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.

As the environmental debate enters uncertain territory, companies are beginning to look to the legal department to provide clarity regarding impending legislation, such as the US Clean Water Act. Although it may take years to reach a resolution, it is imperative that in-house counsel understand the potential ramifications on company practices.

Work smarter, not harder. A recent study from the Project for Attorney Retention supports this maxim. Focusing on value and efficiency, as opposed to hours, attorneys are finally achieving the elusive work-life balance they have sought for years. In turn, companies that promote this balance are rewarded with loyal employees and added value.

This is a discussion of key securities law considerations for start-up or early-stage companies preparing to grant compensatory equity awards to employees, directors or other service providers.

Although many companies today have adopted sexual orientation nondiscrimination policies, in court they have proven surprisingly hard to enforce. This is a lose-lose situation for both the employee and the company. As in-house counsel, you can help everyone do better. Learn how to rewrite your company's policy and, better yet, adopt an anti-discrimination certification mark. These changes will enhance the corporate image and even limit liability in the process.

In a digital age with a free flow of information, it is easy to diminish the value of personal data. The European Commission, however, is set to solidify and unify data protection laws within the European Union under the General Data Protection regulation, and American companies with operations or customers in the European Union will soon find themselves having to comply with a new set of laws that could increase the cost of doing business, as well as significantly impact business operations.

Without the guarantee of privileged communication, it is difficult for in-house counsel to effectively render legal advice to management. It is absolutely essential that counsel consider how a court will analyze privilege in order to ensure that sensitive communications remain confidential. If not, prepare to wave that privilege goodbye.

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

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.

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

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

Explains how corporate counsel can implement effective legal training programs as required by the U.S. Sentencing Commission Guidelines.

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.

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.

"the "Getting the Deal Through" reference guide for M&A professionals"

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 "Getting the Deal Through" reference guide for M&A professionals"

"the "Getting the Deal Through" reference guide for M&A professionals"

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.