No standard measures of risks or risk management (meta post on legal risks)

After discussing how HR, IT and finance each have ways to identify and mitigate their risks, an article (Fin. Times, Sept. 30, 2005 – Mastering Risk, at 8) concluded, “[b]ut there is no standard measure of risks to determine which area has the bigger or better-managed risks, or how they fit together.

Legal risks belong in that same indeterminate mix; no one can demonstrate why legal risks are more or less severe than other support staff risks or whether any function has a better grip on them than another. Future possibilities of bad events (risks) just don’t yield to our heartfelt need for metrics.

For more on legal risks, see my 2005 posts of March 27 on three ideas for dealing with risk, May 14 on identifying legal risks, July 25, on survey results about legal risk management, July 30 on measuring legal risks in China, Aug. 14 on the vagueness of the terms, Aug. 26 on managing risks, and Nov. 11 on quantifying risks.