Setting the Bar High: Abbott Laboratories
Best Legal Departments 2012: Abbott’s in-house lawyers are expected to meet big challenges—and they do.
Shannon Green, CorporateCounsel
To help them meet her always high expectations, one of the big changes Schumacher made early on was taking the administrative work of running the department away from the lawyers. Before she took over, the lawyers were shouldering a lot of the legal operations work. Instead of using a centralized system, department heads were haphazardly managing vendors and processing conflicts waivers. Schumacher knew that the department needed to be run more like a business.
Enter Jeff Paquin. Paquin was a long way from Illinois when he was asked to come onboard as head of legal operations. “I was running my own firm in Atlanta,” he says, “minding my own business.” Schumacher had a vision to create a division that would be led by high-caliber legal and business minds. Paquin was impressed enough to move. (read the article)
Best Legal Departments 2012: From Singular to Plural
Corporate Counsel
This year, for the first time, we’ve chosen four Best Legal Departments. They range in size from a department that features 140 attorneys in the United States to a department with just one. We didn’t go looking for a department that small just to make a point, but we’re kind of glad it worked out that way. This year, size really didn’t matter.
What do these departments have in common? At first glance, not much. One general counsel’s problem was a billion-dollar verdict that her company was facing; another was dealing with a contract dispute over a killer whale. One GC was buried under 5,000 pending legal actions; another inherited a department that sued first and asked questions later. (read the article)
The Am Law 100 2012
The American Lawyer
All the key financial metrics for The Am Law 100 rose by single digits last year: gross revenue, revenue per lawyer, and profits per partner. Eighty-three firms posted revenue gains—25 more than in the previous year.
Second Transformative Leadership Awards to take place on the West Coast
Nominations are now open for TLA West
Julie Beck, InsideCounsel
Have you always wanted to come to our Transformative Leadership Awards (TLA) dinner but just couldn’t seem to make it all the way to Chicago? Maybe you live out West, and you’ve been thinking “Hey, we have sunshine. Why not do the awards here?” (read the article) (check out TLA West website)
Nominate your legal department for the 2012 IC10 Awards
The IC10 Awards recognize the country’s most innovative legal departments
Alanna Byrne, InsideCounsel
The IC10 Awards shine a spotlight on departments that find new ways to adapt to some of the most pressing problems facing law departments. This includes innovative strategies for managing legal vendors, increasing diversity, cutting costs, using technology and more. (read the article)
Announcing ILTA’s 2012 Distinguished Peer Awards is Now Accepting Nominations
International Legal Technology Association
(click here to apply)
