LEGAL
The Insider: Ten essential legal department best practices for the new year
I always looked forward to the beginning of the year when I was general counsel. Basically, it was a fresh start for me and for the department, a time to close out the past year's issues and simply move on to next year's problems, and a time to put together a list of the top 10 things I thought the department needed to focus on over the course of the year. My list contained items dealing with risk reduction, technology needs, management practices, key analytics, and ways to enhance the value of the department to the business. Here's what I suggest for your list for 2017.
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Top articles of 2016
Entering into a new year gives us the chance to look forward as we plan for the upcoming months, but also the chance to reflect back on the year that has gone by and the challenges and opportunities that we faced. As such, we collected the top 10 Corporate Counsel Connect articles from 2016, from measuring your legal department to Europe’s new data protection laws to what you need to know about insurance. Haven't read these top stories yet? Now's the time to catch up!
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Wake up GCs: You’re your companies’ tech visionaries
The reluctance of legal departments to adopt new technologies to improve their work is a trite but true narrative. While many general counsel are making progress in adopting technologies – perhaps by necessity as budgets shrink – there are still many GC at legal industry events who are avoiding technologies that have the potential to evolve their practice and their teams for the better. It doesn’t need to be this way.
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View from Fin(Legal)Tech: Law is a numbers game now
The application of quantitative methods to the delivery of legal services was the theme of Fin(Legal)Tech. Many of the topics covered at the event included attempts to draw lessons from the financial technology world (FinTech), where the application of quantitative methods is much more of a given. More than just a legal tech conference, however, this was an attempt to really focus on attacking the predominant, almost pathological aversion to quantitative techniques in the mainstream legal services industry and in legal education.
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The rise of Lean and Six Sigma for improving legal service
Process improvement involves making processes more streamlined; reducing waste, defects and errors; and hopefully thereby increasing effectiveness of the work. This could lead to savings for the organization. In the case of professional services such as law, the theory may be applied to not only administrative functions, but also the professional side of the practice. How did process improvements such as Lean and Six Sigma come to exist in law firms and legal departments?
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Washington Supreme Court rules no attorney-client privilege on communication with former employees
The practice of law relies heavily on the attorney-client privilege – the evidentiary rule that shields the confidentiality of communications between an attorney and client. That maxim is no less true in the corporate setting, despite the unique application of the rule therein. By and large, corporate counsel in many jurisdictions have been operating under the assumption that this privilege extends to communications with former employees much in the same way that it applies to communications with current ones. According to a ruling by the Washington Supreme Court in October, this is categorically not true.
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Legal trends, challenges and opportunities in cross-border transactions
The recent in-depth report entitled Legal Aspects of Cross Border Transactions: Trends, Challenges and Opportunities shared insights on the trends, challenges, and opportunities in cross-border transactions. The research found that cross-border work remains increasingly attractive and is likely to increase in volume. Confidence in cross-border opportunities is high despite a mixed economic outlook globally.
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Antitrust guidance for human resources professionals • Pay ratio disclosure • Enhanced damages for patent infringement
Learn about recently issued antitrust compliance guidance for human resources (HR) professionals who hire or set compensation for employees, and discover why now is the perfect time for companies subject to the pay ratio disclosure requirement to make some changes. Finally, read about the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that means that your company needs to ensure that you respond proportionally to notices of potential patent infringement.
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Measuring up: Top ten considerations to shape a metrics program for the lean legal department
More than half (56%) of the legal departments that participated in a recent legal industry survey reported having a formal metrics program in place. But many would look at that statistic and dismiss it as a trend applicable exclusively to larger legal departments. A lean department must think that a robust program of this nature is a luxury that few small departments – generally comprised of three to five attorneys (according to the ACC’s last census) – could support. So, how can a lean legal department “right size” its metrics program?
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