Among the approximately 80 law departments analyzed for this post from the ALM survey, not surprisingly almost 6 percent of the total positions were General Counsel or Chief Legal Officer. That means about 90 GCs of CLOs among the 1,510 lawyers covered by the group. Another 11 percent of the positions were identified as Deputy General Counsel, Assistant General Counsel or Divisional General Counsel. We might think of them as the “direct report level.” The Managing Attorney level had 12 percent of the lawyers while the High-level specialists accounted for 10 percent. Out of the entire group just under 60 percent were Senior Attorneys, Attorneys, or Staff Attorneys.

In short, of this large group of in-house lawyers, the levels cluster into four: the top lawyer, twice as many who might be deemed direct reports (even though a typical General Counsel of a large enough department has between five and nine direct reports), other managing attorneys, and somewhat more than one-half of the attorneys ranked as non-managerial below them.

To learn more about the Law Department Metrics Benchmark Survey of ALM Legal Intelligence, click here for ALM’s website.

While not a fundamental benchmark for law department managers, lawyers per thousand employees may be one that is of interest to some. Based on ALM data from about 80 law departments, their median figure was 1.9 lawyers for every thousand employees. The average was much higher, because of a few lawyer-heavy participants; dropping the three highest left the average at eight. Note that these metrics are from U.S.-based law departments so at least the findings are not muddied by differences between countries.

When the data was sorted by the revenue of the participating companies, no apparent pattern stood out. In other words there did not seem to be any clear increase or decrease in the number of lawyers per thousand employees as the amount of company revenue changed. As is apparent, many factors determine the headcount of a company so it is not disconcerting that the correlation with its legal staff appears to be slim. To learn more about the Law Department Metrics Benchmark Survey of ALM Legal Intelligence, click here for ALM’s website.

Research cited in Academy Mgt. Learning & Education, Dec. 2011 at 584, emphasizes the importance of managerial skills and the paradoxical shortage of it. They found that “lack of managerial skill is the most frequent derailer of careers and that roughly 50 percent of people who take management roles essentially fail.”

Many in-house counsel may feel they are not managers, and may not aspire to be. But if there is a secretary to direct from time or time or a paralegal, you are a manager. And most general counsel have someone, sometimes hundreds of someones, to manage. To keep your career on track, polish your management skills.

Law schools prize what is called conceptual knowledge, where lawyers know that this statute says this and that decision said that. Law departments also prize applied management knowledge, according to the article, awareness and understanding of management principles in action. If anywhere near one-half of the inside lawyers promoted into management roles essentially fail at that task, small wonder law departments have wide scope for improvement.

This blog has a personality of its own. It grows, changes, goes through phases, surprises me with new developments. There is always more to learn about its content, reach, tools and add-on uses. As it turns out, six metaposts have addressed different aspects of this blog, such as Twitter, RSS feeds, Feedburner, metaphors, and other blawgs that treat in-house management issues.

In like style, I keep writing the periodic self-referential post, last year producing ten of them (See my post of June 20, 2011: 38 retweets of posts by 17 people; Feb. 3, 2011 #1: Avvo rankings; Feb. 20, 2011: a look back six years ago; July 6, 2011 #3: blog honored by Corporate Counsel magazine; July 5, 2011: on metaposts; July 24, 2011: data on sites that have referred readers to this blog; Aug. 9, 2011: why not a book rather than this blog; Aug. 26, 2011: books recently cited on this blog; and Dec. 5, 2011: my post with the most visits – comparison of GC and CLO titles.).

It’s easy to overlook basics. For me, I either don’t notice them or they don’t interest me. But Academy Mgt. Learning & Ed., Dec. 2011 at 584, provoked me with a statement. “Other studies have shown that fewer than 25% of managers regularly manifest the fundamentals of effective management, such as providing clear expectations and goals, involving others in decisions that affect them, and coaching by way of regular feedback.”

Most people fault lawyers for being poor managers of people, so the one-quarter or less estimate of those managers (who are probably in business roles) doing the basics may be too high for practicing lawyers. How gloomy is that?

The other part of the sentence, the minimum expectations of a capable manager, ought to be memorized and put consistently into action by all managers in law departments. Here is my paraphrase of the set: (1) With direct and unambiguous words, tell people what to do and what you want them to accomplish; (2) enlist people in decisions about them and their work; and (3) tell them frequently what you think about their work and how they can improve. The truth too often contradicts these three sound actions; many general counsel, for various reasons, don’t communicate succinctly what they want, make secret decisions, and rarely say much unless it is a criticism. How gloomier is that?

