Processes and tools serve general counsel and other managers of legal departments every day, all the time, and in countless ways. Yet who has listed even a small sample of them or described their types, limits and tricks? This article defines the key terms and explains the major benefits of such a compendium.
For our purposes, law department processes are defined as activities that are repeated with some regularity every year that have significantly similar steps each time, such as recording and tracking accruals, evaluating and guiding outside counsel, reviewing and approving bills, and updating and reporting information in databases. A process is a modest, recognizable unit of related activities in support of one of a law department’s goals such as to direct outside counsel, muster and support internal talent and furnish legal advice.
