Skills to pay the bills
Law firms around the world are working hard to increase operational efficiency during the recession. So why are training budgets often the first thing to be cut? Obviously this kind of expenditure is easy to trim, but is it wise? Let me explore a few issues.
Human Capital
A firm recently extended its lending facilities with their bank by securing a loan against firm assets. It highlighted an important question - what are the assets of a typical law firm? In this case it was property, fixtures and fittings, goodwill, WIP and IP. Many industry analysts feel this was a largely symbolic move as WIP and goodwill are quickly devalued. The real assets walk into work in the morning and go home at night. Law firms are all about people. When considering this fact redundancies are a double-edged sword for a law firm. Costs can be significantly reduced, but a loss in human capital also means a loss in experience, knowledge and the significant investment made in that individual. Firms who are shedding staff may well be concerned about their ability to respond to an upturn in the economy. Recruitment and development are neither cheap nor quick. Read more...
NHS body Welsh Health Legal Services cuts £16k per annum via BigHandBigHand has today announced that Welsh Health Legal Services, the NHS body that acts for all the Trusts and Local Health Boards in Wales, has cut its annual secretarial cover costs by up to £16,000 per annum as a result of replacing tape equipment with BigHand digital dictation workflow technology.
Much of WHLS’s correspondence is time sensitive, and therefore the continued use of tape dictation equipment meant that temporary secretarial staff had to be employed to cover holiday and sickness leave. The inability to share dictations recorded on to analogue tapes amongst existing secretarial resource ensured that annual temporary cover costs remained consistently high. Read more...
New Media Legal Publishing’s “Deposition Testimony: 5 Simple Rules” is on West LegalEdcenterNew Media Legal Publishing’s witness preparation video – “DepositionTestimony: 5 Simple Rules” – is now available for continuing legal education (CLE) credit onlineon West LegalEdcenter (westlegaledcenter.com). “Deposition Testimony: 5 Simple Rules” isused by attorneys at leading law firms and companies to help prepare clients to give their bestpossible testimony on deposition. Read more...
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