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Discover how in-house counsel can navigate the complexities of office strategies post-COVID, with insights into market conditions, workspace needs, and cost reduction. #COVIDRealEstate #HybridWork #RemoteWork #ACC #ACCDocket

Discover how companies like Zendesk and CrowdStrike have successfully implemented shared services models in their legal departments, boosting efficiency, reducing costs, and overcoming challenges. #ACC #ACCDocket #CostReduction #Legalnnovation

For healthcare companies, the use of blockchain has the potential to revolutionize data storage practices, at a fraction of the price of traditional processes. This article provides a summary of blockchain, identifies legal issues, and discusses some of the exciting possibilities and challenges to execution in the healthcare sector.

Policies that promote social and environmental justice should be integrated with the traditional production and consumption economy. Financial institutions play an important role in that economic model. Learn how credit-granting policies can work alongside the Brazilian government to achieve social and environmental sustainability.

As in-house counsel, you know you need to excel at negotiating with the other side. But to be a great lawyer, you must also excel in your interactions with your own side — your internal clients.

As in-house counsel, if you develop a reputation as a skilled negotiator, business people will seek your input on their issues. It is worth the effort to enhance your negotiation style and ensure mastery of the basic techniques.

Most in-house counsel managing litigation understand discovery obligations and the basics of how to protect attorney-client and work product privileges from disclosure in the United States. Even so, counsel should be aware of the effect of globalization on litigation and the impact cross-border discovery has on privilege.

By considering external support, companies have an opportunity to tap into a broader community of innovators. But collaboration is often not as straightforward as it seems.

This article explores the basic legal tenets of sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and pay equity and offers practical solutions to make cultural and procedural changes that promote equality in both wages and opportunities for women and other minority groups in the workplace.

Companies are more frequently turning to third-party subject matter experts to outsource their most pressing business needs. Although these relationships present opportunities for companies to improve product and service quality and leverage economies of scale to better compete within their respective markets, they also pose the risks of exposing potential data and confidential information and mismanagement of technology and other IP assets.

As GC for MetLife, Stephen Gauster has focused his energy on building up the company’s greatest assets: its people.

In this article, we outline five tips for companies preparing for a private equity investment and five tips for managing a new private equity relationship post-transaction.

Two high-profile patent cases were decided in quick succession by the US Supreme Court and the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that affect the patent rights of every company. For every in-house lawyer with patent applications considered or pending, these new cases highlight some of the important strategies you need to protect your intellectual property.

Sparked by the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, protests for racial equality continue globally. Many companies have taken a stand, publicly denouncing police brutality and reassessing their policies to root out racial bias in their organizations. But how are the employees responding?

To take their career to the next level, mid-level lawyers need to focus on demonstrating value in the workplace and building social capital. This article offers advice on practical and proactive steps individuals can take to advance their careers and build important skills at this stage — about seven or eight years after being admitted to the bar.

In an era in which information is disseminated globally at unprecedented speed, how does company counsel discharge his or her ethical duties; serve the client; and comply with multiple — and sometimes conflicting — practice regimes?

Today’s corporate legal departments often have four generations of lawyers working together, and while differences abound, this generational diversity is actually beneficial to companies.

The ACC Docket asked Dr. Pol to outline the results of his research, which offers fresh insights into an area directly or indirectly affecting the way in-house counsel operate worldwide, including ACC members.

This article examines this issue through the lens of a recent decision by the Nevada Supreme Court regarding the “blue pencil” doctrine and suggests ways for employers with a significant interest in the enforceability of employee non-competes to prepare themselves for the possibility of unexpected change to the applicable legal framework, including following closely the appellate courts in relevant jurisdictions, ensuring that covenants are appropriately tailored to the employees they cover, and taking advantage of opportunities to regularly review and recalibrate the covenants applying to their employees.

Despite the potential overhead that comes with risk monitoring inside the company, corporate legal teams have a duty to continuously track and mitigate known risks and detect and remediate potential ones before they become liabilities.

This article addresses the need for a robust ABAC auditing program, outlines the elements of an effective ABAC audit program, and provides guidance on how in-house legal departments and internal audit departments can collaborate to effectively detect ABAC violations and continuously improve your ABAC compliance program.

No company or leader wants to underuse their employees. But by discounting or ignoring the skills of the introverted population of their workforce, this may be precisely what is taking place. Each member of the legal department — introverts and extroverts, general counsel and supporting attorneys — have a role to play in rolling back this trend.

In this last part of the series, ACC talks to Independence Blue Cross LLC’s (Independence) Laura Grossi-Tyson, senior director, Benefits, Employee Relations and HR; and Joel Stern, CEO of the National Association of Minority and Women Owned Law Firms (NAMWOLF) to get their thoughts on hiring recent law school grads.

Based on the first five years, IPRs have proven to be an effective tool for accused infringers to challenge patent validity cheaply and effectively. IPRs have driven down the cost of defending against and the settlement value of many patent-infringement assertions. Those faced with patent assertions cannot afford to overlook IPR as a defense tool. And patent owners, too, must adapt their tactics to address the challenges of IPRs.

For emergency events, or even routine spills, the most valuable compliance tool is a practical checklist of key regulatory requirements that will help simplify reporting and simultaneously provide general legal guidance when accidents occur. This article provides that checklist, addresses five frequently asked questions and offers recommended responses, and compares US law to related laws and regulations in Canada.

This article compares the Privacy Shield and GDPR, to highlight commonalities, but also gaps that organizations need to address to achieve compliance under both frameworks.

Getting to the bottom of the issues and understanding the facts is in the best interest of any organization. That is why workplace investigations are so critical.

There is no magic formula or one-size-fits-all approach for an indemnification clause addressing the multiple supplier scenario. Rather, a party should carefully consider what language has been proposed on the other side of the negotiating table, its own negotiation strategy and leverage, its risks, and the technology.

US companies going abroad should be aware of the intersection of foreign and domestic labor laws as they pertain to US citizens working abroad for branches or affiliates owned or controlled by US companies, and foreign citizens working for US companies in their own countries.

Because of the increasing uncertainties in closing large global transactions, brought on in part by increasing governmental regulations around the world, sellers, in particular, have made greater use of strategies to mitigate and rebalance regulatory — and in particular antitrust — risk.