Rees W Morrison

March 09, 2009 | National Law Journal

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. When they apply that metric, general counsel should understand the methodological issues that surround it. More important, they should understand what drives that metric and how they might improve their own law department?s score on it.

By Rees W. Morrison and Paul E. Morrison

9 minute read

July 18, 2013 | Daily Report Online

Wouldn't most people assume that the experienced in-house lawyers of a company would do most of its legal work? That they would only spend money occasionally on outside counsel?

By Rees W. Morrison

8 minute read

May 10, 2010 | National Law Journal

Inviting law firms to join a call about the RFP can improve the productivity, equity and results of the process.

By Rees W. Morrison

8 minute read

November 14, 2011 | Corporate Counsel

Few would dispute that for law departments of much size, it is a sound practice to make effective use of matter-management software. That genre of software is the most tailored for law departments and, other than company standard software, is likely to be the most widely installed.

By Rees W. Morrison

5 minute read

January 28, 2008 | National Law Journal

When you understand why economies of scale are present, why bigger is better in terms of declining aggregate legal spend, you can target more effectively some steps to trim costs. Here are some of the tools and techniques general counsel can adopt to save money...

By Rees W. Morrison

8 minute read

July 21, 2008 | National Law Journal

I want my lawyers to concentrate on core competencies, insist many general counsel. But they probably have very different ideas regarding what that term means. This lack of consensus exists despite the crucial importance of focusing on certain skills. The general notion of core competencies crops up frequently in management writing and has even surfaced a few times in discussions of in-house counsel. What no one has done is to define fully and usefully the term "core competency" in the context of corporate law departments.

By Rees W. Morrison

8 minute read

March 29, 2006 | Law.com

For law departments during the past decade, convergence has been all the rage, with departments dramatically reducing the number of outside firms they retain, in an effort to save money. But are the benefits of consolidating really worth it? Consultant Rees W. Morrison says law departments may want to take a step back and think about the potential drawbacks to puttiing all their eggs in one basket.

By Rees W. Morrison

8 minute read

July 23, 2007 | National 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

September 17, 2007 | National Law Journal

How does a general counsel get individual lawyers to care about how much is spent on outside counsel for their matters? Here are nine techniques that help each in-house lawyer promote effective budget management and trim outside counsel spending...

By Rees W. Morrison

8 minute read

January 23, 2013 | New Jersey Law Journal

Dip your toe into the sea of YouTube recordings, and you can imagine how that medium might help law department managers. Having recently posted a number of short recordings about law-department benchmark metrics, the author here speculates how in-house managers and those in the cottage industry around law departments may come to avail themselves of the same opportunity.

By Rees W. Morrison

7 minute read