Law Department Management Blog
Would litigation costs drop if clients had to pour their own time and effort down the litigation drain? Stated differently, if clients can lob a law suit over the fence into the legal patch, and never think of it again, the company loses a governor on the accelerator of litigation costs.
Assume for major cases the business unit must assign a manager to attend hearings, work on discovery documents, report on costs and otherwise incur costs. [See my post on April 18, 2005 (6) about an assigned project manager.] The involvement should create more pressure to resolve the dispute promptly. Might not a business mindset prevail over a litigator’s quest? After all, a law suit is a problem for the entire company, not just for a responsible in-house counsel handling it.