Law Department Management Blog
Reporting lines and scope of responsibility. A document recently published about McDonald’s law department offers some interesting specifics. For example, the general counsel, Gloria Santona, “runs marketing and intellectual property, global compliance, and international.” Marketing at McDonald’s must be one super-size responsibility! (See for example my post of Aug. 27, 2005 about general counsel and their protean scope of responsibility.) Of her three direct reports, one handles all corporate matters except litigation (such as finance, technology, employee benefits, corporate contracts and securities), one handles the US based business, and one handles litigation (See my post of July 30, 2005 on specialty lawyers and dual reporting.)
Event studies and litigation. Further to my post of May 4, 2005 on event studies in patent law suits, there is a clear explanation of the topic in Economic Approaches to Intellectual Property: Policy, Litigation, and Management (NERA Econ. Consulting 2005, at 153).
Practice area benchmarks – HR At Burlington Coat Factory’s law department, “the employment lawyer has more than a full-time job dealing with a work force of 25,000.” GC Mid-Atlantic, Dec./Jan 2006 at 35. The statement by no means that 1 HR lawyer for every 25,000 employees should hold as a benchmark, but it gives a clue.