Law Department Management

Plenum spaces and pony walls: ways lighting and sound affect the productivity of workers

“Countless studies show that proper lighting and acoustic levels play a key role in increasing workplace productivity.” The point is made in an article in Law Practice, Nov./Dec. 2009 at 39 by experts at PDR Corp, that it is better to “reduce your overall ambient light levels and incorporate task lighting controlled by dimmers and motion sensors.” “Task lighting” is jargon but the notion makes sense (See my post of Sept. 22, 2009: more on lighting and energy.).

The item also mentions that offices with plenum spaces above the ceiling allow noise to spread from office to office. “Add acoustical padding or pony walls to close gaps in your plenum space to create a quieter and ultimately more productive setting.”

A legal department might be able to invest in lighting systems and in sound dampening architecture. If it could, the productivity of its lawyers and others might rebound.

Four more environmentally progressive ideas that legal departments might adopt

An article in Legal Tech. News, Vol. 16, Nov. 2009 at 39, describes the environmental efforts of a 40-person law firm. It adds several ideas, and quantifies some of their benefits, to my previous collection (See my post of March 11, 2009: conservation for law departments with 7 references; and Aug. 7, 2009: 32 steps to take.).

The firm set a goal to reduce paper consumption by 80 percent and to use recycled paper. The recycled paper costs $1 more per ream (29% more expensive) but the firm shifted to using considerably less paper.
The article mentions that “everyone uses dual monitors, to increase his or her workspace.” I have written about dual monitors but only in terms of energy, not physical space (See my post of Sept. 30, 2009: monitors with 6 references.). Less space means less energy for heating and cooling.
Ergotron stands at $219 each were also part of the firm’s investment. While not environmentally important, their ergonomic value makes sense (See my post of Sept. 19, 2009: chairs and ergonomics.).
The firm scratched $300 per person from its annual budget by eliminating bottled water and switching to a filter system – not to mention the plastic landfill it avoided. “Styrofoam cups are no longer purchased, saving another $4,000 annually. Instead, everyone received a mug.”

To strengthen your company and improve the quality of your work, train your clients

An earlier post today describes a method of training, spaced education, that could help in-house lawyers when they train clients (See my post of Nov. 19, 2009: spaced education.). To find other instances where this blog refers to client education, I used for the first time a software program called Examine32 that allows proximity and Boolean searches of Word files. Lo and behold, it outstripped by Find function and located a number of previous posts on client training (See my post of July 14, 2005: methods to train clients; July 21, 2005: training for clients; Dec. 19, 2005: train clients using classrooms, online and paper; Dec. 20, 2005: training clients to get the most from the legal department; Jan. 3, 2006: train HR personnel to handle EEOC claims; May 10, 2006: Kraft’s IP training; June 28, 2006: effect of client training on workload; and Aug. 2, 2009: computer-based training (CBT). I am training myself to be more efficient!

Compliance functions also do plenty of training, but I seem not to have noted that activity specifically.

Train clients or members of the legal department using “spaced education”

People learn much more effectively if they spread out their learning over a period of time, rather than cramming, and if they are tested as they proceed, rather than at the end. Those are the two primary tenets of what is called in the Harv. Mag., Nov.-Dec. 2009 at 10, “spaced education.”

To improve your training program for clients, break the information they need to learn into discrete packages and repeat them over intervals of time, always presenting it in a test format. New information appears when the correct answer is explained and elaborated on. The two methods combined significantly increase the uptake and retention of knowledge (See my post of Sept. 1, 2008: learning methods with 12 references.). The same principles apply to training within the legal department. For more on this, visit the website Spaced Ed.

One of this year’s Nobel prizes for economics speaks to the make-or-buy choice for legal services

That all economic transactions are costly in terms of finding, contracting with, and enforcing the arrangement we know from the seminal work of Ronald Coase, winner of the 1991 Nobel prize for economics. Finding the right price to pay among competing, comparable law firms has costs. Competitive bids might minimize those transaction costs in terms of the information obtained, but it still minimizes those costs to build an internal legal team.

This year’s Nobel Laureate, Oliver Williamson of Berkeley, extended the Coasian analysis of transaction costs to consider the complexity of the deal and institutional knowledge. He also “specified measurable attributes of transactions that would make them more or less amenable to being conducted on markets,” according to the Economist, Oct. 17, 2009 at 92. Decisions to provide legal services from inside the company or to procure them from outside fall into a transaction costs analysis (See my post of Aug. 9, 2009: transaction cost economics and five references; and Nov. 8, 2009: transaction costs of arbitration.).

Some recent firsts on or about this blog

If bloggers don’t tinker and take chances, their blog dries up and blows away. So I keep trying out new things, and welcome ideas for more (See my post of Feb. 20, 2009: first blook, metapost, and article on blog; Feb. 26, 2009: first poll, YouTube video; podcast, and use of Twitter; and July 22, 2009: 10 more firsts.).

