This week, we bring on Kevin Clem, Chief Commercial Officer for HBR Consulting. Kevin discusses the HBR Law Department Survey which has become a staple in the industry over the past 16 years. There is still a bit of a Family Feud between the in-house and the outside counsel ranks, but the survey is showing that there are lots of opportunities for the two sides to communicate and collaborate, rather than keep the status quo in the relationship. GC's are wanting their outside firms to help them beyond their legal issues, and really get to understand their business needs and pressures. Whether it is laying out strategy and pricing, or assisting the law department with their understanding of legal tools or knowledge collection, there are needs which law firms need to help with, or someone else may fill that void. 

Clem has used the platform of the TV game show, The Family Feud to show his audiences of corporate counsels how they see their relationships. And the survey says... it's not great.  Some 87% of GC's he had surveyed found the relationship to be either okay, or needing help. It's a great conversation, and we cover a number of topics, and the one thing that we all agreed with, is that Richard Dawson was our favorite host. 

Information Inspirations:

Pepperdine's online course makes a PR push for "nons." Greg thinks maybe they should find another term. After all, hospital administration is not referred to as non-doctors.

There's some inspirational tweets out there ranging from why it's okay to talk about your projects at conferences, to how great a brother (and customer service provider) Levi is.

Marlene is speaking at the Disrupt Law conference in NYC on Oct. 22-23. She is also on the ILTA Practice Management Content team, so if you have ideas for presentation, white papers, or other topics, tweet her!

The Relativity, FTI Technology, Kaplan survey of in-house counsel points out that 97% of the GC's surveyed are considered business strategy leaders in their companies. And once again, it's important for their law firms to have solid knowledge of their businesses beyond their legal needs. This is a golden opportunity for CI/BI legal information professionals to step up and help law firm lawyers gain that knowledge.

While the Trump tax returns may seem ever elusive, one researcher from ProPublica used FOIA requests to find individual parts and then piece them together. 

Contact us anytime by tweeting us at @gebauerm or @glambert. Or, you can call The Geek in Review hotline at 713-487-7270 and leave us a message. We’d love to hear any ideas you’d like us to cover in future episodes. Also, subscribe, rate, and comment on The Geek In Review on your favorite podcast platform.

As always, the great music you hear on the podcast is from Jerry David DeCicca, thanks Jerry!