Rees W Morrison

August 03, 2007 | New Jersey Law Journal

As if being a general counsel were not stressful enough, there's still the worry about law department management. Among those management difficulties, five particularly vexing challenges have remained unsolved for many years.

By Rees W. Morrison

9 minute read

October 05, 2009 | Texas Lawyer

A seemingly arcane mathematics, called power laws, will help general counsel and other managers in legal departments understand spending, staffing and other numbers. Power laws explain patterns in many kinds of benchmark and performance data for law departments. They enable you to describe that data accurately and insightfully, and they help you anticipate future events.

By Rees W. Morrison

8 minute read

July 13, 2011 | Corporate Counsel

Almost without exception, authority to retain external counsel lodges firmly with the general counsel. That singular authority, however, does not necessarily mean unfettered freedom to choose which firm to retain.

By Rees W. Morrison

7 minute read

February 03, 2005 | Law.com

By Rees W. Morrison

7 minute read

April 09, 2009 | Corporate Counsel

General counsel often compare their department to peer law departments on a well-recognized metric: the number of lawyers they have for every billion dollars of revenue. Consultant Rees W. Morrison and business professor Paul E. Morrison explain the calculation of the metric, what increases or decreases it, and how to manage the law department more effectively with seven techniques that will change your department's profile in terms of lawyers per billion dollars of revenue.

By Rees W. Morrison and Paul E. Morrison

9 minute read

February 27, 2006 | New Jersey Law Journal

This article describes four kinds of auctions and how law departments should choose among them. Here, also, is advice about putting an end to several problematic aspects of auctions: one-shot bidding, unstated assumptions, the focus on costs and the winner's curse.

By Rees W. Morrison

10 minute read

December 05, 2007 | Corporate Counsel

In their efforts to reduce what they spend on outside counsel, many law departments have asked the firms they rely on significantly to give them a special privilege -- the best hourly rates that the firm has agreed to for any other client. Like agreements between nations to lower tariffs to the lowest rates applied to the best trading partner, these "Most-Favored Nation" requests may seem innocuous, but they are not, warns consultant Rees W. Morrison.

By Rees W. Morrison

7 minute read

February 15, 2008 | New Jersey Law Journal

This article offers reasons why revenue growth begets relatively smaller legal budgets. The rationales are grouped into three categories: internal, outside counsel and external.

By Rees W. Morrison

8 minute read

August 04, 2008 | Texas Lawyer

Compelled to try to control legal costs, general counsel across the land are hypnotically drawn to billing-rate discounts. "Eight percent off your standard rates" mesmerizes those who have to account for spending on outside counsel. "Look what we've saved!" they proclaim. Well, maybe.

By Rees W. Morrison

8 minute read

November 25, 2004 | Corporate Counsel

By Rees W. Morrison

10 minute read