Are the key benchmark metrics of early participants in a survey materially different than those of later participants?
Rees Morrison, Law Department Management
Here are some other findings from the early birds. About 60% of the respondents are general counsel, while another 10% are administrators. Those characteristics are also in line with past surveys.
Two questions asked about matter management software and contract management software. So far, 14 different matter management systems have been implemented among the 40 companies who have given the name of their package. Serengeti and Bridgeway have the most among that group. (read the post)
Homemade Dashboard and Chips, Anyone?
Lisa Girmscheid, Legal Project Manager, Rockwell Automation, Inc.
Let’s face it – we don’t go to the trouble of implementing an e-billing and matter management system just so we can eliminate paper bills. Dashboards, metrics, KPIs – they are the Holy Grail of our existence. Dashboards are powerful tools that can help plan, monitor, measure and report how the law department manages things like appropriate staffing ratios, trends, outside law firm performance, budgets, matters and costs.
If someone asked me to describe the concept of a dashboard, I would compare it to something tangible, like salsa made fresh from your garden. (The Dashboard/Ginsu comparison led me to this idea, so bear with me, I promise this will eventually make sense.) (read the post)
The limits of metrics in law department management – but save the baby
Rees Morrison, Law Department Management
Even if a single law department collects some numbers, no comparable data would be available from a sufficient number of other law departments.
Metrics can only go so far, at this time. That bleak forecast, I hasten to add, doesn’t vitiate benchmarks. (read the post)
The largest law departments among U.S. companies in the Fortune 500
Rees Morrison, Law Department Management
After GE and my own data from this blog, I have listed below some of the largest law departments that have their number of lawyers stated in the ALM book (shown in parenthesis).
General Electric (See my post of May 23, 2007: General Electric and its 1,225 lawyers.). Citigroup (1,000) Liberty Mutual (776) State Farm (763) JP Morgan (594) Verizon (424) Chevron (380) MetLife (292) Wells Fargo (225) General Motors (202) ConocoPhillips (127) (read the post)
On to 1,000 marches the 2012 GC Metrics benchmark survey! Please join!
Rees Morrison, Law Department Management
This year’s survey is officially OPEN! Click on this precious link to complete your response. You will relish the streamlined questionnaire, 26+ industries, five releases, medians for 25 key metrics, and the zero cost.
For your industry to be well represented, please forward this post by e-mail to your colleagues and peers. Make some noise, fans, and help GCM get 1,000 participants! (read the post)
LegalTech Takeaways: Cost-Saving Tips, Government E-Discovery
Evan Koblentz, Law Technology News
(Don’t let the title fool you, this article has very little to do with e-Discovery and more to do with data mining. It is a good read. – Jason Emanis)
“My whole schtick when I got into the law department was, ‘You guys don’t even know how much you spend or where you spend it’,” began Karen Dunning, senior director of legal operations at Motorola Solutions. But, she reflected, “How do you let the general counsel really understand in a single picture, in 4 to 5 minutes, how and where they’re spending money?” (read the article)
Morrison on Metrics: Grouped thoughts on scattergrams
The finer points of plotting graphs and lines
Rees Morrison, InsideCounsel
When you create a scattergram, the most common additional step of analysis and visualization is to superimpose on it a trend-line. If you use the default trend-line function of Excel, the line will be straight (known as the least squares line), and it will generate an equation for the line. A straight line, however, may convey a distorted sense of the trend of the points on a scattergram that has some unusually high or low numbers or anomalies in the middle of fairly consistent numbers. (read the post)
When do general counsel most want to have benchmark data?
Rees Morrison, Law Department Management
One reason for the lack of seasonality is that corporate fiscal years are not all calendar nor are budgeting cycles so synchronized. The impetus to find benchmark metrics might be a question from the Board of Directors. (read the post)
How Metrics are Reinventing Operations in Legal Departments
Ari Kaplan, ReinventingProfessionals.com
I am in the process of finalizing a research report that will be released at LegalTech NY (click here for last year’s study) for which I spent most of the fall interviewing corporate counsel from across the country. With those conversations in mind, I recently had the chance to speak with David Samia, Vice President of Product Management and Marketing at Bridgeway Software, a provider of legal management tools for the Fortune 1000. We discussed how metrics are reinventing the way legal departments delivering their services. He shared his insights on changes that metrics are helping chief legal officers make and key best practices. (read the post, watch the video interview)
A typical set of outside counsel management activities, described at Marsh Mac
Rees Morrison, Law Department Management
In a recent interview, a senior lawyer at Marsh McLennan, Lucy Fato, recounted some history. “A few years ago, we started examining all the firms that we were using to come up with a preferred provider list in the U.S. and then we rolled it out in the U.K. (read the post)
Are the key benchmark metrics of early participants in a survey materially different than those of later participants?
