Law Department Management Blog
A subtle addition to MFN. It interested me to see that one careful law department define the term “most favored client” to exclude pro bono clients. Clearly, the rates charged pro bono clients could be very low or zero (See my post of April 30, 2009: MFN impositions with 8 posts.).
Another GC promoted to CEO. According to Corp. Counsel, Dec. 2010 at 18, Luke Kissam was promoted from general counsel to president of Albemarle Corp (See my post of Dec. 1, 2010: Merck’s promotion of its former general counsel.).
Older definition of benchmarking as visits to a law department. When I read about Novo Nordisk, honored by the Financial Times for its law department’s benchmark initiative, I realized that in years gone by the term “benchmark” often meant a series of visits or telephone calls to other law departments to find out about certain subjects. What now mostly focuses on metrics is called “benchmarking,” but perhaps should be called “benchmark surveys.”
A law department demands energy efficiency from its firms. EON UK, the energy group, is “demanding improved energy efficiency from its outside law firms.” It had to happen, and as this item from a honoree of the Financial Times most innovative law departments proves, the pressure might most logically come from an energy firm (See my post of Jan. 20, 2010: UK collective of departments asked in RFP about energy policies and environmental steps.).
In-house vs inhouse. I know devotees of this blog want to close out 2010 on a strong, grammatical note. The Association of Corporate Counsel has a webpage with In-House Access. Even so, there is a blog called the Inhouse Insider. I believe the proper form has a hyphen and it does not matter about the grammatical role in which the word is used.