It has been a fun month or so for me because I had the true pleasure of appearing on two of the best podcasts for in-house lawyers. The first is “The Legal Department” hosted by Stacy Bratcher, CLO at Cottage Health. The second is the “Legal Leaders” podcast hosted by David Lancelot, CLO at LawVu. Stacy and I chatted in depth about productivity for in-house lawyers, including slaying the email monster and escaping meeting hell (as well as my go-to pump-me-up song). David and I spoke about a variety of topics about practicing in-house, including technology and the keys to being an effective in-house lawyer (and if you listen closely you can hear my dog snoring blissfully in the background). Both hosts asked outstanding questions and made it very easy for me to engage with them (and covering up my blathering). So, grab some coffee and Oreos and give them a listen. I think you will find a lot to like in both podcasts – mostly from the hosts.
in-house department management
Ten Things: Solving Problems (It’s Different In-House)
One of the reasons I wanted to become a lawyer was to solve problems. The added bonus was the expectation that someone would pay me (a lot) to read and write stuff to help solve those problems. How cool is that?[1] Law school and then working at a law firm for a number of years post-graduation were both fantastic training for how to solve problems. Well, how to solve legal problems. When I finally got my chance to go in-house, I learned pretty quickly that all my “legal-problem-solving-skills” were useful but many of the problems I was called upon to help with involved only a small amount of legal-ness and a lot of “other stuff” – I’ll just call that other stuff “business issues” to save time (but if you work in-house, you know exactly what I am talking about). Unfortunately, this meant that a lot of what I thought I brought to the table was useful only part of the time, i.e., solving problems as an in-house lawyer is very different from solving them as an outside lawyer. Skip forward a few centuries, and I can proudly say that I have been a lawyer for a long time with most of that time spent in-house – I survived the crucible of fire and walked away with my sanity (and all of my toes). Some don’t.[2] Why? Because, even now, one thing I consistently see from many in-house lawyers is an inability to grasp the very real difference between what the company needs from them when it comes to solving problems vs. what it needs from outside lawyers. Many lawyers (in-house or law firm) tend to fall back on the mind-numbingly rigid dogma[3] of treating every problem like a law school exam. More troubling, even when they know it’s not a legal problem they are trying to solve, they simply don’t know the way forward and fall back into the same pit of despair and anguish. Fortunately, I screwed this up enough times over the decades (and am still coated heavily in despair and anguish) that I can share a little knowledge with you here today. That’s right. This edition of “Ten Things” discusses something I bet no one has raised with you before — how to solve problems as an in-house lawyer:
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Ten Things: “Cool Tech” for In-House Counsel (2024 Edition)
Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of “Ten Things You Need to Know as In-House Counsel!” This is one of my favorite posts of the year because every summer for the past nine years or so, I have written about “cool tech” for in-house lawyers – and this year is no exception. If you would like to see past editions of the “cool tech” edition, check out footnote 1 below.[1] As always, I have been scanning the technology horizon like Captain Ahab, searching for the most elusive prize of all – useful technology that will make in-house lawyers more productive (in addition to making work easier and – hopefully – more fun and interesting). In my new book on productivity for in-house lawyers, I have chapters on technology generally and ChatGPT specifically. And if you have been reading my other books, this blog, or my LinkedIn posts over the years, you know that I am a big fan of technology, especially technology that enhances the productivity of the legal department and its value to the business.
As always, I like to find and highlight technology that is easy to use and low cost – delivering big value with little effort or expense (though occasionally – like today – I will highlight something that is a bigger lift cost-wise but likely to pay big dividends). As usual, I make no promises or warranties of any kind, implied or express (got to cover my ass when I can) and I can also assure you that I get nothing for recommending the technology below. I just think these are all useful tools and worth your time checking them out. Ready to get into it? Great, here we go with my “Ten Things” cool tech 2024 edition:
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Ten Things: How to Create a Strategic Plan for the Legal Department
Running an in-house legal department is not an easy job, regardless of whether you are a legal department of one or a legal department of 200. To start, there is never enough money, people, or time to get everything done. Second, priorities change frequently so prioritizing where to focus your scant resources is a challenge. Third, the business often considers (wrongly) that the legal department is simply another cost center and/or necessary evil, meaning the legal team is ignored or marginalized – treated like outsiders vs. an integral part of the business. And fourth, the legal department often lacks strategic direction, reacting to problems vs. planning for them. I have dealt with (including failing at) all of these issues – and more – as an in-house lawyer, especially as general counsel for multiple companies over the course of a long in-house legal career. I wish I could tell you that solving these problems is easy, but it is not. The biggest hurdle is that it’s hard to plan in advance when most of your day is spent frantically trying to dig out from under the incredible amount of work dumped on your desk or when cleaning up the latest catastrophe brought on by the knuckleheads in [insert business group name here]. Still, in order to be successful as an in-house lawyer and create a legal function that fits snugly within the cloak of the company’s strategic goals and plans you must make time for planning. It’s that simple. Sure, you can mutter curses at me under your breath or chuck imaginary (or real)[1] rocks at your screen as you read this, but I am just telling you what you need to hear – not what you want to hear. The good news is that creating a strategic plan for the legal department is difficult but pretty straightforward and something you can accomplish if you set your mind to it (and let others help). So, hold the rocks and creative profanity for a few minutes as this edition of “Ten Things” discusses how you go about creating a strategic plan for the legal department:
