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This issue of the Litigation Management Report is
a conference report. I have had the opportunity to attend
the ABA -TIPS 2004 Spring Conference and the Corporate
Legal Times 2004 Super Conference. What I found most interesting
and, in turn, am reporting back to you, is the degree to which
metrics is coming to dominate all of the discussions on managing
counsel, whether they be in-house or outside counsel. Corporate
legal departments and insurers are both committed to measuring
the value of outside counsel work with metrics.
The Litigation Management Strategy article is a composite
report on several litigation management sessions I attended
at the super conference. Cost control is the driver for corporate
legal departments. Metrics are being utilized to evaluate
costs on a comparative basis among select firms that are being
bundled into outside panels through convergence programs.
Working with a manageable number of core firms is the starting
point for a metrics management program.
The Bill Management article is a composite report
from the TIPS Spring conference. TIPS is the acronym for the
Tort Trial Insurance Practice Section of the ABA. I
attended the spring meeting of the Staff Counsel sub-section.
It is a very active sub section and its activity reflects
the growth of staff counsel operations in insurers. When I
compare the two conferences, what is clear is that insurers
are more advanced in their metrics management programs than
corporate legal departments in general. However, as you will
find out from reading this article, insurers are still in
the process of coming to grips with strategic application
of metrics.
An entire half-day of the TIPS conference was devoted to
a series of panel discussions on staff counsel utilization.
The John G. Kelly Report is a primer for litigation
managers on the nature and role of staff counsel. Why a primer?
Because of the ad hoc manner in which many staff counsel offices
have been implemented in insurance operations, litigation
managers' knowledge of the function is also ad hoc. This article
will be the first in a series of several over the next 12
months that will provide litigation managers with a thorough
background on the staff counsel function.
With all of the talk on metrics it is time that litigation
managers take a hard look at information technology. Does
IT Matter? is a most appropriate book review to round
out this issue.
Enjoy and as always give me feedback on what catches your
attention and interest.
John
| Litigation
Management Strategy |
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If your outside counsel hiring and retention criteria
focuses on cost containment and cost reduction strategies,
you are in good company. Cost control is the most important
practice management challenge facing legal departments.
These were the central themes in the Litigation Management
breakout sessions I attended at the Corporate Legal
Times 2004 Super Conference. Metrics management and
scorecarding are the absolutely essential mechanisms
to deploy in getting a grip on costs and moving from
cost cutting to cost effective case management. The
following comments are a composite report on information
obtained from several sessions... click here
to learn more
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| Bill
Management |
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If you think that you are at a "best practices"
level as a litigation manager because you know how to
ferret out any and all errors in a legal bill and cut
the costs, think again. Bill management is in a state
of transition. Performance measurement is evolving as
the next step in best practices level bill management.
Insurers want to determine what the value is relative
to that cost. That was the central theme that consistently
emerged in the various panel discussions at the Spring
2004 ABA - TIPS Conference.... click here
to learn more
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| John
G. Kelly Report |
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Staff counsel is becoming core to insurance defense
claims management. There are now 23 states that permit
insurers to set up staff counsel operations, and that
number is expected to grow. The consensus among insurers
is that that the war over the ethics of insurers using
staff counsel has been won and there are now just battles
to be fought on the framework and parameters of their
utilization… click here
to learn more
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| Ideas |
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When first confronted with the question - Does
IT Matter?- the initial response is invariably, "what
kind of a ridiculous question is that? This is the information
technology (IT) age." If you have business plan
that does not have an IT component, than you had better
revisit the plan and put IT front and center. Author
Nicholas G. Carr believes that as new age as that type
of thinking may seem to be, it is already dated. The
fact that we do in fact live and work in an IT-dominated
world, at least in advanced western societies, means
that there is no longer any competitive advantage automatically
associated with IT. Information technology is now just
infrastructure. Gaining competitive business advantage
has shifted back to best practices… click here
to learn more
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