Over the last few weeks, I've had the pleasure of hearing two presentations by Susan Raridon Lambreth of Hildebrandt Baker Robbins on the subject of legal project management. Her most recent talk was an overview of the state of legal project management, now that we are -- according to economists -- on the other side... Continue Reading →
Legal Project Management Overview
Over the last few weeks, I've had the pleasure of hearing two presentations by Susan Raridon Lambreth of Hildebrandt Baker Robbins on the subject of legal project management. Her most recent talk was an overview of the state of legal project management, now that we are -- according to economists -- on the other side... Continue Reading →
What Clients Want
Today I was fortunate to listen in on a series of fascinating conversations held by in-house counsel gathered at the Practising Law Institute's Corporate Counsel Institute 2010. The conversations ranged from the risks of social media to the impact of the recession on corporate America. (If you'd like to see my notes on these PLI... Continue Reading →
Being Socially Aware
Morrison & Foerster recently published its inaugural issue of Socially Aware: The Social Media Law Update, an electronic newsletter "devoted to the law and business of social media." In explaining why they've launched this new venture, MoFo wrote: Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites are transforming not only the daily lives of consumers, but... Continue Reading →
Planning Fallacy and Bad Estimates
It turns out that lawyers are human after all - at least with respect to their all too human inability to plan appropriately. Heidi Grant Halvorson recently published an interesting post on the planning fallacy, which is what psychologists call the inability to estimate accurately how much time an activity can take. Halvorson's review of... Continue Reading →
Recipe for Alternative Fee Arrangements
We'll be hosting 15 friends and family for Easter Dinner so I'm deep in the throes of menu planning. Since we always serve lamb, much of the recipe exploration has focused on side dishes. This search led me to a traditional companion to roast lamb: ratatouille. For those of you who have never sampled this... Continue Reading →
Wasting Your Life
After years of sitting quietly listening to the complaints, I've finally had enough. Critics of the legal profession and the billable hour speak of all lawyers as if they are identical, mindless billing machines. While many (but not all) of us do account for our time by the billable hour, that does not necessarily mean... Continue Reading →
Dino, Dodo, Extranet
We all know that dinosaurs and dodo birds are extinct. What about extranets? I know we've got them, but for how long? With the increasing pressure from clients to have access to the wealth of knowledge generated by law firms, some firms have tried to lance the wound by offering a small collection of their... Continue Reading →
Doing Time
What do lawyers and prisoners have in common? They share a fixation on time. Both groups are expected to spend a certain amount of time -- whether it be expressed as target billable hours or as sentencing guidelines. However, there is a noteworthy distinction between the groups: prisoners get time off for good behavior. While... Continue Reading →
Using Technology to Manage Costs
If you've read Alternative Billing Alternatives and Update on Alternative Billing, you now know that the panelists on ILTA's Using Technology to Manage Costs, Increase Profitability and Support Billable Hour Alternatives session believe that bare discounts are going to have a negative effect on a law firm's profitability unless that firm significantly trims its costs... Continue Reading →
Above and Beyond KM 