links for 2010-02-05

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Litigation management policies, if unmanaged, will have little effect on legal fees. To be effective (i.e., to reduce legal fees), it is necessary to scrutinize the monthly invoices to make sure that your law firms are in compliance with your legal cost control policies.

Before you take bold or even modest initiatives to reduce legal fees, you need to know how wisely you have spent and are spending your legal dollars.

Many conventional strategies for cutting litigation costs are not only futile but counterproductive, increasing costs and blocking innovation. The most successful ways to reduce expenses are suiting the task to the lawyer or firm chosen, building a cooperative culture between lawyers and client,and retaining the flexibility to reward productive change. Many efforts now focus on billing and other events that follow the work, rather than on better staffing and task management, where true value lies.

the Department of Energy’s (DOE) controls over the costs DOE incurs through litigation against contractors who have operated its facilities.

The primary culprits behind rising litigation costs are the increase in e-discovery requests and the corresponding volume of electronic data this produces. Most legal departments today are trying to reduce costs from outside counsel and trim e-discovery costs. Both of these goals are furthered by the trend to bring more areas of e-discovery in-house. By expanding in-house legal departments and encouraging in-house e-discovery, Knowledge Center contributor Dean Gonsowski explains how enterprises can gain control over rising litigation costs.

Expert Legal Fee Analysis

According to the survey, “cost control” is cited as the top concern for these corporate legal departments over the next three to five years, followed by “limited resources.” About 49 percent of chief legal officers participating in the survey say they plan to increase their in-house capabilities by hiring more lawyers, while 26 percent say they will decrease their use of outside counsel.

The point of the question is for the small company to contingency plan and to decide if it should decide to finally accept an invitation for a meeting after all.

Predicting, budgeting and limiting the cost of complex litigation