A recruiting ad by BP in the American Lawyer, Jan. 2012, gave me two reasons to write. The first was the opening sentence in its solicitation of candidates for the position of “Senior Legal Advisor” in London. The sentence sets the context: “BP Legal is made up of over 400 lawyers who are focused on meeting our commitments as a truly global energy company.” Focused on meeting our company’s commitments?

My reaction to that summary of purpose, which may be the tossed off words of the copy writer more than the considered mission statement of BP’s legal department -- but was probably signed off by someone in the department, is a feeling of disappointment. Disappointed because meeting corporate commitments falls far short of what a world-class law department should aspire to. It smacks of complete passivity: “Those guys signed the contract and we have to clean up on the commitments they made.” There is no responsibility taken for giving good guidance let alone innovation. There is silence on disputes, where commitments play a tiny role but responsibilities loom large. Productivity and cost consciousness don’t get even tiny billing nor does risk management. Perhaps I am pummeling a line tossed off by someone in an effort to say, “Our legal department helps our business succeed.” As written, however, it belittles what should be the contribution expected of BP’s huge legal team.

My second, much less profound, observation goes to the ad itself. Instead of retaining an executive search firm, BP has run an ad in a U.S.-oriented magazine read primarily by external counsel. Is that fertile ground to fill a London-based in-house counsel position? Still, other law departments have run recruitment ads (March 1, 2010: Microsoft recruits lawyers through ads in trade publication; and Dec. 21, 2011: Energy Charter Secretariat ad.).

Charles Christian’s Orange Rag, January 2012, wrote about a British law firm that selected HP Autonomy iManage WorkSite to replace its incumbent bespoke document management system. Christian mentioned a few other choices to fill that need, all based around comparison to Sharepoint. “For Sharepoint ‘the usual suspects’ of iManage and OpenText but also three Sharepoint alternatives: Workshare Point, MacroView DMF and Sword Excalibur.”

I have previously mentioned document management systems (See my post of Oct. 13, 2011: discusses 7 vendors from two surveys.). The three alternatives to Christian’s usual suspects were not included among the seven systems mentioned in that post. Perhaps the UK legal market has offerings that have not penetrated much in the United States.

In general, as I have learned amply from matter management systems for legal departments, once you leave our shores a wholly different array of packages are on offer – legal department software develops locally all around the world.

Yesterday I received a press release from Legal Suite. It was notable for its level of disclosure so I offer two extracts from it.

“Legal Suite has already helped numerous clients in North America, across a number of industry sectors: Direct Energy, AstraZeneca, IATA, TransUnion, Aldo, National Bank of Canada, Industrial Alliance, to name but a few.” It is commendable for a vendor to refer to several specific law departments that use its product and services.

“Legal Suite helps 400 international references, more than 600 projects and 18,000 global users. The group announced 7.8 million dollars of revenues, with a 17% growth for 2011.” Again, it is commendable that the vendor, which is privately held, provides such transparency. If the sentence means that 400 law departments use its offering, that puts the company in the top ranks of matter management software by size of installed base.

Legal Suite will participate in LegalTech New York at booth 1712. For more information about the company, visit its website. www.legal-suite.com

As I dig deeper into concepts, processes and tools of law departments, I fear spreading my net too widely. What makes the list and why leaves me unsure, yet it seems worthwhile to make the effort and think about the criteria. Perhaps to pin down management concepts central to general counsel presents a quixotic task, since they seem to multiply and complicate as I think about them.

That said, here are 21 more that seem to me important enough to deserve mention: Alignment, Behavioral economics, Creativity (innovation), Databases, Document retention, Dual reports, End-to-end review, Information economics, Kaizen, Management, Matrix, Neuroscience,,Opportunity cost, Option, Pro bono, Psychology, Reward, Statistics, Surveys, Team (collaboration), and Technology (See my post of Jan. 23, 2012: Part 4 and cites the previous posts.).

Having never defined “law department,” a term that astute readers may have noted makes the occasional cameo appearance on this blog, I thought about what attributes a corporate function absolutely needs to have to qualify as a law department. Three of them, I propose.

Fundamental to all law departments are a trio of activities. Law departments provide legal advice to enable business and reduce legal risks. To do so, they muster talent and provide infrastructure for them such as offices, equipment, and hardware. And, they all hire outside counsel or vendors for some tasks. A law department carries out lots of “processes,” but a process is more micro, a recognizable unit of related activities in support of one of those constitutive activities.

These fundamentals, broad in scope, varied in expression, but ubiquitous in functions thought of as law departments, define the minimum requisite attributes.