Law Roundtable
Law Department Management
MIT Sloan Mgt. Rev., Vol. 49, Summer 2008 at 11, offers some good ideas about brainstorming (See my posts of Nov. 28, 2005: mind-map software helps with brainstorming sessions; Dec. 9, 2005: the Delphi technique; Oct. 30, 2006: suggestions and two other points: have rules and push participants ...
Many times I have dissected survey results where I suspected poor methodology, so I pulled together my posts on survey methodology. I have followed a framework (in bold) defined by the Manual for Complex Litigation (See my post of Jan. 16, 2006: the Manual on trustworthy surveys; and Oct. ...
A methodological spoke in the wheel of many surveys is selection bias. If survey data comes mostly from what surfaces on its own, because someone chooses to respond, the data may not be representative of the universe of data. It may suffer from what statisticians refer to as ...
Altman Weil published data in GC Mid-Atlantic, June 2008, at 30, that compares metrics from the firm’s 2003 benchmark survey to its 2007 survey (See my post of July 20, 2008: demographics of the surveys and some observations on methodology.).
One set of metrics covers inside law-department expenses per lawyer. ...
When US companies prosecute patents in foreign countries, they typically have to retain specialized patent lawyers in those countries. The charges of those patent lawyers – called foreign associates – can be high, and apparently sometimes higher than what local companies are charged. As reported by Corp. Counsel, ...
Personnel expenses, including salaries, bonuses and benefits, dominate the internal budgets of most law departments (See my posts of July 31, 2005 and Feb. 21, 2008: estimates of 75%.). Data on this common situation comes from Altman Weil, in GC Mid-Atlantic, June 2008, at 30, with metrics from the ...
Are there techniques to lessen the risk of taking the bait of stellar lawyers at the final presentation, but working thereafter with a switch to earthly types? This question occurred to me when GC New England Mag., 4th Q. 2007 at 27, used the term. I think of ...
One word that ought to be banned from thoughtful writing and speaking is the word “resource” when it describes a human being who does something. What galvanized me to write this tiny diatribe is a recent post of mine that quoted a general counsel as referring to a law ...
Here are ten more embedded metaposts with links (See my post of June 11, 2008: Part IX.). In the parenthesis is the date of original posting along with the number of references cited.
1. Alignment with clients (See my post of June 15, 2008 – 16 posts.)
2. Core team II ...
Surveys of law departments frequently have multiple-choice questions, even though such questions are beset with methodological traps. Here are my blog posts on the topic.
Strive to cover every reasonable choice and not have choices overlap (See my post of June 16, 2007: the test of Mutually Exclusive, ...