Resource Library

In-house counsel need look no further than the headlines for validation that it is not a matter of whether they will confront a cyber incident; instead, it is simply a matter of when. This program will explore the ways that digital risk affects all aspects of an in-house legal practice. From M&A to employment to litigation, managing cyber risks is no longer the exclusive domain of IT. This program will provide practical guidance on how all members of the in-house legal team can better prepare for and respond to cyber incidents to reduce their company’s financial, legal and reputational exposure.

Coaching can take you and your law department to the next level of performance. Coaching keeps employees engaged while helping them grow in their careers. Unlike simply supervising or mentoring employees, coaching seeks a specific solution or outcome to further the employee’s professional development. With an understanding of diversity and its role as a critical business and individual success factor, this interactive presentation will also cover some of the more common types of coaching – behavioral coaching, performance coaching, transition coaching, and career development – and how they can meet specific individual needs.

Panelists are expected to address a number of patent prosecution issues that in-house counsel continue to struggle with, either when dealing with their own outside patent counsel or addressing these issues directly on their own. These issues include: strategies for filing a U.S.-based application or Patent Cooperation Treaty at the outset; proper claim construction; nuances for filing under the AIA and any changes they have seen in prosecution under the America Invents Act; and practical tips for foreign filing strategies, etc. Exercises in claim construction and foreign filing considerations (e.g., a road map to key countries, and why or why not a company should seek protection outside the United States in Europe, Asia, South America) are expected.

With the continuing surge of wage and hour class claims, the threat of litigation against employers has become as certain as death and taxes. Employers must take proactive steps to armor themselves against future wage and hour litigation today. In this session, the following topics will be examined: (1) how to build good faith defenses to liability and/or liquidated damages in off-the-clock work and misclassification claims; (2) the risks and benefits of waiving the attorney client privilege as to past advice of counsel; (3) preparing a discoverable exemption analysis; (4) the key role of well publicized handbook timekeeping policies, wage and hour training and time entry certifications in defeating off-the-clock work claims; and (5) methods for creating contemporaneous business records showing the amount and type of exempt work performed by exempt employees.

EU data privacy laws make the collection of Electronically stored information (ESI) and its transfer out of Europe challenging. The session will begin with a brief update of U.S. case law focusing on cross-border discovery generally, and then turn to a discussion of Privacy by Design ("PbD"), which has become the gold standard for privacy protection in the 21st Century. This discussion will cover examples of how PbD has been operationalized and used to address the challenges presented by EU data privacy laws. The session will then cover Europe's acknowledgement of Canada's stringent privacy laws which make it a unique base for e-discovery collection, analysis and review. By collecting ESI from European employees into Canada, and then culling down/reviewing ESI in Canada to identify responsive email and documents, organization can minimize the amount of ESI for which they must obtain consent from employees for transfer to the U.S.

Breaches of patient privacy/security are considered the number one risk for liability in the healthcare industry today. Control over patient information in today’s society is becoming ever increasingly difficult with the expanding use of electronic health records, personal health records and social media, plus the advent of Health Information Exchanges. Outsourcing of healthcare operations provides additional risk, especially the enforceability of patient privacy/security law when patient information is sent outside the US. Unfavorable media, government enforcement, class action litigation and identity theft all pose a constant concern to in-house counsel, and vendors themselves are now at greater risk of liability with penalties now imposed on business associates. This panel will provide an overview of the principal federal laws & regulations concerning privacy/security (HIPAA/HITECH/Red Flags), their interaction with select state laws, international laws (EU Data Protection), and practical ways to minimize risk and keep patient information private and secure.

Parties often use letters of intent at the start of a merger and acquisition (M&A) deal to outline material terms and establish negotiation parameters. Letters of intent can reduce the time and expense of finalizing a transaction but often have unintended consequences. A major risk of entering a letter of intent is that the document will later be declared binding, even though the parties intended it to be preliminary and non-binding, thus resulting in unsatisfactory or incomplete deal terms. Letters of intent need to be carefully crafted to ensure that the parties’ intent is truly documented and a map to the final deal is determined. The panel of internal and outside M&A attorneys will (1) review the latest legal developments regarding letters of intent, (2) provide best practices for parties negotiating preliminary terms, and (3) discuss proven ways to engage management and internal development teams to maximize the benefit of such letters.

Cross-border compliance obligations for multi-nationals means a lot more headaches for in-house litigators tasked with managing cross-border discovery. Discovery obligations vary from country to country — but try telling that to your home regulator who is clamoring for you to turn over documents that another regulator forbids you to. Explore the growing international complexity of discovery/ediscovery compliance with a lively panel discussion that looks at recent regulatory actions, litigations and sanctions, including the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), the UK Code of Business Conduct and the Eighth Amendment to the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China.

One of the most uncomfortable discussions any in-house counsel will have is justifying to the CFO why large amounts of money were/are being spent for outside legal work, especially litigation spend. Law departments are still viewed as cost centers in most corporations. Pressure is greater than ever to defend return on investment for litigation spend. If the in-house counsel can''t quantify why amounts are being spent in litigation, he will have a difficult time becoming a valued business partner — or worse. This program will share best practices/metrics and look to ways the in-house counsel can quantify legal spend (particularly litigation spend) against the results from their outside counsel.

This program will focus on a series of case studies involving in-house lawyers who got into trouble for (allegedly or actually) violating legal ethics rules, acting improperly in response to government investigations, and assisting their employers in perpetrating fraudulent or criminal acts. We will review the case studies, discuss what the lawyers involved could have done to avoid trouble, and tease out steps that you and your law department can take to protect yourselves from the potential pitfalls highlighted by the case studies.