Category: Law Departments / Client Service

In my estimation, Cisco’s law department is one of the most advanced, both with respect to management generally and to technology specifically. As the company adopts the “DuPont convergence model” in Europe, use of technology and processes will play a big role.  In Cisco poised...

LawNet recently published an e-billing survey, which is well-done and worth reading. It reminds me that client focus on e-billing is misplaced.   If general counsels want to reduce outside counsel costs, they need to talk about the proverbial elephant in the room. The invisible...

Online Auctioneers Struggle to Attract In-House Counsel in the July 2004 issue of Corporate Legal Times suggests that online auctions and match-making services such as Procuri and eLawForum for legal services have not gained much traction.  “Beyond a handful of early adopters who have dabbled...

Hildebrandt consultant Rees Morrison wrote a very good article, Cost Control Patrol (Legal Times, May 17, 2004), in which he outlines five existing approaches for inhouse counsel to manage outside counsel and proposes a new, sixth way. It’s an interesting idea and raises indirectly, I...

My recent post (4/11/04) reviewed how hospitals are closely examining procedures to improve work flows and quality. This approach may be the best hope general counsels have to control outside counsel costs. In Staying Power in the April issues of both American Lawyer and Corporate...

I have always been disappointed in reading management periodicals such as Business Week, the Wall Street Journal, or Harvard Business Review that I rarely see in-depth articles on professional services, particularly law. That may be changing with a new Harvard Law School research program.  A...

I have long advocated the use of budgets in larger legal matters. Many firms, it seems, are loathe to consider the idea. Not all. UK firm Wragge&Co has filed for a US patent on a case budgeting system.  Over the years, I have spoken to...

You are probably familiar with the concept of open source software (Linux, for example, or WordPress, the software I use for this blog). Could the concepts behind and the advantages of open source software apply to law? From a client’s perspective, open source transaction documents...