Category: General musings
-
The five skills of highly effective in-house lawyers
I spent some time this week with a group of in-house lawyers facilitating a discussion around the skills and capabilities that corporate counsel need to be a success, particularly if they are just making the transition from private practice. The group itself was very diverse, ranging from a FTSE100 GC to a very recent convert…
-
A shiny new law firm
With deregulation of the market looming here in the UK, opinion varies wildly over what the likely impact will be. Some speak of decimation of the high street, and the end of the traditional law firm as we know it. Others are more conservative and see a simple acceleration of the move from a traditional…
-
So you’re an equity partner – big deal!
Last week I was given a business card by a lawyer I was talking to. On the card, underneath their name, was written “Equity Partner” in a fairly bold, not-to-be-missed font. It struck me, that were I ever to hit those heights in a law firm (I bailed out of private practice before putting those…
-
Why timesheets rule but chargeable hours suck
There was something deliciously ironic about me trying some new time recording software this week. It’s many years after I left life as a private practice lawyer but I can still remember that huge sense of freedom at escaping the tyranny of the timesheet. The feeling of being able to work on what mattered most…
-
The International Man Of Mystery?
Are you the law’s international man of mystery? The answer to the prayers of corporate counsel in global companies? Can you leap jurisdictions with a single bound? Effortlessly unravel the tangle of law, culture and procedure? Wrap your arms around a wriggling mass of seemingly conflicting regulations, and fearlessly work with them to make compliance a reality?…
-
The epic failure of the world’s best presenter
Over the past few weeks I’ve been out and about in the legal community and seen a number of presentations from eminent QCs. Now for those of you outside the UK, Queen’s Counsel (QCs) are the creme de la creme of that part of our legal profession that performs in court. As a result, they need…
-
The Balanced Law Firm
Living in the corporate world, it’s easy to take scorecards, dashboards and metrics for granted. For those that recoil at management speak, they can become a one way ticket to snoozeville. For those who like to get down and dirty with data, browsing a realtime display of information can be the highlight of their week.…
-
What lawyers can learn from the U.S. Navy SEALs
The politics, morality and socio-economic consequences of Osama Bin Laden’s death will undoubtedly be discussed for years to come, and this blog is certainly not the place for that debate. I would however like to stake my claim to being the first commentator to raise the issue of what lawyers can learn from the incident,…
-
The crowd in the cloud
These days, your knowledge is not enough to stand out from the crowd. But before I explain why that’s the case, and what you can do about it, let me quickly explain how this post came to be… One of the benefits of Twitter is connecting with a whole heap of like-minded people, and one…
Intelligent Challenge 