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Columnist Jeffrey W. Wheeler opens about how finding a job can't happen without the care and support of family and friends.

Digital documents are on the rise in the legal industry. This article discusses how you can make the paperless transition.

How effectively in-house counsel can advise on risk-related issues and steer the business towards practical commercial risk mitigation solutions depends on our access to the C-suite.

Jeffrey W. Wheeler, Small Law columnist, stresses the importance of maintaining your credibility to preserve your reputation and career.

As with any “crisis” situation, we need to remember to step back and gather all the facts before jumping to conclusions.

This article reflects on the human need to be acknowledged; it looks at various scenarios in which people go unseen or are hyper-visible.

Here’s the thing: You are a “computer person,” just like you’re a “telephone person” and a “doorknob person.” You may not love it, and it may exasperate you daily, but it’s integral to your life, and a few minutes’ effort can go a long way toward tamping down chaos.

The Peter Principle, authored in 1969, is now out of print. But in this column, Bill Mordan re-examines the truths behind the theory which asserts that "in a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence."

Columnist Bill Mordan uses some of Yogi Berra's famous quotes and applies them to in-house counsel.

ACC Board Chair John Page introduces the September Technology and IP Issue.

What can you, as a leader in your organization, do to change the perception amongst your more tech phobic lawyers?

There is a difference between encountering negative events and possessing a negative mindset. Here are a few ways that these negative events can benefit our lives, if we choose to let them.

This is a sample internet usage policy.

An extensive network of professional contacts is one of the greatest career assets a corporate attorney can have. Most lawyers work hard to establish contacts, particularly in the early stages of their careers, but over time, many misuse their networks or forget about them altogether. To prevent this from happening, in-house lawyers need to be sure to avoid the most common mistakes even seasoned attorneys can make when it comes to the care and feeding of their networks.

The report, Technology’s Transformation of the Legal Field, is part of Robert Half Legal’s 12th annual Future Law Office project. Following are highlights from the research.

Important points to consider about your current position and how to keep your job safe.

Come to a discussion of best practices for managing commercial software licensing and acquisition of software as a service (SAAS) offerings for internal use and customer deployment. The session will address trends in software and SAAS contracting, cloud computing, and global contracts. A panel of experts will provide practical advice on key clauses and terms found in software licenses and SAAS contracts, including an analysis of the plain meaning and effect of common obligations and responsibilities found in these agreements.

This is a sample capital stock purchase agreement.

The rules of civil procedure are once again being amended, this time to update them for document production in the digital age. Judge Shira A. Scheindlin talks about what the proposed changes will mean for in-house counsel. She also gives advice and her top ten tips on conducting e-discovery in the current murky shadow of Rule 26, to avoid garnering sanctions for inadvertently violating a discovery order, or worse yet charges of spoliation of evidence.

An informative primer on accessing foreign tax information networks under the OECD Model Convention.

If you’ve been a litigator on the outside, welcome to a whole new ball game. As in-house counsel, your focus is not just on getting those pleadings filed, but also implementing litigation holds, managing outside counsel, conducting investigations, analyzing your position, determining strategy, and much more. And it is not just about conducting the litigation. It is also about taking steps and creating programs to avoid litigation, performing cost benefit analysis and risk assessment to determine whether to get in, stay in, or get out, and conducting a thorough post mortem of each case so that you acquire a very long educational list of “lessons learned” that will direct you in the future. Come learn from our panel of experts who have “been there, done that.”

Sound marks, holographic marks, three dimensional marks, scent marks and other non-traditional trademarks have become an important means for marketing departments to build and exploit their company’s brand — in addition to logos, phrases and other more traditional marks. In-house counsel need to stay informed about developments in non-traditional marks in order to keep up with business realities and protect their company’s interests. Many countries have regimes that regulate non-traditional marks, and understanding the procedures required to protect a brand’s unique shapes, sounds and smells can provide an important competitive advantage. This program will address: (1) the types of non-traditional marks that may currently be registered, and what lies ahead; (2) clearance procedures; (3) applications to register; and (4) enforcement proceedings.

A selection of resources on US sanctions and export controls against Russia in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The US Supreme Court held in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion, overruling long-standing precedent in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey. Since the Dobbs decision, trigger laws in 13 states have banned or will shortly ban abortions, and another 13 states are expected to follow suit. While trigger laws are being challenged in court, there is no question that many states will successfully ban, or severely curtail, abortions within their borders. Moreover, a number of those states would impose criminal penalties on abortion providers, pregnant people, and/or individuals or entities that “aid and abet” abortions. The Dobbs decision and states’ efforts to ban, curtail and/or criminalize abortions have created multiple legal issues that affect individuals and employers.

In the wake of the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Civil Rights (OCR) issued new guidance to address patient privacy under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) for those seeking reproductive health care services. This article discusses the guidance, which states that HIPAA allows providers to disclose certain protected health information (PHI), which includes information relating to one’s abortion or other reproductive care, without patient authorization only in specific circumstances that are “narrowly tailored to
protect the individual’s privacy and support their access to health services.”

Non-compete agreements are almost an essential part of today’s business environment composed of a mobile workforce with easily accessible and transportable data. Multinational employers face the added challenge of ensuring that restrictive covenants (i.e., non-compete, non-solicitation and confidentiality agreements) will be enforceable in the United States, Asia and Europe. The legal standards governing the enforceability of non-compete agreements vary around the world, but nevertheless, common principles can help guide employers in drafting and enforcing global restrictive covenants. Authoritative in-house and outside employment attorneys from around the world will provide cutting edge suggestions for multinational employers to draft restrictive covenants that should greatly increase their effectiveness and enforceability in Asia and Europe. The panel will also compare and contrast the non-compete laws in Asian and European countries against US restrictive covenant laws.

The development of blockchain technology is moving quickly, but there are still questions about government oversight and competition. Blockchain technology implicates privacy, antitrust, and securities law issues.