From the category archives:

Business Strategy

Breaking Down The Silos That Separate Business People And Lawyers

by Doug Park March 3, 2010

In many companies, business and legal operate as separate silos. On the business side, there is business development, corporate development, marketing, finance, and human resources. On the legal side, there are in-house attorneys and outside counsel. Business sees legal as a cost center, not as a value driver.  Unfortunately, this separation of business and legal [...]

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Why Strategy, Law, And Organization?

by Doug Park February 18, 2010

Good business lawyers understand that legal problems are necessarily business problems. Yet, understanding the law, by itself, is insufficient to understand and solve complex business problems.
In this short post, I advance a simple argument: A combined Strategy, Law, and Organization lens provides superior solutions to difficult business and legal problems. Examples include mergers [...]

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Intellectual Property Rights, Merger And Acquisition Strategy, And Transaction Costs

by Doug Park January 21, 2010

Do the transaction costs of allocating intellectual property rights in collaborative R&D influence merger and acquisition strategy? When it is difficult to write intellectual property agreements, does it makes sense for managers to turn to a merger or acquisition as the solution? The answers have consequences for how business strategy and legal strategy interact.
What [...]

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Why Consult A Business Lawyer Early In A Business Transaction?

by Doug Park January 18, 2010

Business lawyers often argue that involving a lawyer early on in a transaction is cheaper than fixing a problem later. Clients sometimes want to negotiate a deal on their own and then have a lawyer write it up. The concern might be cost or the attorney’s grasp of the business issues. Further, an attorney who [...]

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Do More New Lawyers Mean Lower Wages For Lawyers?

by Doug Park January 13, 2010

Do more lawyers mean lower wages for lawyers? The legal blogosphere has been abuzz since Mark Greenbaum argued in the Los Angeles Times that too many new lawyers drives down lawyers’ wages. However, Mr. Greenbaum’s argument is based on misunderstandings of competition in the legal industry.
To summarize, Mr. Greenbaum contends that there are too many [...]

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Apple Acquires The “i-phone” Trademark In China

by Doug Park January 7, 2010

Apple has finally ended its iPhone trademark problem in China by acquiring the rights to the “i-phone” mark from Hanwang Technology. The acquisition ends a dangerous intellectual property and marketing situation for Apple.
As I wrote in an earlier post, because of an apparent oversight in coordinating its marketing strategy and trademark strategy, Apple faced the [...]

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Pfizer, Alternative Fees, And Competition

by Doug Park December 30, 2009

Companies are increasingly forcing their outside counsel to offer an alternative fee for legal work. Pfizer is the latest example. The pharmaceutical giant recently formed the Pfizer Legal Alliance, a group of nineteen law firms who will provide legal services for the entire year for a flat fee.
Pfizer’s general counsel, Amy Schulman, leads the company’s [...]

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Survey Says: Lawyers Don’t Get Business

by Doug Park December 11, 2009

My last post asked whether greater value add would accompany higher hourly rates in 2010. It appears lawyers were not listening.
Today’s TexParte Blog summarized the results of a LexisNexis survey. And the results do not instill confidence that lawyers fully grasp the problems with their business model.
The following findings suggest a problem for law firm [...]

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Law Firms And Higher Hourly Rates: Where Is The Value Add?

by Doug Park December 3, 2009

An article in today’s American Lawyer outlines a tug of war between law firms and legal departments over higher hourly rates in 2010.  While law firms want to increase their hourly rates, corporate legal departments are pushing back. They want discounts up to 15% from 2009 rates, which were discounted from 2008 rates by about [...]

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Introducing New Contributor To The Strategy x Law Blog, Soyeun Choi

by Doug Park October 21, 2009

I am excited to introduce Soyeun D. Choi, a new contributor to the Strategy x Law Blog. She will write primarily on leadership, business and intellectual property law. After conversations with Soyeun about business and law, I am confident that she will provide thoughtful insights on issues at the intersection of strategy and law.
Soyeun advises [...]

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