6 references.).
Technology training (See my post of Nov. 3, 2009: training lawyers on software with 14 references.).
Click on the links to read the full post.
No grounds for “moving away from the RFP mentality of too many law departments” (Sept. 9, 2009)
Contrary to some views, RFPs are underutilized as a tool to learn from the market.
What controlling costs of outside counsel is NOT (Sept. 9, 2009)
Five ideas about cost control that are not as influential as the one recommended
“Trolls demanding tolls”: thoughts on markets where third parties invest in legal assets (Sept. 21, 2009)
Too much money is at stake in legal disputes for outsiders – non-lawyers with business skills and capital – not to find investment opportunities.
The neuroscience of why stories persuade and teach clients more enduringly than facts and numbers (Sept. 21, 2009)
In-house lawyers should tell their clients more stories if they want to reach them effectively.
Clients are from Pluto, lawyers from Mercury – huge personality differences mean change is due (Sept. 22, 2009)
Peter Kurer, the former chairman of UBS and before that its general counsel, sketched a vivid typology of behavioral and psychological differences between business people and lawyers.
Management decisions rest on social values of the manager (Sept. 23, 2009)
Every decision a general counsel makes about how the legal department should operate rests on implicit or explicit philosophies of what motivates humans.
To set you thinking: guidelines for the number of core staff scaled to fees projected on a matter (Sept. 27, 2009)
A rough estimation scaled to budgeted fees lets a supervising lawyer more realistically assess the staffing recommended by the law firm.
Make the most of the billing recap at the end of a bill (Sept. 28, 2009)
Ideas to add insights to the recap at the end of an invoice.
Quality-adjusted and inflation-adjusted legal fees may have remained fairly stable over recent years (Sept. 28, 2009)
A quality-adjusted measurement of legal services over time would likely show a correlation between fees and additional depth of services covered.
More objections to notion of best practices: assumptions of givens, boundaries, and common measures (Sept. 30, 2009)
Three more reasons why I mistrust casual comments about “best practices.”
The paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould popularized the theory that evolution proceeds from relative dormancy sometimes by leaps and bounds. Punctuated equilibrium, Gould named it, and the idea spread far beyond fossils and Darwin.
Punctuated equilibrium may be an apt metaphor for legal departments. For long periods a department sails along, getting the work done, keeping relationships on an even keel, at a moderate level of pitch and yaw. Then equilibrium is punctured by a huge wave. Dramatic changes occur when:
A new general counsel comes onboard (See my post of Aug. 5, 2007: when to survey clients for satisfaction; Aug. 1, 2006: some consequences of a new GC from outside the company; Dec. 14, 2005: effect of the arrival of a new general counsel on outside counsel; March 7, 2006: more effects on law firms; May 14, 2006: major structural changes at Intuit through new GC; April 16, 2007: reshuffling of power in the department; April 27, 2006: on-boarding a new general counsel; May 25, 2008: expenses of relocation; June 11, 2008: new external general counsel clean house; July 28, 2008: steeple chase for the new top lawyer; April 25, 2009: thoughts on the new GC at Schneider Electric; and July 26, 2009: assessments start forming early.);
A key senior lawyer retires or leaves (See my post of March 8, 2009: attrition in law departments, with 16 references and one metapost.); or
The company ,merges and the department combines with another law department (See my post of Jan. 16, 2009: layoffs after mergers with 9 references.).
Other upheavals include when a new CEO takes office or if there are major reshufflings of responsibilities, such as the addition of compliance (See my post of May 14, 2005: GC vulnerable when CEO is removed; and March 28, 2006: CEO of PPG reorganized business structure.). Any of the above five traumas may puncture the status quo.
Ten more embedded metaposts (See my post of Oct 4, 2009: Part XXXX), each roped to the number of its back references.
Appearance, looks (See my post of March 26, 2008: physical appearance with 11 references.).
Discounts IV (See my post of Oct. 15, 2009: discounts with 18 references and 3 metaposts.).
