Pfizer, AmEx, Cisco Lead Charge Against Hourly Legal Billing

With the recession crimping legal budgets, some big companies are fighting back against law firms' longstanding practice of billing them by the hour.

The companies are ditching the hourly structure -- which critics complain offers law firms an incentive to rack up bigger bills -- in favor of flat-fee contracts.

Pfizer Inc., which spends more than $500 million a year on legal matters, says it expects to reduce its domestic law-firm spending by 15% to 20%, largely through flat-fee arrangements. It will pay 16 law firms lump sums to handle various portfolios of work, such as litigation and tax matters. "I have told firms you cannot make your historical profit margins" on Pfizer work, said the pharmaceutical giant's general counsel, Amy Schulman.

At Sidley Austin LLP, Sara Gourley, a partner, said changes made by Pfizer have given her more freedom to put the best mix of lawyers on a legal matter. Pfizer used to have a rule that no lawyer with an hourly rate higher than a second-year attorney's could bill the drug company for legal research. Now that costs are fixed, Ms. Gourley says, she has been able to assign a senior associate to perform Pfizer legal research who could get the answers much more quickly than a junior lawyer might. (WSJ)

Gut Reactions: Moral Conviction, Religiosity, and Trust in Authority

Gut Reactions: Moral Conviction, Religiosity, and Trust in Authority

Daniel C. Wisneski, Brad L. Lytle, and Linda J. Skitka
Psychological Science: Research, Theory, & Application

Morality and religiosity are often thought to go hand-in-hand, but theories in moral development suggest that religious beliefs tend to require the ongoing presence of external leaders and rules, while moral beliefs are held even in the absence of such authorities and institutions. New research shows morality and religiosity also have different effects on our trust in political leaders. When volunteers were asked about a controversial issue, those with stronger moral convictions expressed greater doubt that political authorities would make the "right" decision about the issue, while religious people had more trust in the political authorities. Results also suggest that these opinions stem from gut reactions rather than deliberation. (Psychological Science)

Twitter Answers Idea

Gobry has a cool idea to monetize Twitter. It's Mechanical Turk on steroids.

As EMC choses McAfee over its own RSA Security division for Mozy security, EMC's head of RSA, Coviello, says McAfee is all wrong

"Anti-virus software is less effective every year" because of the
speed with which malicious hackers now generate new viruses to test
vulnerabilities, declares Arthur Coviello, president of RSA, the
security division of EMC Corp. "By the time a security company sees it and figures out an anti-virus [software fix], there are 30 more viruses."

Coviello is not giving up on winning. His point is that security must evolve beyond protecting a network's perimeters--hard points to determine as big data centers interconnect more frequently. And there are ever more types of devices for accessing a network. Security must be augmented with a means of organizing and protecting the most critical data in a system, he says, by putting that software into the management layer that controls the core of the system, and having it guard the most vital information. That way even if attackers penetrate the system the most important stuff is protected with security software that, among other features, looks for anomalies in the way the data are being used--such as, for example, if someone is seeking to transfer sensitive files to previously unknown computers in Latvia.

According to Coviello, ensuring that key data are protected by a close tie to the management layer of a data center is not something a security company can do on its own but only in conjunction with a larger provider of software and services for the network. In this world, he says, "there is no reason for an independent security industry to exist." (Forbes, ChannelWeb)

Interestingly, McAfee's CEO happens to be a former EMC exec.

Cutest funding move ever? Adopt a line of Miro code

The folks behind the open source video player Miro have launched a program that lets users adopt a line of code in order to support Miro's continued development. Aside from helping out a nonprofit, open source project, you'll also get a picture of your adopted code snippet and will be able to watch it "grow up" as the code matures. (ARS)

Brilliant Marketing Scheme is Evil and Coming Soon

Cellular operators could monitor and mine SMS traffic to find when users would likely be most receptive to marketing messages. Just sent a text to a friend asking where the meetup is for tonight's happy hour? Now's a great time to flash you an ad for John's Salon & Pub. Sent Mom some pics of the kids? Maybe you'd like Snapfish to print them for you...

The system could even be location-aware, so you get local ads. Ultimately, the system bends the line between the real and virtual worlds, and between marketing and being your personal advice column. If executed carefully, it could make your brand/service/product pretty sticky and beloved by consumers. Cross the line, and you're dead meat.

Inspiration by Brian Dolan @mobilehealth

The $300 Million Button

A couple of web designers increased sales at one ecommerce company by $300 million a year just by fixing the user interface with one little button.

Makes you think about what you're doing that's pushing away customers. (User Interface Engineering)