The Billable Hour as a Driveway Moment
We've seen the Billable Hour conundrum in legal publications for decades, but what does it mean when it's on the radio?
-- Wired GC
Self-Sufficient In-House Counsel
Is having no support staff penny wise and pound-foolish?
GC Mid-Atlantic
It's no secret that money is on the minds of general counsel everywhere. For most corporate counsel, cost-cutting is the major concern these days. And general counsel are attempting to reach their companies' bottom lines in various ways. But there's one cost-cutting measure that everyone seems to agree is taking place among corporate clients: shopping around. Corporate law departments are now routinely reconsidering their processes for selecting and retaining outside counsel, says one consultant.
The Legal Intelligencer
For all the talk about change, corporate counsel are finding it hard to believe that outside firms are serious about rethinking their approach to client service and billing. In a survey by Altman Weil, 75 percent of the responding chief legal officers rated their law firms between zero to four on a 10-point scale, indicating their opinion that firms had little or no interest in change. "This is a dramatic vote of no confidence from chief legal officers," Altman Weil Principal Daniel J. DiLucchio Jr. said.
The Recorder
The National Lawyers Guild San Francisco Bay Area Chapter delivered more than 100 complaints to the State Bar on Friday, demanding disciplinary action against former Department of Defense GC William Haynes -- now Chevron GC -- for "championing policies of torture" at Guantanamo Bay. But no matter how persuasive the legal group's arguments may be, Haynes won't be disbarred. He isn't a member of California's State Bar. Haynes is actually a registered in-house counsel, a relatively newly created class of lawyers.
The National Law Journal
SwimWays Corp. is a Virginia Beach, Va.-based designer and manufacturer of pool and outdoor products. Anthony F. Vittone is SwimWays' one-man legal team and its first inside counsel. Until this year, Vittone spent no more than 30 percent of his time on patent infringement cases. Lately, however, he's more than doubled his hours on litigation to protect SwimWays' innovations. The company holds more than 120 patents and applications in 15 countries.
The Legal Intelligencer
Limited resources can inspire corporate legal departments to think creatively and invest in programs that save money, effectively utilize in-house counsel and improve customer service. Alternative dispute resolution, as opposed to litigation, is one way that a corporation can save money, says Chaton T. Turner, an assistant counsel in the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's corporate legal department, which uses mediation to resolve certain disputes and grievances that patients have with the system.
Corporate Counsel
After a dozen years at a law firm and two more working on Capitol Hill, G. Kendrick Macdowell was ready to turn his attention from the congressional scene to movie screens. Macdowell joined the National Association of Theatre Owners as general counsel and director of government affairs in 2005. His prior experience in lobbying and constitutional law helps Macdowell as he represents the owners of more than 29,000 U.S. movie screens at the largest exhibition trade organization in the world.
The National Law Journal
The Nature Conservancy's mission is to protect the Earth's biodiversity by conserving essential land and water. The group has safeguarded more than 119 million acres of land and 5,000 miles of rivers. The nonprofit group has an operating budget of $450 million derived mostly from contributions and income from endowments. General counsel Philip Tabas sees himself as a generalist and a specialist. He oversees the entirety of the conservancy's legal activities and manages the full range of legal services.
Legal Week
Rio Tinto has entered into an agreement with outsourcing provider CPA Global to offshore legal work to a team of lawyers in India. CPA Global is providing a team of 12 Delhi-based lawyers to handle tasks such as contract review, drafting and legal research -- in a move projected to reduce Rio Tinto's annual legal spending by 20 percent. The company estimates that the new India venture, which became operational on May 1, will be seven times cheaper than its lawyers in London.
Corporate Counsel
Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy last fall was a nightmare for Lawrence Bortstein, the company's global head of technology law. But it also presented him with the opportunity to realize a dream. First it spurred him to consider his career options. Then, after he decided that he was ready to start his own law firm, it gave him his first client: the Lehman estate. Bortstein's new firm is doing some of the same things for the estate that his old in-house team did for the company before it collapsed.
