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Research shows that female in-house counsel are more likely to earn less, take temporary leave from work, and face difficulties returning to work after said leave than their male counterparts. With these obstacles in mind, here are the lessons I’ve learned that can help fellow female in-house counsel as they start their careers in this industry.

When a claim arises due to potential litigation organizations often conduct an internal investigation to determine the underlying facts relating to the claim and what steps should be taken to mitigate the claim or prepare for litigation. This article provides an overview of three issues to consider when conducting internal investigations.

For in-house lawyers, there is no substitute for having a more experienced lawyer as a mentor. But there are other people in your company who can also play an important part in career development.

This article will present proactive approaches to promoting diversity and inclusion that in-house legal departments and the legal community can adopt and adapt to individual circumstances. Specifically, this article will examine the importance of messaging from leadership, meaningful mentorship/sponsorship relationships, limiting implicit bias in hiring and promotions, building strategic relationships with bar associations, and working with law firms to increase diversity.

This article examines current trends with respect to board diversity in the United States (US), as they contrast with developments in Europe. Overall, the movement to meaningfully implement board diversity in the US continues to grow apace.

The ever-growing volume of information (and misinformation) make it challenging for businesses to stay abreast of the state of the law and the current trends. This article provides a crash course in cannabis to arm in-house counsel with basic information about this burgeoning industry.

If you truly aspire to be a leader, you need to make developing a diverse and inclusive culture as important as any other operational and leadership action you take to drive performance.

As a mandatory reporting regime, failure to properly report under the Directive may trigger penalties, the amount of which will be determined by each Member State individually. Because intermediaries and companies will be reporting on arrangements with certain characteristics, they should develop internal systems to identify arrangements that may require reporting. This article includes six highlights to keep in mind regarding the Directive.

This article sets out is an updated version of the introductory chapter of the Manual for Using Private Dispute Resolution Clauses in Business Agreements, which closely follows the text of the original edition.

In this article, we argue that the enforcement environment has changed in some fundamental way and explain why the change requires all companies with potential exposure to global anti-corruption laws to reassess their compliance programs.

No matter how severe the injury, willful misconduct is a designation used to encompass behaviors that, if engaged by an employee, can bar a workers’ compensation claim — leading to missed benefits and/or medical treatment. As a result, much of the onus falls on the employer to draft clear policies that establish discerning hiring practices and include regular training. Here’s how to protect your employee, and your company in the process.

While many companies have had established diversity programs for some time, in-house legal departments have a long way to go to match the populations they serve. Over the past decade or so, in-house law departments have sought to change this. This article is meant to provide some context to these issues and to provide guidance on some best practices for creating and continuing an in-house legal diversity program. The BASF Corp. in-house legal program will serve as a case study for this initiative.

Patent litigation is often a high-stakes, zero-sum game. Either the patent is valid or not. Either the competitor’s product infringes or it does not. When a company’s current and future value depends on the strength of a patent, intellectual property disputes are often some of the most substantive and complex cases an in-house attorney may encounter.

It’s no secret that corporate crises are fast becoming “the new normal” for companies around the globe. With a seat at the executive table, in-house counsel can capitalize on this platform to become ethical gatekeepers for the company and minimize the liability of an unexpected crisis.

The German Institute for Compliance (DICO) and the German Association for Supply Chain Management, Procurement, and Logistics (BME) have recently published an English version of the DICO Guideline “Antitrust Compliance – Cornerstones for Effective Compliance Programs”. This article provides a brief overview of the background and the contents of the guideline.

This article examines the risks and costs associated with the duty of disclosure for in-house counsel. Using big data methods and internal data from the USPTO, we summarize recent academic research on this question. We also describe how new technologies can help you standardize your workflow and lower the cost of your company’s prior art search, so you can plan for how courts may view your effort to comply with the duty of disclosure.

For any company, its employees are one of its most valuable assets. But ensuring that you are hiring the right people — people who share your company culture and values — is not straightforward. This article examines both the legal and practical perspectives that can help you, and your company, make the best decision to protect your business and workforce.

Today’s legal department must perform at a much higher level than before — and at a lower cost. What was once considered world-class is now the baseline. Anyone working in-house knows what I mean.

Law department leaders at large data holding organizations might lack awareness of the real cost and expense incurred when responding to third party discovery requests.

There has never been a better time to capitalize on the talents of female in-house counsel, yet women continue to face real barriers to advancement. High-performing female lawyers exiting the legal profession leave a “leaky pipeline” to senior legal positions. It is in these senior positions that women have the greatest effect on the bottom line; hence, efforts to repair this pipeline may be necessary sooner rather than later.

The one area of communication that is most often overlooked is communication with ourselves. How often do we take the time to perform an internal, periodic review?

Our job in advocating ethical business practices may not be as difficult as we might fear.

SP2.0 is all about your credibility: education, certification, networking, expansion, and connections, tailored to your personal needs. The goal of SP2.0 is not to make ACC great, but to make you great and to help you build credibility as a professional.

It is important for all in-house counsel to familiarize themselves with the unique opportunities and challenges of doing business and complying with legal requirements in Latin America.

The prudent employer should ensure that sexual orientation and gender identity are added as protected classes to their Equal Opportunity and harassment policies and that managers and employees are trained on such just like with any other type of harassment training.

It’s no secret — businesses with highly engaged employees generally have elevated productivity and better financial results. But employee needs and expectations change with the times, and that has never been more apparent than in today’s workplace.

This is the second part of a two-part article on the role of in-house counsel in enterprise risk management (ERM), specifically as to how we function in and around the “three lines of defense” model (3LD) that is providing much of today’s structural ERM framework.

It appears that everyone — law firm leaders and general counsels — view the lack of diversity as a serious problem in the legal field. However, the glacial pace of progress suggests the legal needs to find new and imaginative ways to foster diversity. Enter the Rooney Rule.

Getting a jumpstart on digesting these amendments is important to ensure your company’s litigation management processes, and that cost management procedures match the current state of the FRCP. This article summarizes the key changes from those amendments.

The presidential election campaign in the United States has shone a light on Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) entered into by the United States and other countries.