GC’s, do you agree that the “four horsemen” of 21st century legal services are LPO, substituting tech for people for certain types of projects, teamwork and measuring quality? As to the last point, Paul Lippe suggests that “Lawyers who embrace the opportunity to measure and improve their quality will win; those who (with little or no empirical support) continue to claim that quality is only in the eye of the provider will do themselves and their clients no good.”

In-house leaders, do you consider yourselves to be “at war” with you law firms? Surely there is another, more collaborative, value-oriented path.

More on e-discovery project management – are you hiring “project managers” or “process managers” – or both?

In-house litigation managers, is “litigation funding is really coming of age with regard to complex commercial disputes“?

ABS news from the U.K.: DLA’s LawVest set to launch; and three U.K. firms sign up investors.

U.K. BigLaw deal with LPO vendor includes significant financial engineering, to the tune of millions of pounds. Reminds me of a lot of IT outsourcing and BPO deals I worked on in the ’90′s – which taught me that this kind of financial engineering can have lots of follow-on consequences for the relationship, not all of them good. (The information in U.K. BigLaw’s financial disclosures is often interesting, eh?)

Big-time patent litigators switch from defense to NPE’s (WSJ sub. req’d). GC’s, does this trend affect your views on budgeting for defending against the claims of “trolls”?

GC’s looking at e-discovery costs that can swamp the value of small disputes – and affect strategy accordingly – may be relieved to know that lower-cost products for smaller cases are emerging in the EDD market.

U.K. firm appoints local “champions” to help with crossborder work. A reasonable idea, but it also highlights the difficulty of making these BigLaw mergers work from the client’s perspective.

The continuing search for the right balance between the roles of technology and humans in e-discovery. GC’s, given the high cost of these projects, this dialogue and debate is worth monitoring.

The benefits of applying project management competencies to e-discovery. “Lawyers are trained to analyze and strategize — not to categorize, prioritize, and quantify. Categorizing and prioritizing tasks and goals and quantifying results are absolutely critical to the success of any e-discovery project, but are considered beneath the ken of practicing law by many lawyers. So how should e-discovery tasks be managed, and who should be responsible? Lawyers should look to forms of management that have been tested and proved successful, such as project management.”

LPO vendor opens new on-shore center in the U.K. to provide “document review, contracts, M&A, due diligence and 
compliance support.” In-house leaders, how are your views on the “right” mix of off-shore and on-shore evolving?

Should you purchase insurance against cyberattacks? The ABA Journal reports that the cost can be “staggering.”

D.C. Court of Appeals opines on UPL issues for NFF’s.

Alternative fee arrangements in the news…but is a discount really an AFA?

E-discovery industry M&A continues – Symantec headed to the cloud with LiveOffice.

For those of us with an inner tech geek – LTN’s CES update.

The “Tesco law” rolls on: U.K. firms of various sizes review possible ABS conversions.

GC’s, are you budgeting for the cost of an “all-out war” approach to patent litigation?

Panel review news from across the Atlantic: A BigLaw partner’s perspective on U.K. panel selection processes. Sometimes the panel is being appointed by the law firm, as in this LPO panel review. And there’s more EU panel news here.

Litigation funding news – new spin-out from Credit Suisse.

UK panel review update – some are procurement-oriented reverse auctions, while others focus on other factors; and offshoring/nearshoring requirements are here to stay. These panel reviews are likewise putting heavy pressure on rates.

GC’s, will new efforts from law schools to teach transactional skills affect your views on hiring new graduates?

How much does it cost to litigate a CDO-related breach of contract case in the U.K.? Seems to be not all that different from the U.S.

That’s one way to address billable hour concerns on M&A deals – handle the entire project in-house like Apple.

Allegations of overbilling don’t support a libel claim. Seems obvious to me, but good to know.

E-discovery vendor announces monthly subscription pricing. Will we see other new pricing strategies in this market?

BigLaw lobbyists get out from under the billable hour. Doesn’t the same thinking apply to other types of BigLaw tasks? And check out this headhunter’s take on the short- and long-term implications for outside and in-house lawyers of the “death of hourly billing.”

Chinese and Australian BigLaw to merge. GC’s, will the increasing global capabilities of Chinese firms affect your sourcing strategies for your outside counsel for deals in China? And here’s more information on King & Wood Mallesons.

In-house survey on technology issues and priorities, including social media, compliance, LPO and e-billing.

Fees for securities class action lawyers are down – way down. In light of the King & Wood news, I also found it interesting that the “big story in securities class actions has been the explosion lawsuits against Chinese companies,which have accounted for 39 of the shareholder class action filings so far this year.”

A new study on the state of the LPO industry. It’s a small sample size, but there are some interesting takeaways, including the thesis that “Law firms do not appear to be the entities driving legal outsourcing. Rather, corporations and other non-law firm entities may be driving legal outsourcing.” The doc review billing rate data is noteworthy as well.

Using Sharepoint in your law department, or thinking about doing so? For an example of what you could do, check out this extremely practical article on creating checklists. Also, here’s a compilation of other Sharepoint-related articles.

The Wall Street Journal has a summary of another LPO industry survey, including the diminishing labor arbitrage play as well as the potential of the combination of technology with LPO.

Legal project management news: the second edition of a “quick reference guide” to LPM.

Some interesting comments from a GC on the value of benchmarking, the use of paralegals and contract managers, and the benefits of applying sourcing strategies to outside counsel’s services.

More start-ups in the legal services vertical – free document templates, reverse auctions and more. Further pressure on the billable hour as the primary metric for lawyer billings….

Panel news from Qatar. 46 firms were invited to make proposals – that’s a lot of reviewing and ranking.

Hourly billing plus annual quotas allegedly leads to overbilling – who woulda thunk it?