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This new manufacturing landscape raises questions regarding civil liability for products meant to prevent or treat the COVID-19 pandemic. Fortunately, the US Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP Act) and the recent public health emergency declaration by the US Secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services provide significant immunity from COVID-19 personal injury lawsuits.

That’s a startling number, even in a high stress field such as law. This May, in recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month, I want to focus on how in-house counsel can seek help for — and prioritize — their mental health.

Mindfulness has a positive impact on all arenas of human functioning. While most of the research has focused on the positive impact of mindfulness on the individual, a growing body of work in the management area also suggests that mindfulness is linked to better workplace functioning.

It is essential that lawyers identify for their clients all of the factors they must take into account when assessing the risk of entering into, or servicing, the cannabis industry. This article explores the factors to consider in navigating this increasingly complex and rapidly changing legal landscape.

One of the most crucial sources for the decisions your business makes is its contracts. But what happens when those contracts are inaccessible or can only be viewed in segments, depending on the department involved? Being disconnected from the office meant processes would become even more fragmented than they already were.

The past few years have brought on a regulatory compliance boom in the corporate world, aimed at greater transparency on tax matters.

This article explores the intersection of preserving privilege during an internal investigation while maintaining compliance with employees’ federally protected rights.

What has been fueling this recent rise in in-sourcing? And more importantly, what can corporate legal teams that don’t perform eDiscovery in-house learn from it? Three separate forces are contributing to this trend.

Shannon Klinger, the group general counsel of Novartis International AG, a Swiss multinational pharmaceutical company, has opened nearly every virtual meeting since Novartis took the decision to ask its associates to work from home in light of the COVID-19 pandemic — including this interview — with an earnest question: how are you doing?

Tech teams have developed a methodology to provide quality results that are a better fit with evolving customer needs and delivered at a much faster clip. If you work in tech, you’ve probably heard of it: agile development. Your law department should consider an agile approach as well.

We spoke with ACC Deputy General Counsel Veronica Pastor to learn the most common and insidious cyberattacks and how to safeguard your company from them.

This article will be the first in a series of three that discuss the various benefits of legal technology for in-house teams, where to start in your technology journey, what to focus on, and how to make it a success.

In this article, we discuss some best practices for protecting trade secrets and guarding against allegations of trade secret misappropriation in failed corporate acquisitions or customer-supplier relationships.

The next time one of your company's competitors is trying to kidnap what your colleagues have rightfully stolen, heed some of the important lessons from Rob Reiner’s film adaptation of S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure, The Princess Bride.

In this article, we discuss three key areas that we believe AI will disrupt and how they will affect general counsel: (1) the automation of routine legal and compliance services and the corresponding repurposing of existing resources; (2) document assembly and analysis; and (3) the need to shift from tactical to strategic thinking.

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.