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Ten posts from April that most captured my fancy

Not a good mission to “try and do as much legal work as possible in-house” (April 1, 2011)

My conclusion: a bad idea.

Data on matter management systems of large law departments – quite a few with no system or a customized one (April 3, 2011)

In the 50 law departments of companies with the most revenue that have responded to the 2011 General Counsel Metrics benchmark survey, 14 of them (28%) did not report a system.

Interactive visualization for spending and staffing data – the look of the future for law departments (April 5, 2011)

Much more is on the horizon for law departments to array and make data compelling. Interactive visualization of large sets of data is within sight.

What should a general counsel do if a much-relied on partner calls to say she is leaving her law firm? (April 7, 2011)

The general counsel may be on the side of the angels and should feel free to discuss the likelihood that work will follow the partner or remain with the partner’s former firm.

A harbinger of legal information and guidance delivered by mobile apps (April 15, 2011)

Multitudes of apps for the delivery of specialized material and FAQs will appear this year and out into the future.

Several reasons why settlement data rarely appears as benchmarks (April 18, 2011)

Practical, judicial and prudential obstacles thwart those who would like to produce settlement benchmarks.

Hidden legal costs, including capitalized legal expenses (April 20, 2011)

Capitalization, cost absorption, and cost transmutation make it harder to accumulate, report on and analyze what is truly the total legal expenditures by a company.

An interruption log instead of a time tracking log might help you become more productive (April 20, 2011)

Keep an interruption log to learn more about why you are behind in your work and give you clues how to diminish efficiency-sapping intrusions.

A star partner at one firm will probably lose luster at a new firm, so transfer work with them cautiously (April 25, 2011)

General counsel who are inclined to transfer matters and service arrangements handled by a partner who moves to another firm should think twice.

A method to select among multiple law firms, software packages, or whatever (but beware a risk) (April 28, 2011)

Match one choice to the next and so on. The outcome depends heavily on the order of packages chosen. If the stronger packages eliminate each other in the early stages, paradoxically a weak package can end up selected.

Sponsored competition to study and make recommendations regarding litigation portfolios of five global companies (April 29, 2011)

A Brazilian think tank has sponsored a competition to choose a group to analyze the litigation portfolios of five global companies.