Discounts on volume (See my post of Oct. 12, 2009: tiered discount levels with 11 references.).
Inflation (See my post of Oct 4, 2009: inflation with 8 references.).
Innovation II (See my post of Oct. 4, 2009: innovation with 20 references and 5 metaposts.).
Levels other than general counsel (See my post of Oct. 11, 2009: hyperpost on 6 levels other than GC with 7 metaposts.).
Listen (See my post of Oct. 24, 2009: listening techniques with 7 references.).
Negotiation (See my post of Oct. 7, 2009: negotiation with 18 references.).
Secretaries (See my post of Oct. 4, 2009: secretaries and admins with 17 references.).
Value delivered by law firms II (See my post of Oct. 21, 2009: law firms and the value they deliver with 24 references and one metapost).
To my earlier post about listening techniques (See my post of Oct. 19, 2008: ten sound suggestions.), three more vibrated at me from a recent article in the ACC Docket, Vol. 27, Oct. 2009 at 40.
Ask thoughtful questions. The author suggests, “Don’t frame your question in a way that puts the other person on the defensive.”
Use appropriate body language. “Appear alert, attentive and friendly. Meet the other person’s gaze but don’t stare.”
Be brief. “The people talking to you will appreciate it.” I am not sure what this has to do with listening effectively. Maybe it means that when you talk, don’t talk all that much if you want to be a better listener.
If you want to hear about other posts on listening, there have been several (See my post of April 13, 2007: listen, identify, and enhance (LIE); April 15, 2006: best lawyEARS; Dec. 8, 2006: encourage different viewpoints; Dec. 16, 2007: compete against Blackberries; Oct. 16, 2006: ranks outside counsel on listening skills; and March 25, 2008: a future of hypersonic sounds.).
Payments to outside counsel expressed as constant currency. “Constant currency” means to state amounts in a currency expressed in relation to its purchasing power in a specified currency. For example, a legal department might calculate its constant dollar spend by applying an annual exchange rate to local currency results for the year. This creates US dollar-denominated expenses which exclude any variances attributable to foreign exchange rate movements.
For example, consider a French company that uses outside counsel extensively in the US. If fees paid increase 10 percent in dollar terms, but the dollar fell 5 percent against the Euro during the year, only a 5 percent increase in external fees will be reported, as a constant currency is applied in the calculation (See my post of Oct 4, 2009: inflation with 8 references; and June 5, 2009: currency conversion with 6 references.).
Complexity refers to decision-making and autonomy. Substantive job complexity depends on the extent to which a job entails autonomy and allows for decision latitude. Complex legal issues are multifaceted and call upon lawyers to combine knowledge from various sources. Instead of thinking so much about the legal problem itself as itself or not, therefore, we should think about the decision making and information combination required to resolve it (See my post of March 13, 2007: complexity with 4 references; and Dec. 27, 2008: complexity of legal practice with 20 references.).
Q-sort technique to discover likes and dislikes. This technique measures attitudes and preferences. As defined in a Corporate Executive Board report on talent (at xiii), “It uses a forced-choice method, where one must rank a series of items in a pool. Typically, a person is presented with a set of statements or options and is asked to rank-order them, either in groups or on an individual basis, an operation referred to as “Q sorting.” An analyst can study the rankings that result, say from a client satisfaction survey or an employee morale survey that includes Q-sort questions (See my post of Dec. 5, 2008: client satisfaction surveys with 30 references.).
Unpredictable, yet litigation might be most eligible for project management. Ironically, litigation is the one practice where the most difficulties are talked about in terms of fixed fees. Yet, because litigation is so well known, and the steps in many lawsuit are so well understood, project management tools ought to make the most difference (See my post of Sept. 21, 2009: bankruptcy fees, well-understood steps, yet value hard to pin down.).
