An article about how an actuary at Towers Watson obtained a patent for a statistical algorithm, in the NY Times, May 13, 2012 at BU7, raises several points about law department management.
Initially, the employee cleared with his boss that it would be worthwhile to obtain a patent, and then “worked with an outside patent firm to translate technical information into layman’s terms for the application.” The Towers Watson law department probably lacked patent experience and had to find and retain a specialty firm.
Later, the lawyer who started the patent application left the firm and someone at Towers Watson had to decide whether to stick with the firm or move the project with that lawyer (See my post of Aug. 14, 2005: transitioning matters; July 21, 2006: moving matters; and June 13, 2006: the decision to hire the firm or the partner.).
Third, during the firm’s review of prior art – patents already granted that might deny the idea’s patentability – the actuary had to check a dozen of them for similarity. Stated differently, even though the law department handles a matter, clients have significant input.
Finally, to decide whether to file a second application for accelerated review required a cost-benefit analysis, including competitive positioning (See my post of Feb. 19, 2009: invention review committees with 7 references.).
The first application took more than two-and-one-half years from filing to approval, and the second (the accelerated application) took a bit more than a year. This exemplifies how law departments need to explain to clients such delays and keep them abreast of developments.
Finally, the inventor was given a plaque and $2,000 when the patent actually issued. Such a corporate practice increases the work load of the legal department and increases its spending (See my post of Dec. 13, 2010: awards to compensation for inventors with 6 references.).
Almost seven years ago I listed 12 general counsel who had turned to management consulting after their stint as a top lawyer (See my post of July 31, 2005: from Bob Banks to Peter Zeughauser.). It seems so natural, but successful career shifts from practicing to preaching are difficult. I made the point back then, understatedly, that “some have succeeded.”
To the list from long ago I can add Kevin Blodgett (formerly of Dynegy), Jim Boeckman (from Toppan Photomasks), Ron Pol (Acting GC at several New Zealand entities), John Wallbillich (from a Midwestern energy company) as well as Scott Ewart, a former general counsel of two Canadian companies. Some in-house lawyers come to mind who were not general counsel but later tried their hand at consulting (Suzanne Hawkins, Duncan Smith) and at least two others that I know of are doing so now.
In the vintage days of consulting to legal departments, the field counted quite a few who had no law degree, let alone had practiced law in-house. Those included Bob Berkow, Jon Bellis, Dan DiLucchio, and a raft of others. Even now several non-lawyers dispense management advice to general counsel, including Richard Stock and Helene Trink.
When I have written about the law departments of government agencies, mostly I have marveled at the size of them (See my post of Sept. 10, 2005: New York City’s Corporate Counsel Office, more than 650 lawyers; Nov. 6, 2005: US Department of Homeland Securities, roughly 1,500 lawyers; Pennsylvania’s Office of the General Counsel, 700 lawyers several years ago; May 10, 2006: legal advisors to the U.S. Department of State, 165; Aug. 2, 2006: State of Massachusetts, something like 650; Dec. 3, 2006: New Jersey Attorney General’s Division of Law, 580 lawyers; Feb. 16, 2009: FBI, 180 lawyers; March 11, 2009: United States Postal Service, 220 attorneys; and Dec. 14, 2011: U.S. Air Force with 1,500 lawyers.).
Just the references in the last paragraph, stumbled upon by happenstance, support surmises that (1) the largest law departments in the country support government agencies and (2) thousands of governmental legal departments exist in the United States (See my post of Dec. 20, 2011: government lawyers outnumber private sector two to one; and Dec. 31, 2008: 9% of lawyers in large U.S. survey identified themselves as government lawyers.).
Also regarding governmental legal teams, one post here referred to several that had faced internal audits of their teams and processes (See my post of May 31, 2005: Austin, Texas; Dec. 23, 2005: Pierce County (Washington) Prosecuting Attorney’s Office; March 26, 2007: Hernando County, Florida; May 19, 2006: LA’s Office of the City Attorney; Jan. 20, 2006: California Department of Transportation’s Legal Division; and Dec. 18, 2006: Amtrak.).
Other citations on this blog don’t pertain to the size of the governmental legal department (See my post of Oct. 29, 2006: city of Chicopee, MA and interns in its legal function; April 17, 2007: Federal Gov. Printing Office and pro bono; July 8, 2010: FDIC posts online guidelines; and Dec. 13, 2011: Trenton, NJ’s law department under strict controls.). There may be other posts that should be in this metapost, but it is hard to know what to search for to find them.
Distinctions among law departments by market value? ISS, the rating agency, has announced that it will judge companies against a peer group of 14 to 24 companies, based on industry, revenue and market value. It is unclear to me how the market value of a company has an effect on anything about how a law department operates or vice versa (See my post of Aug. 8, 2011: collects four posts on lawyers per billion dollars of market value.).
Surveys that may get more than one respondent from a department. An invitation to a survey was distributed by ACC and MCCA to approximately 10,000 in-house lawyers. Although data was collected from December 2010 through April 2011, only one response per law department was accepted. If multiple responses came from the same law department, which one did they pick? Did they choose by title, first in, fullest data set (See my post of July 21, 2008: survey methodology with 40 references, 25 internal references.)?
