Rees W Morrison

August 01, 2006 | Corporate Counsel

Like a well-oiled machine, a law department's productivity can be greatly increased when all its "parts" are kept at optimum condition. But law department managers don't necessarily agree on what helps in-house lawyers to be productive. Platitudes like "work smarter, not harder" probably don't help. Instead, in-house managers should rely on their lawyers' individual strengths and abilities when distributing workloads and addressing work flow and client demands.

By Rees W. Morrison

9 minute read

September 03, 2007 | Texas Lawyer

When a law department retains a law firm to handle a large matter or a series of matters, the law department should make sure the law firm selects a core team.

By Rees W. Morrison

10 minute read

April 01, 2010 | New Jersey Law Journal

This article discusses 20 techniques, by increasing order of difficulty or cost to bring about, that increase coherence and effectiveness in a spread-out legal department.

By Rees W. Morrison

7 minute read

February 12, 2007 | Law.com

Is creativity scary? According to consultant Rees W. Morrison, neither law departments nor the firms they retain seem comfortable with encouraging it. Morrison describes several reasons why, which include the threat of increased risks, the inhibition against "showing up" others and just plain inability. But there are ways to help unleash the power of creativity, Morrison says; among them, the seemingly-counterintuitive move of taking a look at what others have done.

By Rees W. Morrison

9 minute read

November 21, 2006 | Corporate Counsel

All law departments review their law firm invoices. Few law departments, though, extract management insights from those invoices. In-house counsel mostly view invoices as paperwork to be initialed and processed for payment by someone in accounting. Yet law departments can glean many useful insights from the invoices of a single law firm and from the metrics of company invoices taken from multiple law firms, and the effort it takes to reap them is modest, says consultant Rees Morrison.

By Rees W. Morrison

8 minute read

July 15, 2011 | Corporate Counsel

Four developing trends under way will in the near future add much more punch and usefulness to benchmark reports of law departments. These trends are dramatically larger numbers of participants in surveys, data visualization and info-graphics, rapid personalized analysis, and proprietary figures enriched with public disclosures.

By Rees W. Morrison

8 minute read

August 03, 2009 | Texas Lawyer

The most effective way for a general counsel to reduce the costs of outside counsel may be to change firms, says Rees W. Morrison, a consultant to general counsel on the management challenges of their law departments. Not discounted billing rates or convergence; not electronic billing rules or bill review — simply retain different firms that look reasonably able to deliver comparable or better quality at lower cost.

By Rees W. Morrison

6 minute read

July 05, 2004 | Texas Lawyer

Understanding the core definition of various cost-control models lets a GC more knowingly craft the hybrid that best serves their resources and cost-control goals.

By Rees W. Morrison

9 minute read

November 08, 2007 | Corporate Counsel

How does a general counsel get individual lawyers to care about how much is spent on outside counsel for their matters? Consultant Rees W. Morrison presents nine techniques that help each in-house lawyer promote effective budget management and trim outside counsel spending. To be sure, saving money cannot be the primary goal of a law department; winning and succeeding count more than fees. But in the effort to balance costs and outcomes, these techniques can make a difference.

By Rees W. Morrison

8 minute read

May 02, 2005 | Texas Lawyer

Every law department manager asks, "What are the best practices among law departments for managing costs, investing in technology or designing the organization structure for in-house lawyers?"

By Rees W. Morrison

10 minute read