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Ten Things: What to Do When You Don’t Know the Answer
Everyone likes to know the answer to questions that come their way at work, none more so than in-house lawyers. Lawyers take special pride in being able to respond to practically any question, on any topic, at any time. They can do this because they are, typically, very smart, well-read, and at ease with murky situations. However, occasionally, and usually at the worst possible moment, someone in the business will ask an in-house lawyer a question and they will have no idea how to answer it. This happened to me on more than one occasion and it was incredibly frustrating for me and whoever was asking the question – usually the CEO or a board member. Why were they frustrated? Well, because like most people on the business side they believe two things that make your job as in-house counsel even harder: 1) all lawyers know everything about all areas of the law regardless of their background or specialty, and 2) that there is a “Big Book of Law” we keep on a shelf that has all the answers to every legal question and all we lawyers have to do is take it down and find the right page. Yeah, right…. So, what do you do when you get a question you don’t know the answer to (especially when they are looking right at you across the table)? This edition of “Ten Things” set out some strategies to help you navigate this tricky situation:
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Ten Things: Creating a “Not-to-Do” List (Learning How to Say No)
Hello again everyone! I am very excited to report to you that my next book (number six) is in the hands of the publisher and should be out by this summer.[1] The working title is The Productive In-House Lawyer: Tips, Hacks, and the Art of Getting Things Done. I think you are going to really enjoy reading this one, especially if you find yourself pressed for time to do all the things you need to do on your to-do list. Which basically means anyone reading this. The book is jammed to the rafters with different ways to squeeze more time out of your day with the goal of getting more done (and more important things done) in the time you have vs. working more. While I am not going to go into too much more detail here (I do want you to actually buy it when it’s available), there is one section of the book I keep coming back to in my head. What section is that you ask? Well, thank you for asking! It is the section on how to say “no.” In particular, how to create a “Not-to-Do” list, i.e., a set of principles that guide how you will spend your time by setting out the things you will not spend time on (or spend significant time on). I certainly cannot take any credit for the idea of a “Not-to-Do” list. The concept has been around forever, and history is full of people wildly succeeding at not doing things, such as Emperor Nero standing by while Rome burned, my law school roommate, the Kardashian family, Congress… okay, enough of that. But you get my point, and that is the blindingly obvious fact that one path to getting more done is to reduce the number of things you are doing (Hey, I never said this was rocket science). One way to do that effectively as an in-house lawyer is to create a list of things you will not do – a “Not-to-Do” list. Alas, yet another thing law school, law firm, etc. never teaches you how to do (though it is such a fantastic tool). So, let’s fix that problem. This edition of Ten Things walks you through how to create a Not-to-Do list (and how to use it):
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Ten Things: Essential Issues for In-House Counsel (2024 Edition)
Hello again everyone and welcome to 2024! If you are a long-time reader of the blog, you know that I start the new year with a list of issues I believe in-house lawyers should pay attention to over the coming 12 months. I started doing this when I first became a general counsel way back when and something I kept doing throughout my in-house career. I still do it now as CEO of the Hilgers Graben law firm. To sum it up, I spend time thinking about developments, trends, and issues that may have a material impact on the legal department/business over the course of the new year. How did/do I do this? Here are the basics:
- It starts with simply gathering information. As general counsel, that meant (over the last few months of the year) speaking with other in-house lawyers and outside counsel, reading newspapers, blogs, industry reports, attending conferences, sitting in on meetings within the business, asking business leaders at the company, asking my team what they were seeing, and just generally paying attention to what was going on around me. Information is gold to in-house lawyers, the currency of the realm. Be greedy and gather up as much as you can.
- Once I spotted a potential issue, I looked at it from multiple angles and asked this question: How might this affect the company and the legal department? Answering this question meant I had to understand the company’s goals and strategy so I could spot and manage risks and I had to be a strategic thinker, looking beyond just the legal issues that might be at stake. One thing that has helped me over the years in terms of looking at issues from multiple angles is the “Phoenix Questions” (discussed in more detail below).
- From there, I made a list of the most critical issues I spotted and worked them into the goals and activities of the legal department for the upcoming year. To assist me with this process, I created multiple checklists to help quickly analyze the potential risks and strategic implications of the items on my list. Here is a version of one checklist, and it’s a helpful filter when you look at things coming across your desk day in and day out:
- Is this something that can create or destroy value for the company?
- How does this fit into my company’s strategic goals?
- What is the quantitative/qualitative impact of this?
- Could this be a game-changer and how so?
- Is this something a regulator might care about or lead to litigation?
- Who is impacted by this – company, competitors, vendors, customers – and how so?
- What happens if I apply game theory to this?
