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Companies can use legal analytics to select and manage outside counsel, craft successful case strategy and drive results. Learn how to use data in the context of patent litigation and prosecution activity.

The key to networking is not who can get the most business cards, but rather who can develop meaningful relationships that will ultimately contribute to long-term success.

Sample employee intellectual property assignment agreement

ACC and Everlaw conducted a survey of 373 in-house legal professionals in the United States to better understand the extent to which corporate legal departments are collaborating with other business units, how legal teams are collaborating with their law firms and other vendors, and how technology plays a role in enabling collaboration. The results reveal that although legal staff desire greater collaboration and there is a clear recognition of the benefits of doing so, there are impediments preventing legal teams from realizing that full potential.

This survey report aims to better understand the outside counsel selection process for litigation matters, the tools that departments are using for litigation workflows, the most common cost containment strategies, and how litigation needs are expected to change over time.

There’s training, and then there’s effective training. This course will look at the three main characteristics of effective training: risk based, business based, and accommodating adult learning styles. Experienced faculty will address how to build an effective training plan based on these three components. The course will also look at the practical aspects of balancing e-learning with live training to make the best use of your budget and employee time; creating “mix and match” modules and facilitator guides to get the most use from your efforts; leveraging internal resources to deliver training that is meaningful to the audience; and measuring and acting on training effectiveness.

The scope of due diligence is expanding in response to the focus on data privacy and security. Find out what you need to know about privacy (through the information lifecycle) for due diligence in mergers and acquisitions and the barriers to collecting and reviewing private information in due diligence. Examine due diligence requests (privacy policies, guidelines, data classifications, security controls) and get suggestions on which members of your due diligence team need to be involved in this effort. Examine limits to gathering, processing and reviewing all of the information you would like to see as you make your decision on whether the deal presents (too much) risk.

The European Unified Patent Court (UPC) – which centralizes patent litigation throughout most of the EU – is on track to go live in late 2016 or early 2017. The new UPC is expected to rival and potentially surpass US courts as the preferred venue for major patent disputes, as US companies will be able to obtain an EU-wide injunction via a single litigation, instead of having to litigate in each jurisdiction. This will drastically reduce costs and improve enforcement, but it won’t be easy. The new system and the changes in procedure and process are complex. Companies must assess multiple factors to decide in advance whether to participate or opt-out. This panel comprised of lawyers dually qualified in the US and UK will focus on how the UPC will impact IP filing and enforcement strategies of US companies, and answer questions such as: What strategic planning should US companies be doing now to prepare for the UPC?; What are the best practices to protect US companies’ patent portfolios in Europe?; What are the commercial advantages of opting-in or out of the UPC?; How will early UPC participants shape the new court system?; How do US companies decide whether to opt-in or opt-out?; How do US companies approach product clearance and FTO in Europe, particularly as applied in licensing and acquisitions?; What are the options for mitigating significant competitor patent risk before it is exacerbated by the UPC?

Appendix A to the 2012 Corporate Counsel University, Session 700- Adding Value: Strategic Planning and Demonstrating Success. It contains strategic business planning questions.

This 16 March 2016, held in Brisbane, outlines how in-house counsel can effectively managing risk in commercial contracts.

This is a sample code of business conduct and ethics policy.

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.

This Wisdom of the Crowd (ACC member discussion) addresses concerns and tips for managing attorney-client privilege in an open office environment, under US law. This resource was compiled from questions and responses posted on the forum of the Law Department Management and Small Law Department ACC Networks.

Thanks to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, public companies face potential civil and criminal liability and new internal reporting obligations. Read this article to prepare your company to respond if a whistleblowing complaint comes in.

This article accounts for major changes in Intellectual Property (IP) law—addressing both COVID-related and unrelated changes. This article also provides practical guidance when addressing these types of issues, and include resources for further reading.

Selected cases and materials related to limitations on discovery.

The proliferation of music and movie sharing sites make it easier than ever to add multimedia – motion pictures, television video, and music -- to enhance communication and training for customers and colleagues. Yet questions about permissions and licensing persist. This program will offer an introductory class on music and video public performance law and licensing. From American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers/Broadcast Music, Inc./Society of European Stage Authors and Composers, to movie and television studios, to public performance licenses, to sync licenses, and more, this program will provide an overview of current laws pertaining to music and video licensing and offer practical approaches on when organizations need to seek permission for reuse. Guidelines on how to go about securing the necessary permissions, clearances and licenses will be offered.

This publication has been prepared to provide an overview to foreign investors and business people who have an interest in doing business in Asia.

Social media can be a challenging environment for in-house counsel. In this article, in-house counsel can learn how information on social media platforms can be used ethically in their practice.

This session will focus on how to establish a small local or regional law office of a multinational company. Processes including organizing and structuring a department, policies and procedures, oversight, and contract management will be addressed.

ACC's annual survey of global chief legal officers and general counsel

Labor and employment laws in the United Kingdom are notoriously employee-friendly. Learn how to navigate the minefield of disciplining, and ultimately dismissing, UK employees.

This is a sample software database license agreement.

This resource is a detailed statement of corporate policies for social media usage.

Employers monitor off-site employees for numerous reasons—not simply to ensure productivity, but to protect trade secrets, avoid data breaches, track an employee’s physical location, and generally discourage or identify misconduct. Most recently, monitoring has been used for COVID-19-related contact tracing purposes. However, privacy-related legal pitfalls abound.

If the weather outside mimicked the economic outlook for corporate America, it would be overcast with periods of heavy rain. With a tough financial forecast, even tougher leadership decisions have to be made, and a layoff or reduction-in-force (RIF) may be the most feasible solution to save your bottom line. While there's no easy way to execute a RIF, this article gives insightful information to help make a layoff less painstaking and more profitable to your company.

The beginning of a shift toward a more regulatory and less litigation-oriented regime of antitrust enforcement was observable by the mid-1990s, if not earlier. The transition
toward this more bureaucratic approach by antitrust enforcement agencies is the subject of our analysis.

In the midst of all of the corporate scandals that have erupted since the Enron bankruptcy filing last year and in light of the new requirements established by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, what do in-house counsel of public companies need to do both to protect their clients (the corporation, its officers, employees, and shareholders) and themselves? Read this article to get a better grasp of the scope of the problem and use the five-point compliance plan to help plan a solution.