This blog has tested a number of improvements in the past four months, aside from my first advertisement, for DataCert and my listing on NewsText (See my post of Sept. 28, 2009: offers table of contents of blooks; June 29, 2009: free Metapost Plus’s; July 22, 2009: first four blook reviews, reviews of books through multiple blog posts; Aug. 28, 2009: analysis of visitors through poll; Nov. 10, 2009 #3: Concordance of headers; Nov. 10, 2009 #5: readers on iPhone; and Nov. 16, 2009: being on lists on Twitter.).

Thanks to a suggestion from James Dunning of GeoTrupes, I also posted my first announcement on a “twibe,” a Twitter tribe (group). It is “Law” and it had 459 members when I joined. I also added “subscribe by email” by activating that on FeedBurner.

Why set restrictions on firms if you can’t monitor or enforce them?

Law departments can say they reject certain practices by law firms, but if no way exists to detect the improper behavior, why encrust your outside counsel guidelines with a toothless prohibition? A leading example of thundering against the wind is insistence on most favored nation status (See my post of April 30, 2009: MFN impositions with 8 posts.). How will a firm’s non-conformance with that mandate ever come to light?

Another example would be if a law department solemnly proclaims that “If research on a matter for us has application to other clients, only bill us our proportionate share.” How can the department detect and enforce that quixotic position? “No photocopying charged to us for your internal convenience,” sounds void for vagueness, not detectible, and therefore not detestable. Guidelines that inveigh against unenforceables just seem silly. What Simon & Garfunkel sang should apply to rules: “We speak of things that matter, with words that must be said,” is bill analysis worthwhile, is the core staff really dead?

Problems with asking in-house attorneys to cut their individual budgets from the prior year’s level

A financial institution a few years ago told each lawyer who managed outside counsel to reduce by 10 percent the amount the lawyer had approved the previous year. That mandate makes little sense. Consider five unwanted consequences.

Frustration – in-house counsel may face more matters – and therefore more outside counsel spending – through no fault of their own. If the goal were expressed as a reduction in costs on a per matter basis, that makes a bit more sense.

Gaming – I would expect November and December to be low billing months for lawyers who fear they will fall short of their target and thus their bonus. Perhaps some kind of burn rate test would address such a drop off in that the general counsel could compare the last month or two of the year with the rolling average spend on outside counsel for the 9-10 months beforehand. A steep drop off would stand out and would be even stranger since law firms strive mightily to bill and collect toward the end of their fiscal year.

Controversy – Sometimes law firms handle issues that cut across more than one in-house lawyer’s domain. Who picks up the tab, how much time does it take to calm a dispute between two lawyers, or do the lawyers arm-wrestle to avoid the bill? Sometimes lawyers are promoted or assigned new responsibilities, with commensurate changes in their oversight of outside counsel spending.

Ineffectuality – If convergence prohibits a lawyer from hiring less expensive firms, the lawyer fights the budget battle with one arm tied behind his back.

Complexity – If more than one lawyer works with the same law firm, the might insist on different behavior. The lawyer who struggles to hit the goal of a smaller spend may demand discounts, for example, whereas a counterpart does not. Firms will be pushed and pulled differently, whereas the legal department does better if it enforces consistent guidelines.

A hyperpost – collection of metaposts – on general counsel

Hundreds, if not thousands, of posts on this blog refer to general counsel. Most use the term “general counsel” to stand in for the entire legal department, only a few pertain specifically to characteristic traits of person as an individual or the position. I have gathered XX metaposts that have to do with general counsel. See what I mean by the following metaposts:

Who reports to the general counsel (See my post of May 29, 2009: direct reports to the general counsel with 12 references.).

What role do values play for a general counsel (See my post of Sept. 23, 2009: values with 11 references since May 2008 metapost.).

How often are general counsel promoted to CEO (See my post of May 26, 2007: GCs report to former GC with 10 references; and March 24, 2007: promoted general counsel with 8 references).

What non-legal position have some general counsel held a during their career in a company (See my post of Aug. 4, 2007: GCs and non-law positions held with 7 references.).

What roles do general counsel assign to deputy general counsel (See my post of Jan. 30, 2009: deputy general counsel with 11 references.).

Two more speculations on consequences most in-house lawyers growing up in law firms

A recent post suggested six personality traits of lawyers that inhibit change (See my post of Nov. 12, 2009: six traits that inhibit change.). Andrew Davis of Exari left a good comment, and I thought I would stand “on the shoulders of giants.” Andrew wrote:

“Most in-house lawyers work in law firms before moving in-house. And I think their exposure to the billable hour has a big impact on their behavior. Billings have a huge impact on law firm revenues and on the careers of individual lawyers. This deters them from investing non-billable time today to become more efficient over the longer term. Even though, after a lawyer moves in-house, their day-to-day legal work is often no longer billable, I would argue that they have been trained to focus on just doing the work, rather than taking a step back to see if they could do it more productively.”

This formative period for most in-house counsel and its brainwashing to ignore productivity brings to mind another influence. Efficiency is not the goal at law school or as an associate; indeed, both reward working and reworking case digests or memoranda (respectively), exam outlines and research (respectively). Once inside, however, the efficiency of a lawyer wins the prize: deal with the major risks in the most direct way and move on to the next problem that hits your desk.