iTalk, iPhone, iSue
January 12, 2007 | Filed Under Litigation, Technology
So Apple announces the iPhone and toys with Cisco about licensing its trademark.
Cisco GC Mark Chandler took the time to blog on the company line. Here’s my favorite part:
At MacWorld, Apple discussed the patents pending on their new phone technology. They clearly seem to value intellectual property. If the tables were turned, do you think Apple would allow someone to blatantly infringe on their rights? How would Apple react if someone launched a product called iPod but claimed it was ok to use the name because it used a different video format? Would that be ok? We know the answer – Apple is a very aggressive enforcer of their trademark rights. And that needs to be a two-way street.
No response yet from new Apple GC Donald Rosenberg; he’s probably still unpacking his bags. And Apple employees don’t blog. But they certainly can innovate.
Forbes wonders if this is a ploy for publicity by Steve Jobs; Marty Schwimmer has the complaint and was first to file on the issue of Apple’s actions prior to announcing the iPhone. IP Attorney Brian Banner thinks Apple and Cisco may eventually share the iPhone moniker.
Denise Howell had early thoughts on the bigger picture: the iPhone from the user’s standpoint; ZDnet colleague Ed Burnette says some experts think Cisco may have lost the trademark last year.
Update: Cisco responds to these trademark questions.
ACC Survey: More Law Firm Work?
January 11, 2007 | Filed Under Law Firm Trends, Legal Resources, Managing
Some law firm managing partners may be getting a gift in 2007: more legal work from their favorite GC.
According to the recently released Association of Corporate Counsel 2006 Chief Legal Officer survey, 25% of law departments plan to increase the use of outside counsel. The 2005 survey showed 16% of departments surveyed planned to use more outside services.
The survey itself is here.
Additionally, the survey showed the following mix of work as important to CLOs:
Chief legal officers and general counsel continue to spend the majority of their time on corporate transactional work (65% named it as one of their top three areas of focus), followed by compliance (50%) and board relations (29%). When asked to identify the next “big issue” they will face, respondents identified “international expansion/globalization issues” and “document/records management” as the two most important.
Tomorrow, I’ll dig a little deeper into the survey. But for now you can bet some firms may revise proposed rate increases.
Upward?
(Update : 12 Jan 07): Expect the follow-up early next week; too heavy a topic for a Friday.
The Lawyer as CEO is News?
January 10, 2007 | Filed Under GC as CEO Springboard, Governance
The Wall Street Journal focused on this again today with an article entitled “When Firms Turn to Lawyers.” (temp link here).
The tone at the top of the article is apparent when writer Alan Murray starts by noting that the boards of Pfizer and Home Depot turned to lawyers to “clean up the mess” left by the prior CEO:
The folks at Pfizer insist Jeffrey Kindler’s law degree (Harvard, ‘80) had little to do with his selection as the company’s new CEO. At Home Depot, where the top job went to Frank Blake (Columbia, ‘76) — a friend and former General Electric colleague of Mr. Kindler — a spokesman says there’s a difference “between having a law degree and being a lawyer. Basically, since 1998, Frank’s been out of the lawyer mode.”
Mr. Murray also examines the challenges faced by Citigroup CEO Charles Prince.
I addressed this before in response to an earlier article also written by Mr. Murray; here’s the salient part:
But most lawyers (and any GC) has to love the characterization of Mr. Kindler’s prior Pfizer job history as having “functioned only as general counsel.”
Somehow when US CEOs for decades came from finance or marketing or engineering, those disciplines were seen as good seasoning.
Two of the major crash-and-burn business stories of the last decade involved a Harvard-McKinsey chap and a bad dancer who also was an accountant.
So can MBAs and CPAs be good CEOs?
I think we are entering a phase in business when boards are looking closely at skill sets as well as experience when choosing a CEO. Some executives-with-law-degrees have superior skill sets, and two of them are undoubtedly Messrs. Kindler and Blake. Few such executives have the requisite experience outside the legal discipline. But these two did. And I’d venture a guess that more will be ready for board consideration in the coming years.
Can lawyers make good CEOs? Sure, just give qualified ones a shot and hold them accountable for results.
At the end of the day, it’s sort of like asking whether economists can make good journalists. I’d say definitely yes.
Convergence Like a Laser Beam
January 9, 2007 | Filed Under New Services, Legal Resources
Tyco announced today that counsel for legal matters relating to Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) will move from 250 law firms to one, Eversheds.
At the same time, Tyco is “reorganizing” its in-house legal team, although no details were provided.
According to Trevor Faure, Tyco’s EMEA General Counsel:
Under this model, the department is managed by senior lawyers with responsibility for a specific business segment in the region, regional lawyers who report to them and provide the local law and language expertise across segments, and external resources who are dedicated, full-time Eversheds lawyers to ensure broad geographic coverage and an ongoing link with the Eversheds parent firm.
Some of the features of this arrangement include these in EMEA countries:
– A 24 x 7 x 365 multi-lingual legal hotline.
– Local language and business expertise in contracts, employment, compliance, environmental health and safety, major litigation, intellectual property, and general corporate matters.
– Contract automation, business process redesign, and a legal extranet integrated into Tyco’s business by Eversheds (to facilitate online reporting and invoicing).
– Fixed and risk-sharing fee structures, as well as predictable, fixed fees allocated based on business size and complexity.
– Full-time, dedicated Eversheds lawyers in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, the Middle East, Poland, Benelux, and South Africa linked to the regional teams.
Three quick reactions:
1. Tyco is clearly trying to push the envelope on the mix of inside/outside legal services, driven by business demands.
2. Eversheds shows innovation in a legal market that sometimes acts like an Etch-A-Sketch is cutting edge.
3. Outsourcing of legal services doesn’t always mean going from law firms to new service providers. Law departments aren’t immune, either.
Hopefully we will learn more about this arrangement from the principals.
Fortune Finds Five Firms
January 9, 2007 | Filed Under Law Firm Trends, Managing
Finally!
Five law firms are mentioned on Fortune’s 2007 “100 Best Companies to Work For” list. Here’s the complete list; The Recorder has more, noting the following firms (with live links to snapshots and ranking):
1. Alston & Bird (19)
2. Arnold & Porter (26)
3. Nixon Peabody (49)
4. Perkins Coie (64)
5. Bingham McCutchen (94)
I commend these firms for taking work-life issues seriously. Sometimes I wonder whether a high ranking means (a) satisfied workers or (b) having people who are good at following directions (like filling out 57-question surveys).
But there has to be some correlation between happy lawyers and higher-value work product.
I hope…
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