Archive
Buried Data Can Reveal Lawyer Productivity.
popofactticus
Rees Morrison, The National Law Journal
This column describes opportunities for a general counsel to assemble a fuller picture of the in-house legal team’s productivity. No, it’s not lawyers tracking time. Let’s accept that lawyers vehemently oppose reporting their time on matters, even periodically or in units of hours. Without timesheets, where might a general counsel turn for data on what the law department has done or accomplished? The lack of quantitative data can be solved, I submit, and with little imposition on staff. Many troves of data are available, lying around, unexploited, yet revelatory. I will briefly present several of them, outlining how they could feed into a composite description of activity and productivity, and tackling some of the objections to the arrival of this method in coming years. (read the article)
Litigation Up, Spend Down.
DonkeyHotey
Sue Reisinger, Corporate Counsel
The two hottest litigation areas these days are wage-and-hour and regulatory/compliance cases, according to legal data expert Craig Raeburn and general counsel Robert Ingato. But that isn’t translating into more legal spending by corporate law departments.
Raeburn, vice president of legal analytics at CT TyMetrix Inc., said that’s the trend showing up in the company’s massive database. He explained that the database, called LegalVIEW, holds information from actual invoices from over 17,000 law firms worldwide, totaling $42 billion in legal expenses. (read the article)
Does Your Law Department Build Upon It’s Use of Metrics?
Gramody
How legal departments are tracking the numbers that count
Ashley Post, InsideCounsel
According to the Fifth Annual Law Department Operations Survey, published by InsideCounsel and Blickstein Group in cooperation with Huron Legal, the majority of legal departments recognize the importance of tracking metrics that can help cut costs. See how your department compares. Also, be sure to read InsideCounsel’s March feature story, “Strategies for leaner legal departments: Part 1.” (read the article)
You No Longer Have to Take This Benchmark Survey to Obtain a Copy.
Details to obtain free (or low cost) compensation report for law department administrators
Rees Morrison, Law Department Management
During 2012, General Counsel Metrics collected compensation data for 65 law department administrators. The report shows medians and quartiles for base salary, bonus, and total compensation as of Dec. 31, 2011 by six industries as well as five revenue ranges (a minimum of four respondents in each).
The industries are Construction/Engineering, Food & Beverage, Hospital Systems, Manufacturing, Not-for-Profit/Government, and Technology. The revenue ranges are less than $1 billion, $1-2 billion, $2-3 billion, $4-5 billion, and more than $5 billion. (read the post)
What Do Analytics and Triathlons Have in Common?
Mister Bombay
Ari Kaplan, Reinventing Professional Services
I spoke with Craig Raeburn, the managing director for legal analytics at TyMetrix.
We discussed the leading trends that will shape the legal marketplace in 2013 and beyond, including the endurance required to realize the evolution of technology and professional services. Raeburn predicts that in 2013, members of the legal community will apply greater business principles and leverage data analytics to enforce their decision-making. He suggested that professionals prepare for the impending changes by asking about and identifying their goals, understanding basic business principles, and being open to change. In terms of challenges, fighting the new normal is going to be a key hurdle. (read the post)
How Do You Stack Up? Latest Lawyers Per Revenue Benchmark Trend.
Capt’ Gorgeous
Rees Morrison, Law Department Management
Having made my way through one recording, I plunged in with another. This one I improved in several ways.
This video explains a key metric for those who manage legal departments. (watch the video) (read the post)
To take the no-cost, quick and confidential survey, go to this link https://novisurvey.net/n/benchmarkmetrics2012.aspx
Law Department Benchmark Nearing 1,000 Participants.
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Rees Morrison, Law Department Management
Some 970 law departments had participated in the General Counsel Metrics global benchmark survey when Release 4.0 went out on Dec. 12th. The 65-page report is absolutely free to participating departments. The fifth and final release will go out in late January. (read the post)
If you or someone you know in a legal department care about performance metrics for in-house legal teams, go to this site and complete the few questions about 2011 data on staffing and spending: https://novisurvey.net/n/benchmarkmetrics2012.aspx
Putting Data to Work in Your Law Department.
ericskiff
Wolters Kluwer, legalweeklaw.com
An organisation’s data can be among its chief assets, providing the intelligence to improve performance across the organisation. However, legal organisations are at the beginning stages of thinking in these terms. Some may be reluctant to establish a data performance management program, citing concerns about data quality, the resources required, and disruptive change.
The digital age has made a proliferation of data available, and well-established business processes and advanced technologies exist to capture and use it. This white paper from Tymetrix Data Solutions presents the Legal Performance Management Continuum as an actionable framework for putting data to work to deliver better, faster decisions and improved results. (download the brief)
Latest Benchmarking Survey Suggests In-house Workload Burdensome.
Graeme Newcomb
Our latest survey shows that legal departments are working harder, with less.
Shannon Green, Corporate Counsel
In recent years, as law firms adopted more corporate management practices and then drastically downsized, a result of the Great Recession, in-house legal positions became the hot ticket for many attorneys. Company jobs looked particularly attractive to associates bogged down by crushing billable hour requirements. It’s not hard to see why: Law departments offered the promise of better work/life balance and the opportunity to become more involved in a client’s business.
But as workloads continue to rise and hiring and budget increases don’t necessarily keep pace, is the pressure inside the nation’s legal departments now rivaling that of law firms? (read the article)
Breaking Down Data By Industry.
Dolbs
Rees W. Morrison, Law Technology News
This article explains one essential analysis of nearly all legal benchmark reports: breakdowns of data by industry. It sounds so straightforward, but in fact such analyses rely on several behind-the-scenes methodology decisions by those who produce law department benchmarks. This article brings out some of those subtleties and suggests good practices both for those who offer comparative metrics and those who manage law departments based on the findings. (read the post)