Some readers of this blog might miss posts that I believe are especially stimulating, so I have been compiling each month the ten that hit this criterion (See my post of July 11, 2009: May; July 31, 2009: June; and Sept. 5, 2009: July.). After much deliberation, I selected these ten from the August batch and added a brief summary. Click if you want to read the full post.
- Push your law firms to budget matters by means of a narrowing fee funnel (Aug. 4, 2009) As a transaction or case proceeds, insist on tighter budget projections.
- Research: embedded ties between law firms and departments lower rates yet can increase firm profits (Aug. 5, 2009) Empirical research shows close ties with a client correlate with lower hourly fees.
- 32 steps each legal department can take to protect the environment (and reduce costs) (Aug. 7, 2009) Everyone in every legal department can apply several of these techniques.
- Dispersed benefits for a lawyer from external cost control, but concentrated costs (Aug. 10, 2009) Cost control benefits everyone, but if the deal goes sour, one person pays the price. The result: hard to implement cost-saving initiatives.
- The rational-choice model of economists as a framework for understanding legal departments (Aug. 12, 2009) Self-interest, rationality, and incentives are the core ideas of the rational-choice model, which applies to much of what happens in law departments.
- No tiers on my pillow: flaws of tiered discounts from hourly rates based on volume (Aug. 13, 2009) Three difficulties with tiered, volume discounts from law firms.
- 7. Law departments as “complex systems” (Aug. 24, 2009) No legal department obeys “laws of management.” Our understanding of legal departments will only come with a holistic sensibility. Unintended consequences happen all the time and the stasis of equilibrium – if it ever reaches that – is frequently punctuated. People change and modify their behavior
- Thirty (30) suggestions for better e-mail effectiveness (Aug. 26, 2009) Having evolved to homo emailiens, so these suggestions should be required reading
- The open-book approach to reaching a flat-fee agreement with a firm (Aug. 31, 2009) Tell your key firms everything you can about your matters and spending on which they might bid fixed fees.
- To compare different metrics, use the technique of stating them as standard deviations (Aug. 4, 2009)
Convert your benchmark metrics into standard deviations so that you can match yourself against peers on various metrics that have different scales.
This blog uses the word “negotiate” frequently, because it is a skill in-house lawyers commonly called on to exercise (See my post of Sept. 25, 2006: should rarely be the role of lawyers to negotiate most contracts.). Negotiation skills show up mostly with law firms, sometimes with vendors, and occasionally with clients.
Most of the instances written about here arise from the effort to hammer out with external counsel some kind of alternative fee arrangement (See my post of Oct. 15, 2007: negotiate terms with outside counsel; Feb. 10, 2007: do inside lawyers lack negotiating skills vs. outside lawyers; Aug. 26, 2005: understand how law firms operate when you negotiate; July 27, 2007: difficulties negotiating alternatives to hourly rates; Nov. 6, 2007: time constraints on negotiations with counsel; Sept. 28, 2008: two weeks to negotiate a contract after RFP process; and Nov. 30, 2008: negotiate simultaneously with two contenders.).
Some posts refer to negotiations with vendors other than law firms (See my post of July 31, 2006: negotiate national rates; Aug. 20, 2006: how to reach terms with vendors; and April 15, 2009: law departments have more clout with vendors than do law firms.).
Ironically, two posts refer to negotiations between inside lawyers and their own clients (See my post of May 31, 2006: negotiate over bills charged back to clients; and Nov. 13, 2007: negotiate budgets with finance.).
Despite the frequency of negotiations, a scattering of posts give suggestions for how to negotiate or learn to negotiate (See my post of Jan. 23, 2008: psychological reactance and gender stereotypes in negotiation; April 15, 2006: role playing to train better negotiators; May 4, 2007: interactive workshops on negotiation; Nov. 22, 2008: Six Sigma study of contract negotiation process at Becton Dickinson; and Nov. 22, 2008: contract negotiation guidelines.). With firms and vendors, procurement may be more skilled in the subtle arts of negotiation.