The nominal fallacy. We succumb to error when we think that if we name something the name carries explanatory meaning. This error is called the nominal fallacy and is referenced in John Brockman, Ed., This Will Make You Smarter (Harper Collins 2012) at 62. If you talk glibly about a “discount” you may feel that once you have named the arrangement with a law firm with that term you understand it better. You think the term “discount” itself carries explanatory meaning, but that is wrong thinking. This blog has correctly pointed out other fallacies (See my post of March 23, 2006: sunk-cost fallacy; Aug. 22, 2006: fallacy of induction; Jan. 18, 2008: fallacy of misplaced concreteness; March 15, 2009: fallacy of conjunction; April 2, 2009 #4: special pleading as logical fallacy; and Aug. 18, 2011: teleological fallacy.).
The economics of SaaS compared to installation on a company’s servers. I was recently told that many law departments take a five-year useful life for depreciating software they have bought. The total cost of ownership over that period could be more when you “rent” the software. It is also cheaper to rent than to buy if you are going to swap out the software relatively soon. Another consideration is that if each year you make the decision whether to renew or not (unlikely with matter management software, I agree), it keeps vendors on their toes. Finally, acquiring a license is treated as a capital expense vs an operating expense for ASP software (See my post of April 20, 2011: capitalized expenses with 7 references.).
Legal hold software and a cost metric for law departments. Consider an item from KMWorld, Feb. 2012 at S12. “BIA’s legal hold compliance SaaS solution costs less than $2 per user per month.” Does that mean per employee or only per employees who are “custodians.” If that metric can serve as a lodestone for evaluating the cost of other solutions, it will help general counsel make decisions on which solution to license (See my post of Feb. 9, 2012: an award for litigation hold software.).
Another sip of coffee wisdom. According to Bloomberg Bus.Week, Feb. 27, 2012 at 84, pacing and timing are key to the most effective ingestion of coffee: “The first coffee of the day should be the biggest, and drunk the fastest for a big bump. The rest of the day’s doses should be smaller and ingested more slowly.” Chuck the first venti, then tipple (See my post of March 3, 2011 #4: coffee and collaboration.)
Mapping the interconnected features of the brain. The Economist World in 2012 at 153, introduces readers to the Human Connectome Project. The Project has set itself the task of mapping neural features down to around a cubic millimeter of brain tissue, each of which contains hundreds of thousands of nerve cells. “In the cerebral cortex there are about 50 areas for which good maps already exist, but they cover only about a third of the cortex.” Over the next two decades, neurology will be able to contribute to how general counsel hire, evaluate, train and motivate legal staff (See my post of Feb. 28, 2012: Brodmann 10 area.).
Involved in e-discovery? A judge can find you liable for mis-handling it. “Courts are increasingly holding in-house counsel responsible to ensure that the e-discovery process is done properly Swofford v. Eslinger, (Sept. 28, 2009); Phoenix Four, Inc. v. Strategic Res. Corp. (Aug. 1, 2006).” This quote comes from a Feb. 2012 issue of a magazine, at S13, in a piece by James D. Shook of EMC’s e-discovery and compliance practice. This opens the lid on malpractice insurance, indemnification, and other unpleasant topics. The cases referred to are Swofford v. Eslinger, 671 F. Supp. 2d 1274 (MD Fla., 2009); and Phoenix Four, Inc. v. Strategic Res. Corp, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 32211 (S.D.N.Y. May 23, 2006). Have there not been any cases in the past three years?
The steady march toward internet databases of knowledge. The George Mason Law and Economics website has a post by Josh Wright on February 22, 2012 about an interview with Google’s Senior VP Amit Singhal on where search technology is headed. In 2010, Google purchased Freebase, a community-built knowledge base packed with some 12 million “canonical entities.” Google has invested dramatically to “build a huge knowledge graph of interconnected entities and their attributes.” Google now has “north of 200 million entities” Over the coming years, massive online accumulations of information will help in-house counsel (See my post of May 21, 2009: Wolfram Alpha.).
It is mildly exasperating and disappointing to hear the same examples time after time from the dais. Can’t speakers come up with something other than “Focus on strategic work, [pause as if pondering] such as bet-the-company litigation.” Can’t they offer something else? Or “Push your law firms to be innovative, [pause as if considering among choices] such as alternative fee arrangements.” Really, haven’t heard that one before! Or the chestnut of “Be sure the work is done as efficiently as possible, such as with delegation.” Take my breath away! Are people thinking when they wheel out “Share knowledge, such as with an intranet”?
Right, you say, each of these shop-worn examples makes brilliant sense to someone in the audience who has been hidden under a rock or whose name is van Winkle. Right, some consultants who write arrogant and snarky posts about over-used examples should realize that not everyone is immersed in management-speak.
All I urge is that speakers and writers reach beyond the reflexive instances and offer something else. If nothing else comes to mind, then the supposed advice stands emptier, an emperor with barely any clothes.
