The Best Legal Departments Of 2017? Maybe?

If you're going to throw around the word "best," you should be able to back it up.

prize award trophyWhat does it mean to be declared the “best” at anything?

In many fields of human endeavor, there’s a reasonably defined “scoreboard” out there. The Warriors are — at least thus far — great gobs of points better than the Cavs. But, despite this, is LeBron really the “best”? That’s a murkier argument that delves down the rabbit hole of a bevy of advanced statistical metrics that keep nerds on the ESPN payroll. But the answer to a burning question like this doesn’t have to be drenched in math. Mouth breathers like Colin Cowherd or Skip Bayless can cook up non-falsifiable tripe about “heart” and “attitude” and make a half-hour show out of thinly veiled racial swipes.

Corporate Counsel announced its “2017 Best Legal Departments” on Friday, a commendation that recognizes the underappreciated in-house legal department. With in-house counsel taking on greater business responsibility and increasingly insourcing work, it’s unfair to view legal departments as mere law firm supervisors.

This year, Corporate Counsel singled out Clorox, First Data, IBM, and PETA for the honor. I’m sure seating PETA next to Clorox executives isn’t going to be a problem at all. Stay tuned for the October 24th American Lawyer Lifetime Awards reception for that report!

But how does Corporate Counsel evaluate these award-winning legal teams?

The award bestowed is not based on scorecards or data-driven metrics….

Oh.

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Yes, the “best” legal departments are chosen at random apparently. Well, that’s not entirely true. They are decided:

on success stories: how a legal department won landmark litigation, enacted regulatory change or was integral in leading innovation and change in a company.

The metrics for “landmark” or “integral” are handled with the rigor of Cowherd’s take on “heart.” Don’t go tossing around “best” or “top” without taking the time to do something more thorough. Pick some metrics, crunch some numbers, fight about some coefficients. Just do something to justify that “best” designation. We had to do all of that for our top law school rankings.

That’s not to say the honorees chosen by Corporate Counsel aren’t deserving. It’s just that we have other ways of honoring outstanding achievements in a field.

Like, for example, an “Outstanding Achievement” award.

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Corporate Counsel Announces its 2017 Best Legal Departments [Corporate Counsel]


HeadshotJoe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.