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Legal value: Difference between revisions
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This is so even though I ''might'' be: [[The dog in the night time|a dog that barketh not in the night-time brings no comfort]], even when there is nothing to bark at. | This is so even though I ''might'' be: [[The dog in the night time|a dog that barketh not in the night-time brings no comfort]], even when there is nothing to bark at. | ||
So, [[Lawyer|lawyers]] have developed techniques for barking | So, commercial [[Lawyer|lawyers]] have developed techniques for barking ostentatiously during hours of darkness: [[Form|formal]] alterations that alter no [[substance]], but exude the psychological safety that comes from seeing they have indeed pored over the document, buffing and polishing it to a high forensic sheen. | ||
You can spot these parenthetical statements, which we call [[flannel]] in these pages, by their tells: “[[for the avoidance of doubt]]”, “[[without limitation]]...”, “[[whether or not]]...”, or “[[notwithstanding the foregoing]]...”. | You can spot these parenthetical statements, which we call [[flannel]] in these pages, by their tells: “[[for the avoidance of doubt]]”, “[[without limitation]]...”, “[[whether or not]]...”, or “[[notwithstanding the foregoing]]...”. | ||
It is a [[Anal paradox|paradox]] that, however [[tedious]] it is to have some cretin add this unnecessary heft to your draft, it is even more [[tedious]] to insist upon | It is a [[Anal paradox|paradox]] that, however [[tedious]] it is to have some cretin add this unnecessary heft to your draft, it is even more [[tedious]] to insist upon its removal. Thus, over time, legal forms tend towards [[barnacle]]-encrusted, impenetrable mush, courtesy of what [[Douglas Adams]] and John Lloyd would call “[[clabby conversation|clabby]]” [[clabby conversation|conversation]]<nowiki/>s. | ||
Confronted with such a gambit, even the most sainted, easy-go-lucky types on the other side cannot help falling into a “[[ditherington]]”. | |||
===Measuring legal value=== | ===Measuring legal value=== | ||
All this presents quite the predicament to those lawyers whose output and productivity cannot be measured in [[time and attendance|billable hours]]. That is, [[inhouse legal|''in-house'' legal eagles]]. | All this presents quite the predicament to those lawyers whose output and productivity ''cannot'' be measured in [[time and attendance|billable hours]]. That is, [[inhouse legal|''in-house'' legal eagles]]. | ||
For those in [[private practice]], it does not matter ''how'' counterproductive, petulant or lily-gilding | For those in [[private practice]], it does not matter ''how'' counterproductive, petulant or lily-gilding their behaviour is, ''as long as it brings in fees''. Fees, one can measure. Fees, one can ''bank''. | ||
Legal practice management consultants may help by comparing inputs to outputs; devising metrics to predict the ''optimal amount'' of defensible literary lollygagging to maximise fee returns, but this will not work inhouse, where [[inhouse lawyer|lawyer]]s collect no fees. Here, the putative quest is ''not'' “to produce legal work product”, nor even “timely, excellent, and great value-for money legal work product”, but to ''avoid'' generating legal work product wherever it is not absolutely necessary. | |||
Legal practice management consultants may help | |||
In-house legal departments exist to ''throttle'' legal expense. | In-house legal departments exist to ''throttle'' legal expense. | ||
The problem is, you can’t measure this with [[metric]]s or [[key performance indicators]]. Unavoidable legal process — | The problem is, you can’t measure this with [[metric]]s or [[key performance indicators]]. Unavoidable legal process — customer [[contract negotiation]]<nowiki/>s, things like that — can certainly be streamlined and productionised, but once that is done, the [[process]] becomes an operational function, not a legal one, and [[legal]]’s contribution to its ongoing success, again, can only be measured in ''silhouette'': how ''rarely'' is legal obliged, thereafter, to get involved. | ||
Hence, the best way of measuring inhouse legal value is also by its silhouette: | Hence, the best way of measuring inhouse legal value is also by its silhouette: a business may not be able to count the ways that [[inhouse lawyer]]s sprinkle their magic on its forward health and viability, it certainly ''can'' count the ways they don’t: the times they are hindered by the quotidian distractions of the life bureaucratic: the box-ticking, form-filling, meeting-attending and perpetually re-advising on issues it is, fundamentally, the business’s job to know already. | ||
These “[[key non-performance indicator|key ''non''-performance indicators]]” ''could'' be counted and presented to the [[Opco]] during its weekly stakeholder check in conference call, on an attractive [[slide]], replete with [[RAG status]]es, downward-sloping graphs and Gantt diagrams charting the department’s ascent to a condition with maximum scope for offering untrammelled, ineffable excellence. | These “[[key non-performance indicator|key ''non''-performance indicators]]” ''could'' be counted and presented to the [[Opco]] during its weekly stakeholder check in conference call, on an attractive [[slide]], replete with [[RAG status]]es, downward-sloping graphs and Gantt diagrams charting the department’s ascent to a condition of crystal purity, with maximum scope for offering untrammelled, ineffable excellence. | ||
But ''are'' they, in any organisation on the planet? | But ''are'' they, in any organisation on the planet? | ||