Law Department Management
A law department should provide its organisation with excellent, practical legal counsel that facilitates the achievement of its business objectives. Today, the in-house lawyer plays a more prominent role in facilitating business decisions by identifying high legal risk areas and educating the business on potential legal risk associated with new business transactions, in addition to managing existing matters.

Managing existing matters involves liasing with the business and managing outside counsel. Management of legal spending is a key focus for organisations in managing the financial exposure of the organisation. In-house lawyers carefully monitor the costs associated with matters to determine whether cases should be settled rather than litigated, based on a corporate cost/risk analysis. Managing legal spending also means assessing an organisation’s relationship with outside counsel. This may mean concentrating outside legal work among fewer firms, and negotiating alternative billing arrangements with those firms.

Curve Consulting advises its law department clients on how to manage the legal function – from legal spending management initiatives to understanding what the role of the law department should be in an organisation. Client projects include:

• Developing an outside counsel management program
• Examining the requirements for the legal function of an organisation
• Addressing in-house lawyer and staff career development and law department staffing needs
• Identifying high legal risk areas