LEGAL
A month dedicated to legal department management
The month of March is dedicated to many aspects of managing your legal department – from how philosophy may help you thrive as corporate counsel, to a plethora of advice for new to in-house counsel as well as the for the inaugural in-house attorney for a company. Other articles discuss best practices if considering procuring and implementing e-billing and matter management tools. Also be sure to check out the Westlaw® Corporate Twitter® feed, the Corporate Counsel News & Views Section on legalsolutions.com, and the Legal Solutions Corporate Counsel blog for more in-depth articles and information on selected department management topics.
What it takes to stay where you are (Hint: it's not by standing still)
I was a political philosophy major in college, and many of my classes offered me the opportunity to read the original works of the world's greatest minds. I remember sitting as a freshman in the equivalent of Philosophy 101, listening to a brilliant lecture on Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. But even these legendary inquiring minds could fall prey to the kinds of sloppy assumptions they scorned in others. I'm now a consultant to law departments who are interested in applying critical analysis not only to the company's legal problems, but to their own way of working and their business operations, thus questioning presumptions we all made about how the professional services paradigm should operate.
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Don't throw your legal matter management system "in the garage": Tips for making the most of your software
Many legal departments have gone through a good deal of effort choosing an e-billing/matter management system, experienced the the initial burst of excitement getting the system set up and configured, only to effectively put it in the garage. It likely does a few things that you want, but it's being neglected and there is no momentum in the legal department to improve use of the system. Here are a few tips to get the most out of your purchased system.
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For GCs, is LinkedIn the new golf course?
Whether or not LinkedIn seems like a good idea – and even if you don't know what you're supposed to be using it for – in-house lawyers seem to love it. According to a survey by research firm Acritas, 43 percent of female GCs and 33 percent of male GCs are on LinkedIn. That's a large proportion of GCs – especially for women. So what's the deal with in-house counsel using LinkedIn so much? Has LinkedIn, as Acritas suggests, become the new "golf course" when it comes to making deals?
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Using numbers (and analytics) to your advantage
No one went to law school because of their math abilities. But whether in-house lawyers like it or not, numbers and analytics have become a big part of your job when it comes to managing your legal department and its limited resources. Corporate Counsel Connect spoke with David Houlihan of Blue Hill Research regarding their recent report on legal spend management investments to dig deeper into some significant numbers and how they can help you make the case for tools to manage legal spend for your organization.
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Top 5 must do's for the first in-house counsel
I've done the first in-house lawyer/first GC thing a couple of times now, and each time I do learn something different. But a few lessons have remained constant through every industry, role, and political environment. I originally picked up these tidbits of gold from mentors and colleagues. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to learn from them. (And smart enough to actually listen!)
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Current state of legal holds in corporations
Any time an organization has reasonable threat of litigation, a legal hold likely should be issued. The hold should highlight a variety of details, including but not limited to, types of information to retain, date through which information should be retained, contact information if questions about the hold arise, and more. This infographic looks at the current legal holds environment – who's sending them, who's not, how often they're being sent, and more.
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Are bad boys getting worse: Courts lay down the law on commercial real estate guarantors
If you are in-house counsel, chances are that your organization is or will be a guarantor for a real estate transaction under a bad boy guaranty. Litigation of these nonrecourse carveout guaranties has been on the rise since the financial crisis of 2008 and represents significant risk for corporate organizations.
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Email use during non-work time; Assessing public corruption risk; New ISS and Glass Lewis executive compensation guidelines
According to a recent NLRB decision, employers must allow employees to use company email during non-work time to communicate with each other about workplace issues, including union organizing. Plus, why you should review the reports recently published by Transparency International (TI) and the OECD to minimize risk of FCPA violations, and why you should make note of the new ISS and Glass Lewis proxy voting guidelines on executive compensation.
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Top ten tips out of the gates for new in-house counsel
We've all heard that law school doesn't always prepare new attorneys for the challenges of practice in the "real world." While this truism is often directed at new attorneys walking in the door of a law firm, it's equally applicable to new attorneys that begin their careers in a corporate legal department. The tips outlined here can serve experienced attorneys transitioning from a law firm to an in-house position.
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