If you invest in formal education for your lawyers, insist on repayment if they leave soon thereafter

Some law departments (or their companies) pay for graduate programs taken by their lawyers. For example, someone might enroll in an executive MBA program or earn a project management certificate. For international lawyers, a resource like this is the Center for American and International Law, which Inside Counsel, June 2009 at 55, refers to as a place to help lawyers trained in other countries get up to speed on US law (See my post of July 13, 2009: bring foreign-country lawyers to headquarters.). Ford Motors, for example, sent one of its international lawyers to the training program – but took care to recoup what it spent.

"One downside -- the lawyers who went through the training became so valuable that other companies try to lure them away. To protect its investment, Ford required those who left the company within two years to pay back the company for the cost of the training."