Articles Posted in Tools

“The ethics and compliance community suffers, in my view, from the absence of a standard, adopted framework for what an integrated, effective compliance program looks like.” These are the words of Jack Holleran, a principle at Ernst & Young, from Met. Corp. Counsel, Vol. 17, May 2009 at 8. Ernst & Young has built such a framework, which consists of more than 20 components. They have also built a maturity model, or “yardstick,” that their consultants use to assess the robustness of each program component on a 5-point scale, from basic to optimized.”

In my consulting projects, if I assess a law department, I apply a less formalized framework and maturity model. Each consultant to legal departments probably has what they would term a comparable diagnostic model, but no one has published such a framework. The legal department industry would benefit from a shared, comprehensive framework.

For those who manage corporate attorneys, the term “map” has many applications (See my post of Jan. 1, 2008: the cartography of legal department operations; May 6, 2008: website for graphical explorations, including tree maps; and March 1, 2009: cartograms that link data to geography.). Maps allow us to depict visually information we care about (See my post of May 7, 2008: methods to portray data visually with 9 references.). Let me unfold seven of the types of management maps referred to in this blog.

Decisions (See my post of July 28, 2008: a method to map decision points and consequences.).

Electronic documents for discovery (See my post of May 7, 2006: semantic mapping in discovery; April 13, 2008: data-mapping software; and Aug. 26, 2008: should law department be responsible for data maps.).

Professional historians would bring to bear a number of concepts to their view of legal departments. Below are several that they would apply.

Causality – does circumstance A lead to circumstance B (See my post of Jan. 25, 2008: causality with 10 references; and Jan. 25, 2008: over-determined events.).

Historicity – the importance of seeing the world as the participants at the time saw it, avoiding anachronisms (See my post of Oct. 24, 2008: historical references to management of legal departments with 7 references; and June 13, 2006: a historical lexicon of law department management terms.).

OK, not the most momentous topic, but as I listened to Karen Klein, General Counsel, Kayak.com at the recent Ninth Annual SuperConference, she kept referring to the two terms, and showed them repeatedly on her slides.

A budget estimates what a legal department will spend in the coming fiscal year. “Our budget is $14 million for Fiscal Year (FY) 2009.” A forecast, prepared later, revises the budget for FY2009 in light of whatever has been spent through some prior period of time – the first quarter, the first half of the fiscal year – and produces a more knowledgeable estimate of the total spend expected for the year.

A sense of ease, of clarity of expression, of abiding concern resolved, now settles over this blog’s reading public.

Law Practice, Vol. 35, April/May 2009 at 45, refers to Diderico van Eyl, intellectual property counsel for SABIC Innovative Plastics, who uses project management techniques to improve legal work flow.

As background, van Eyl mentions the Project Management Institute, which defines a project as “a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service or result.” By unique, I assume the Institute means one-off, not a service never done before by anyone.

The Institute encompasses five project process areas within its framework: the initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling and closing processes.” (See my post of June 24, 2007: project management with 5 references; and Feb. 1, 2009: project teams of law departments with 39 references and 4 metaposts.).

A presentation at a recent conference, by Andre Marais of Schwegman, Lundberg & Woessner, explained five maps regarding patents – visual depictions of information – that his firm can prepare for clients. The examples shown in the presentation appear to be elaborate Excel spreadsheets with colored cells and shaded columns to convey the information. His slides are excellent; ask Marais for a copy.

1. Claim map that illustrates the coverage and relationships of a patent portfolio

2. Prior art map that illustrates where prior art limits protection (See my post of Dec. 29, 2008: one service of LPOs is prior art maps.).

This blog had a recent visitor who read the following Tweet and clicked the URL. “As the economy shrinks, so do paychecks of in-house counsel, if they are still employed: http://snipr.com/gec5f”. This lead from Twitter was added by @exterro.

Note the use of a shortening device for the URL. That is done with free online sites such as TinyURL, which shortens long URLs into petite ones suitable for Twitter.

I tweet about writing this blog, but keep all the content here (See my post of Oct. 2, 2008: doubts about the value to me of joining Twitter; Jan. 25, 2009: hits on this blog from Twitter; Feb. 1, 2009: Twitter as part of Web 2.0; Feb. 4, 2009: application that allows updates to Twitter by phone; March 31, 2009 #2: Twitter blocked at a client site; and April 24, 2009 #2: Twitter tracks mentions.). To some extent, my Twitter short takes and my blog posts merge.

After my admiring post on Cisco’s extensive guidelines for patents (See my post of April 22, 2009: Cisco’s 70-page guidelines for patent prep.), Jim Dunning, who blogs at GeoTrupe, commented with a more cynical – probably realistic — spin.

“My only query is whether, given its length, such guidance would actually ever be referenced by its target audience or instead flicked through, possibly in a seminar, and then placed on a shelf/in a draw to gather dust.

This is a challenge for any measure such as this and one not easily overcome. I am reminded though of the “defense manual” a major corporate had put together for its various key players to reference in the event of a hostile takeover bid coming in.

Piloting is the practice of testing an innovation in real, yet controlled conditions to improve it and fix bugs (See my post of Feb. 20, 2006: get more value from pilot programs.). All kinds of program changes by law departments benefit from a trial run through a pilot (See my post of Feb. 1, 2006: Altria and litigation support; July 20, 2007: GE and diversity tracking; April 13, 2008: HSBC and its Malaysian knowledge center; and Jan. 22, 2009: Caterpillar and pro bono.). The feedback from a pilot program lets you hone whatever you are planning to roll out (See my post of Dec. 28, 2006: test of the Community Patent Review process.).

Just for the record, a prototype tries out a product, a pilot tries out a service. If some change contemplated by a law department is complicated – perhaps a new budgeting system for law firms, or has some aspects that no one is sure how best to handle – perhaps receiving bills electronically, or involves many people and moving parts – perhaps an intranet that involves law firm contributions, it is wise to test a small but realistic slice of the program.

A company I consulted to is steeped in intellectual property (IP) and four of its practices regarding those assets struck me as worthy of note.

1. The company runs three “IP Review Boards” – one for each business line, because they each have completely different technologies. On each board are representatives from the business, marketing, technical and legal staffs. With the business focused IP boards, instead of one large one, the members are more familiar with their business needs and technologies and meetings can be more flexibly scheduled.

2. The boards hold meetings infrequently, not on a fixed schedule, so the company conducts them virtually and with irregular calls across four continents. Much of the business of the IP meetings is transacted by email.