Billing rates (See my post of Jan. 23, 2012: billing rates and firm size with 8 references.).
Chief legal officer title compared to GC (See my post of Jan. 20, 2012: CLO vs GC with 26 references.).
Client satisfaction II (See my post of Jan. 25, 2012: client satisfaction with 10 references.).
Compensation of in-house lawyers ex US (See my post of Jan. 11, 2011: comp outside the United States with 10 references.).
Compensation posts not in ex US (See my post of Jan. 12, 2011: compensation topics with 31 references.).
Direct reports II (See my post of Jan. 17, 2012: direct reports with 8 references.).
Litigators, percent of in-house lawyers (See my post of Jan. 24, 2012: in-house litigators as share of total lawyers with 6 references.).
Mentoring II (See my post of Jan. 9, 2012: mentoring programs with 9 references.).
Strategic plan (See my post of Jan. 13, 2012: strategic plan with 6 references.).
This blog (See my post of Jan. 31, 2012: posts during 2011 on this blog with 10 references.).
A.C. Grayling, Ideas that Matter: the concepts that shape the 21st century (Basic Books 2010) presents the venerable British philosopher’s summaries of 130 major concepts. Most covered in 2-3 pages, approximately 30 of them have already appeared on this blog.
One that has not is accommodation theory, devised in the early 1970s by Howard Giles. "Accommodation theory states that when people talk to each other, they adjust their behavior and manner of speech to take account of (to accommodate themselves to) the topic, the circumstances, and the other people engaged with them in the conversation" (at 2).
Grayling observes that the theory sounds simple on its surface, but he claims it gives profound insights into how miscommunication and misinterpretation can happen, such as within the legal departments and with clients and outside counsel. The theory has to do with information transmission. Whether the topic belongs in Grayling’s list is a hard question. Whether it can guide general counsel is an easier question.
UK matter management software. The UK’s largest friendly society LV= (aka the Liverpool & Victoria) has implemented Proclaim case management software from Eclipse Legal Systems for its inhouse legal and secretariat team to support internal clients. This item comes from Charles Christian’s Orange Rag, January 2012. Also, the legal services team at South Lanarkshire Council has implemented the Civica Legal system to improve case management, time recording and court bundling (See my post of Feb. 5, 2012: 11 matter management systems at LegalTechNY.).
CPA Global acquired by private equity firm. European private equity firm Cinven is to acquire the global IP management, offshore document review, LPO, and LSO (legal services outsourcing) business CPA Global for an undisclosed sum. The transaction is expected to be finalised over the next couple of months, according to Charles Christian’s Orange Rag, January 2012 (See my post of Nov. 1, 2011: Mitratech acquired by private equity firm.). Project Leadership Associates, which has a legal business consulting arm under partner Dan Safran, also sold itself to a private equity group in late 2011.
News of executives in the law department vendor space. Jeff Hodge has left doeLEGAL where he had served as Executive Director, Corporate for about a year. In late January, Wolters Kluwer promoted Richard Flynn to Group President and Chief Executive Officer of its Corporate Legal Services (CLS). CLS is a portfolio of businesses offering legal compliance and performance management solutions under brands that include CT Corporation, CT Lien Solutions, Corsearch, and TyMetrix.
Contract management software’s growth prospects. Forrester Research estimated in a Sept. 2011 webinar by Andrew Bartels on “The 4 Stages of Value from Contract Management” that sell-side contract management systems will grow 9.2% in 2011 and 8.5% in 2012.” That forecast comes from Exari’s white paper, Corporate Counsel Contracts Survey Report, Dec. 2011 at 2 (See my post of Feb. 5, 2012: list of 39 contract management offerings.).
Two conclusions have clarified for me as I have tussled once again with a conceptual structure for what goes on in law departments. My previous forays have resulted in a farrago of ideas and terms swirling around concepts, toolboxes, processes, methods, and tools.
It now seems to me that a set of three almost always applies: a cognitive category (a management concept), a set of related actions (a management process), and aids to accomplish those actions (management tools). Perhaps no longer do I need my constructs of “concept toolboxes” or “methods.”
Secondly, digging deeper, a part of speech applies to each set of three, which I will illustrate with one set of three: cost control – a noun form – means the concept; controlling outside costs – a verbal, gerundive form – means the process; and budget – an adverb applying to the verb – means one of the tools. This is a loose and creative metaphor but it may have usefulness.
Finally, I would nominate the following concepts to be important to general counsel and others in legal departments who have a significant hand in running it: engagement, emotional intelligence, ergonomics, focus groups, infographics, network, public relations (marketing), project management, Six Sigma and TQM, and transparency. I add these to the concepts discussed previously (See my post of Feb. 1, 2009: ten most important concepts; April 5, 2009: a second set of ten; April 22, 2009: 17 more important concepts; and Jan 3, 2011: accountability, competency, competition, expectations (perceptions), diminishing returns, experience curve, power, satisfaction, scope of responsibility, and trade-offs.).
