Law Department Management

This blawg covers all aspects of how to improve the management and effectiveness of an in-house legal department.

Author: Rees Morrison, a vice president of Hildebrandt International, is a consultant to law departments and author of six books.

Blawg Related Categories: In-house Counsel • Consultant

Recent Posts from Law Department Management

A disconcerting impression of lawyers who walk and speak with ear plugs
When lawyers walk down the halls talking on a BlueTooth headset, the scene is surreal. Concerned always about confidentiality and attorney-client privilege, here is a lawyer blabbing for all the world to hear. Yet, the…
Self insurance by large US companies has moved claims to law and increased its size?
"Over the past few decades, Fortune 500 corporations have increasingly opted to self-insure, with retentions of at least $3 to $5 million per occurrence and often $25 million or more. They look to insurance companies…
Internal audit eyes a matter management system and its processes
During a presentation recently, the finance manager of a large law department mentioned that in 2007 his company’s internal audit group had reviewed the legal department’s processes. He proudly added that internal audit gave the…
Do ethical companies spend less on their legal budgets?
The issue of Ethisphere, Qtr. 2, 2008 highlights the 93 companies that the Ethisphere Institute honors in 2008 as “the world’s most ethical companies.” Of them, 29 are not US companies (and for six of…
The commonness of some of the common words related to law-department management
A fascinating website, for peculiar people like this blogger who revels in words, is Word Count. Based on a massive archive, the website tells you the frequency with which 86,800 English words have been used…
The fraction of your company’s value you would attribute to your legal function
A special supplement to the Fin. Times, June 9, 2006 at 5, delves into the views of CFOs on risk management. The two professors who wrote the piece had asked 334 CFOs “What fraction of…
This post is entitled “titles”
In law departments, titles are important for showing where someone stands in the hierarchy, for morale, and for status (See my posts of Jan. 27, 2006: titles should reflect and explain the work staff does;…
We need a multiple regression of lawyer experience against staffing levels and spend
The varying elements of experience for an in-house attorney consist of the attorney’s (1) formal education, (2) years since graduation from law school, (3) years in the current company’s law department, (4) degree of legal…
Individual lawyers, making risky decisions, are the key to saving money on outside counsel
All the techniques in the world for outside-counsel cost control make barely a dent unless the in-house lawyers who direct firms willingly set their shoulders to the yoke. The hard pulls of choosing not to…
Priorities for in-house counsel
When we use the term “productivity,” we should not mean in-house lawyers just churning out lots of work, but rather lawyers completing lots of important legal work. A good lawyer picks out the services that…