With extreme economic pressures and tightening budgets, everyone is being
asked to cut costs. Whether you have a small, medium or large legal
department, using the right strategies and resources can help you meet these
goals. This session will examine managing a law department budget, managing
IP, managing contracts and other topics relevant to your practice, all with
an eye towards controlling costs. With these suggestions, you can save
money and improve your efficiencies.
General counsels operate best where business and legal intersect. With new technologies and regulations developing everyday, counsel needs to be aware and reactive to the ever-changing landscape. In this article, learn how to deal with new advances in technology that will keep you and your department ahead of any issues.
The Australian In-house Legal Counsel Pro Bono Guide, and provides detailed insights for the in-house profession. It includes case studies of pro bono legal services provided by some of Australia’s top organisations and guidance on how to create an effective in-house pro bono program.
This guide builds on a previous 2013 publication.
This article provides an overview of the justification, objectives, and organization of a comprehensive IP initiative, examines the two substantive phases of the initiative that management typically prioritizes: commercialization and protection.
Traditional manual analysis of patent documents is no match for the flood of patent data inundating your office. Despite limits, current automated patent analysis tools can help you stay competitive. This article describes the tools available and how you can apply them. You can start using these tools to support cutting-edge strategies, such as patent radar, precision patenting, and right-sizing of patent portfolios. You can create small, powerful, blocking patent portfolios that will discourage competitors while enabling you to forge new partnerships and prune deadwood from your patent orchard. Why use a handsaw when you can use a power saw?
As the availability and popularity of social media spreads, corporate America is faced with the inevitability of its employers participating while in the workplace. This trend poses new risks in data security, information management and compliance challenges, while legal and IT teams are left with the task of adapting to the subsequent business and legal threats.
In this Quick Overview, in-house counsel can learn about important Intellectual Property terms that are often used when working with outside counsel in the United States.
Under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, it is fundamental that a party may seek documents that are in the opposing party’s “possession, custody or control.” The same or similar standards are reflected in most state civil procedure rules. The corollary to these rules is that to avoid claims of spoliation and the severe sanctions that may follow, a party is obligated to ensure such records are preserved when litigation is reasonably anticipated.
The Danish Data Protection Agency published its 2022 inspection plan, which involves new focus areas, but also repeats areas from previous years. This article is an overview of the inspection plan, and how your organisation can prepare for a possible inspection.
This article focuses on one of the three principal types of transactions used in merges and acquisitions (M&A), a Stock Purchase, and discusses specific issues and attributes of Stock Purchase deals, and in section III, reviews the common elements of Stock Purchase Agreements, the main transaction document used to put a Stock Purchase deal together. Following the discussion are “Deal Points” on important considerations in the purchase or sale of a business: what to do, and what at all costs not to do.
Every now and then, a case comes along that shatters perceived wisdom and established practice. The “Woolsworths” case (as it has become known) is one of those cases. Up until this point, an employer embarking on a collective redundancy exercise could be fairly confident that the consultation obligations were triggered only if it proposed to dismiss 20 or more employees “at one establishment” within a 90-day period. For multiple site businesses, this threshold was usually applied to each place of work to give some flexibility before hitting this consultation obligation threshold. Breaking new ground, the EAT has now ruled that this approach is wrong. Read on to learn more.
Check out this 2014 Communicator Award-winning article! Litametrics is the application of analytics in a range of areas. The use of analytics is not new territory for most law departments that dabble in ediscovery, applying analytics to perform searches for documents. Litametrics can also empower counsel to make better and more informed decisions on building a legal team, budgeting and predicting outcomes of cases so the best strategy can be developed. Learn what Litametrics can do for you.
The Indian data protection legal regime is proposed to undergo a major overhaul with the enforcement of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act.
This article discusses In-house counsel internal strategies for compliance, including training of key stakeholders and conducting gap assessments.
The last time one of your employees left you for greener pastures, you couldn't say enough wonderful things about her to potential new employers. But this time is different. Where is the line drawn between giving an honest evaluation of an employee and defamation of character? Discover what you can say about employees (and to whom) without landing yourself in hot water.
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires the audit committees of boards of public companies to establish procedures for the receipt and handling of whistleblower complaints regarding questionable accounting practices, including anonymous reports. This article explains the essential features of a compliant complaint procedure and offers a plan for guiding the audit committee through the implementation process.
Like many of the contracts in-house attorneys are tasked with drawing up and overseeing, developing commercial contracts involves a number of steps. This article provides you with each step in the process, discusses the challenges involved and new approaches to help address those challenges, and offers an example of how one such contract was created and implemented.
Government contractors have been increasingly met with scrutiny, particularly since ex- government officials often go to work in that sector. Several legislative and regulatory initiatives have been implemented in order to prevent conflicts of interest on the part of government contractors. Given the current climate, it is more important than ever for those seeking a bid to identify, address and mitigate these “conflict of interest” issues.
Members of ACC's Litigation Committee share their experiences of how developing vital relationships early during their in-house career resulted in fewer challenges for them and their company. Discusses choice of outside counsel, budgeting for litigation, managing client expectations, building a litigation team and understanding your company's insurance coverage.
The General Laws (Anti-Money Laundering and Combating Terrorism Financing) Amendment Act, No. 22 of 2022 places new obligations on Companies and other persons to register prescribed information regarding beneficial ownership following South Africa’s grey listing and recommendations made by the Financial Action Task Force.
The ‘smartphone wars’ have dominated legal headlines worldwide.
Learn about the significant implications (for data users and holders) of the Data Act proposed by the European Commission in February 2022, regarding who can use and access data generated by connected devices.
With new developments in social media, obscurity is starting to disappear. And while this may not change the world, it should change the way you think about communication.
Read perspectives on how to adapt to an in-house life style after life at the big firms.
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