- Who needs to know about this in the department/company?
- How can we create a competitive advantage from this?
- Have others had problems or success with this before and what are the lessons already learned?
How you answer these questions tells you a lot about the issue you are analyzing and whether it matters or not. You do not need a checklist, but it’s a tool that can help you quickly sort through a lot of information. You could also use an Eisenhower Matrix (2×2) to plot issues, focusing on the ones you put in the upper right quadrant (and understand that you may move items around over the course of the year). Regardless of what you use, It’s really all about finding a consistent framework to use to consider and think about whatever is in front of you. So, there you go. Enough theory, it’s time to get on with another year of Ten Things You Need to Know as In-House Counsel and my list of critical issues in-house lawyers should pay attention to and plan against for 2024:
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Ten Things: Asking For More Legal Department Resources (How and When to Go Big)
In my last book, Showing the Value of the Legal Department: More Than Just a Cost Center, I tackle one of the fundamental issues facing all in-house legal departments: it sucks to be a cost center. You can check if you want, but I am pretty sure that’s what I said.[1] Why does this matter? Because cost centers are places the business looks to cut when times get tough, or the numbers need “improving.” And, historically, most legal departments have had a ”cut my budget” sign taped to their backs. This is due partly to those evil bastards in finance, and in part because most in-house legal departments have not aggressively marketed themselves to the business. It’s probably more the latter, but who’s keeping score?[2] By aggressively market, I mean taking the steps necessary every day to show the value provided by the legal team, and, more importantly, showing how the department can create even more value if properly nurtured. If you have been a long-time reader of the blog, you know that I have written about how to go about showing value and how to market the department. Now I want to take on yet another task in-house lawyers often suck at (my early self included), i.e., how to ask for more resources (and not get laughed out of the room).[3]
I’ll lead off with it is not easy, but it can be done if you prepare the ground in advance of the ask. And now that most in-house legal departments are heading into “budget season.” It’s the perfect time to rip the “cut my budget” sign off your back and replace it with a “we deserve more budget” sign – or button. That’s right, this edition of “Ten Things” takes you through the process of how to ask for more resources and – on occasion – get them:
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Ten Things: ChatGPT and Generative AI (What In-House Counsel Need to Know)
Hello again everyone. I suspect a number of you out there have been wondering when I was going to get around to today’s topic. Hell, even I was wondering about it. Back in January, I identified ChatGPT as one of my top ten things for in-house lawyers to pay attention to in 2023, but I must admit that I am shocked at how quickly it has overwhelmed the debate about legal tech. To be honest, I was hoping for a moment when the pace of “new” ChatGPT information would slow down. It hasn’t. And likely won’t. But I think it’s important enough of a topic to at least try to take a snapshot of where things stand today for in-house lawyers when it comes to ChatGPT (or more generically, generative AI). Back when I was general counsel, I would have grabbed a few folks on my team and said, “Let’s jump into a conference room and whiteboard ten things we need to know about ChatGPT.”[1] As I have been thinking about and using ChatGPT, I realize we may need two whiteboards – there is a lot to cover! What I have done is read a lot about it and I have tried it out a number of times with many different asks. All to put myself back in the chair of an in-house lawyer and cut through the clutter to make sense of just what this tool is and what can it do to help me and the legal department. So, get your dry markers out, grab a big mug of coffee, and join me in the conference room as this edition of “Ten Things” tries to set out what in-house lawyers need to know about ChatGPT (and be sure to click through the links and check the footnotes for – a lot of – extra information):
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Ten Things: How to Manage People… and Lawyers
There are several things that I rarely, if ever, expect to hear in-house lawyers utter. These include, “Hey, I’m really excited about that new ‘Rocky’ movie!” and “Is $1,500 an hour enough for that Big Law third-year associate?” or, my favorite, “This suit from Sears fits perfectly!” Right up there on the Mount Rushmore of “No One Said Ever” is this, “I really love managing people – it’s the best part of my day!” Okay, that may be stretching things a bit, but, in all seriousness, managing people in an in-house legal department (like anywhere) can be a… umm, taxing job (yeah, that’s the right word, taxing). For sure, there are days when managing people – even lawyers – can be very rewarding and enjoyable. The challenging part is figuring out how to make days like that the majority versus the minority. This is difficult because – like many things I discovered post-law school – no one teaches or prepares in-house lawyers for managing people. There seems to be an assumption that if you are a good lawyer, you are automatically a good manager. As you probably know by experience, that is not true. Many great lawyers suck at managing people. It is just not the way their brains are wired. And when you put bad people managers in charge of people, it can be a disaster. I have had the benefit of having many terrific managers, both in-house and in private practice. And I have had a few duds. I learned important lessons from both types in terms of how to manage people, i.e., things to do and things not to do. Regardless, if you want to get ahead in the in-house world, especially if you aspire to sit in the general counsel chair, then it’s something you will need to learn to do and do well. This edition of “Ten Things” shares my experience with what works best when it comes to managing people in an in-house legal department:
Ten Things You Need to Know as In-House Counsel® 