Law Department Management Blog
I thought about an encore to my recent thoughts on key benchmarks for legal department managers, those that are known and some that are not (See my post of July 9, 2009: ten most fundamental benchmarks; and July 10, 2009: ten benchmarks general counsel may wish they could obtain.). I decided to herd together the many benchmarks that have not been collected previously. Thus I excluded posts on practice group benchmarks. The demarcation lines are not watertight, however, so I grouped the assemblage under my categories.
Cost: (See my post of March 5, 2009: percentage of legal spend paid governments for patent costs; May 24, 2005: legal spending as a percentage of profit margin; May 23, 2007: profit per lawyer; April 24, 2009: other denominators for benchmarks; Feb. 25, 2009: occupancy expenses per lawyer; March 28, 2006: inside spend per lawyer; July 21, 2008: inside spend per lawyer over time; Aug. 4, 2008: decline in ratio of internal spend as department size grows; Sept. 7, 2008: total legal costs expressed as cents per share; May 26, 2007: market capitalization as benchmark denominator; July 2, 2007: metrics that use market capitalization; Feb. 6 2009: payments made to inventors; Aug. 14, 2005: spending of $4,000 per lawyer on technology; May 31, 2005: legal spending per resident; Feb. 4, 2008: cost for corporate secretaries per entity maintained; Jan. 20, 2009: legal resolution costs – settlements and judgments; and Jan. 19, 2008: unknown metrics about non-publicly traded companies.).
Outside Counsel: (See my post of April 10, 2006: total law firms retained; Dec. 21, 2008: outside counsel spend as a percentage of revenue; May 21, 2008: percentage of in-house attorneys who manage outside counsel; May 4, 2009: outside counsel spend per lawyer, about $600,000; and July 16, 2005: law firms paid more than $100,000 per billion of revenue.).
Productivity: (See my post of May 22, 2009: total lawyer hours worked per billion of revenue; Feb. 12, 2008: percentage of work done inside; July 4, 2009: European trend upward of work done inside; Dec. 11, 2006: the proportion of work that they send out; March 19, 2006: hours inside vs. outside in Canada; June 10, 2007: odd aspects of numbers of matters sent outside; July 11, 2008: autarky and doing work inside; Jan. 25, 2006: number of major lawsuits pending; and May 28, 2005: cycle time for cases in Federal District Courts.).
Structure: (See my post of April 18, 2009: lawyers as percentage of total legal staff and more with one to one; March 26, 2006: EMC ratio of one-to-one; Nov. 28, 2007: trend toward more lawyers per staff; March 2, 2009: specialists headquarters and commercial lawyers in international regions; Sept. 27, 2005: median of 3.0 paralegals in US departments; Feb. 7, 2008: department size and likelihood of having an administrator; Feb. 16, 2009: FBI has 30 lawyers per billion of budget; March 11, 2009: US Postal Service; Aug. 27, 2005: one IT support person for every 24 people in the legal department; Dec. 23, 2005: less than one IT support for every 35 people; Dec. 23, 2005: prosecutors’ offices; and June 15, 2008: percentage of lawyers outside the home country in relation to percentage of revenue generated internationally.).
Talent: (See my post of Feb. 25, 2009: attrition rates for inside lawyers; July 27, 2008: offers extended and accepted; and Nov. 28, 2007: years of in-house lawyer experience.).