CEO’s know that “A great CFO is his best secret weapon.” Aside from the sexism, that’s a shot at CLOs. Or maybe GCs are not so secret? The article in Fortune, July 25, 2011 at 27, rubs in the comparison: “A great CFO needs to be part numbers whiz, part…
An article’s author writes that “Whereas there were about 3,000 multinational corporations in 1914, the figure rose to 63,000 in the year 2000.” If that latter figure is correct, and the J-shaped growth curve has continued for whatever they mean by “multinational corporations,” one could imagine 70,000 now, a decade…
In a recent article, Scott Giordano of Mitratech credited Ben Heineman (General Electric’s former general counsel) with an observation he and others must believe to be profound. “The greatest challenge for the GC is to reconcile the dual and sometimes contradictory role of being a partner to the business and…
A piece in Met. Corp. Counsel, June 2011 at 12, concerns Enterprise Risk Management (ERM). Aimed at a company level, I tried to bring it down to the legal department level and apply one of its teachings. The authors write that “Linking your risks to strategic objectives is the most…
Without attorney-client privilege, law departments can’t compete equally with outside counsel. Retrograde jurisdictions fail to provide that powerful shield (See my post of April 25, 2011 #1: narrow rejection of privilege in Europe.). By law, salaried lawyers of an Indian company are barred from representing their client in court. That…
The bread-and-butter of many in-house attorneys consists of commercial contracts, those contracts either to buy or to sell goods or services, and the legal work attendant on them (See my post of Dec. 22, 2009: primary role of many inside lawyers; Dec. 23, 2009: one-third of litigation involves contract disputes;…
A recent survey’s report on law department value ends with a strange twist. “In summary, the more the legal department can free up attorney time to focus on revenue-generating activities, the better it will serve the client and the better the business will perform.” If “revenue generating” comes down to…
A recent survey of 176 law departments found that at least half of them say they demonstrate value to their companies by “implementing knowledge management systems.” That finding troubles me, for three reasons. Demonstrating value cannot mean listing all the things you do in your department. Not all activities create…
An article says that Applied Discovery defines value as “partnering with clients to achieve their objectives, with thorough cost assessments and efficient project management as methods for aligning cost with value at the very onset: in the bidding stage.” Stated differently, value is working closely and efficiently with clients. Admirable…
As I noticed the drumbeat of downloads of my recent article on the value delivered by in-house counsel, I wondered why that theme grabbed so many readers. The straightforward answer would be that many managers of law departments want to understand better how to describe the value their team brings,…