Business innovators offer us numerous opportunities to learn from their trailblazing best practices. Inside Counsel magazine annually recognizes innovative legal departments. We've chosen four that made the magazine's lists in 2010 and 2011. The summaries below highlight their fresh approaches to the challenges of diverse hiring, litigation costs, legal ethics education, and paralegal management.
Diversity: Building a Pipeline
In its quest to create a more diverse legal department, Northeast Utilities faced a challenge: it hired from a small pool of experienced talent that possessed utility industry-specific knowledge--and the pool was a bit homogenous. To help prime the pump with more diverse candidates, NU teamed with the law firm of Carmody & Torrance to create the Diversity Scholar Program. Through the program one or two law school students with diverse backgrounds are hired as salaried interns each summer. The interns spend half their time working in the law firm's offices--mostly on NU matters--and the other half working in the legal department at NU.
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Tackling Costly Litigation Tasks In-House
Newegg, Inc. is a small online retailer of IT and consumer electronic products with a seven-person legal department. The tiny company doesn't flinch in the face of potentially costly litigation brought against it by nonpracticing entities, known as patent trolls. Rather than settle, it fights. But Newegg fights smart, containing costs by bringing certain tasks, such as document, review in-house.
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Legal Ethics: Beyond Law Firm Lawyers
In-house attorneys often receive scant attention in courses and literature on the topic of legal ethics. Qwest General Counsel Rich Baer decided to change that in 2009 when he formed a 20-member committee of Qwest lawyers, and charged them with devising a cutting-edge ethics training program for the company’s 79 attorneys. The resulting interactive program presents a range of scenarios related to key ethical issues that can be used to drive discussion. Qwest, which is based in Denver, Colo., later opened its successful program to all Colorado lawyers.
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Paralegals, Incorporated
DuPont launched its Paralegal Utilization Model as part of a broader effort to cut costs, boost productivity, improve service quality, and provide increased professional opportunities for its staff. In the days before the initiative, paralegals were primarily used to assist with litigation. But paralegal program manager Marybeth Davies knew that her 58-member team could do much more. So, with the green light from DuPont’s General Counsel, she put them to work in every practice area, creating a partnership among her staff, and DuPont’s lawyers and business people.
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