Law Department Management Blog
A web portal by Dell wins an award for innovation. The March 2010 issue of Law Tech. News explains that Dell’s patent team “created an external hosted web portal that not only provides Dell’s internal patent team with a system for setting up and conducting meetings and voting on necessary disclosures, but also links to outside counsel for assignments and data sharing” (See my post of and Aug. 16, 2006: portal technology; Jan. 25, 2007: boards of directors and portal software; June 4, 2009: a patent portal; Jan. 7, 2010: clients request legal services through an online portal and can see contracts; and June 27, 2006: portals with 4 references.)
Empirical analysis of contract terms. “The most extensive study is an analysis by Florencia Marotta-Wurgler of New York University School of Law. She and her team analyzed 647 End User License Agreements (EULAs) from 598 companies. The study analyzes ‘23 common and important standard terms that allocate rights and risks between buyers and sellers.’ The study shows a significant bias in favor of the seller as shown in a Bias Distribution chart.” This comes from Kingsley Martin’s blog (See my post of Jan. 21, 2010: survey lists 30 contract terms most frequently negotiated.).
Grammar Counsel. “Note that the plural of general counsel is general counsel, not general counsels.” The debate is closed (See my post of March 22, 2006: proper form has no “s” for the plural.).
Another believe-it-or-not fact about a GC. David Kulten was promoted to general counsel of Saudi Aramaco, the $233 billion behemoth of barrels. What is notable is that 37 years before he joined the legal department straight out of law school! (See my post of Aug. 4, 2009 #5: likewise for Sager of DuPont, Santona of McDonalds; and Lamboly of Shell.).