The Point In turning from the current reactive, makeshift approach to Legal, to a financially sustainable and operationally coherent strategy, what options does the business have? I suggest three kinds. This Matters to Your Business 1. Where a task is best done by a lawyer, get one deeply experienced in…
The Point Part I of this series concluded: ” … In most companies, corporate Legal is a business function without a strategy … without objectives and metrics by which to assess its effectiveness .” In other words, most corporate Legal functions neglect to target specific results for which executive management can…
The Point In most companies, corporate Legal is a business function without a strategy. Executive management needs to fix this. Because neither attorneys in law firms nor those in-house have defined what is — and is not — within Legal’s scope of responsibility. And, apart from generalized concern about cost,…
The Point In Part I of this two-part series, I argued that: 1. Our legal system’s demands on businesses persistently exceed Legal budgets, 2. The lawyers who run the corporate Legal function default to adding lawyer headcount when demands increase, and 3. Only professional management skills can increase Legal’s capabilities…
The Point Demands on corporate Legal functions increasingly exceed their budgets, driven by proliferating regulatory and litigation pressures, and due to persistent needs for contracting, compliance, and day-to-day advice (see here and here). Meanwhile, survey data show that 88% of general counsel plan to reduce the overall cost of Legal…
The Point D. Casey Flaherty, legal technology consultancy LexFusion’s Chief Strategy Officer, released an important essay earlier this month. Along with colleagues, he conferred with 435 corporate law departments and 250 law firms in 2022. And with 327 corporate law departments and 240 law firms in 2021. His conclusions: 1.…
The Point 1. By long-established tradition, and (nearly) invariable current practice, only licensed attorneys serve as the CEO of a law firm or lead a corporate law department. 2. As a business lawyer who accepted a corporate client’s offer to run one of its divisions as a general manager 10…