Archive
It’s Time For Your Outside Counsel to Embrace Legal Project Management.
Alex E Proimos
Scott Preston and Ryan McClead, 3 Geeks and a Law Blog
Unfortunately, the hourly billing model actively rewards inefficiency. If it takes fifteen hours to complete a task that should have taken five, then the inefficient lawyer has just tripled revenues. In such an environment even those attorneys that are inclined to actively manage their projects have no incentive to improve their management techniques and the profession as a whole has no impetus to evolve.
We may have continued indefinitely down this path with attorneys managing projects “by ear” and raising their rates ten percent annually, but the economic downturn in 2008 provided a much needed wake up call to the industry. (read the post)
Is Non-traditional Staffing From Your Firm Driving Improved Efficiencies?
Law Firm Survey Shows Efforts to Attract Corporate Law Departments
Brian Glaser, Corporate Counsel
The December 2011 issue of The American Lawyer features the latest edition of its Law Firm Leaders Survey. The lead essay of the survey package, “Building a Breakout Firm,” includes many results of interest to in-house law departments—and the outside law firms hoping to be hired by those departments.
The quest for increased efficiency includes a look at “nontraditional staffing models.” Cohen writes, “Particularly popular is the use of contract attorneys working at the firm or within the client’s legal department. Seventy-six percent of respondents said they used this approach during the past year, up from 55 percent in 2010.” (read the article)
