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This year’s six keynote speakers covered topics that were both timely and personal: leadership, crisis management, and mental health. In this article, I provide a recap of this year’s keynotes and give my thoughts on the messages imparted by the panelists.

Opening up again is critical — when done safely. Our economies were never built for this. The pandemic kills people to be sure, but so do hunger and the crushing weight of collapsing finances. There is a balance to be found between opening up and avoiding the spread of the virus.

So, how do you tell if your colleague is trying to undermine you, and what can you do about it?

I’ve worked with Phillips for many years on the ACC Law Department Management Network leadership, where he is currently chair. It recently occurred to me that the in-house legal community would benefit from the leadership lessons Phillips has gleaned from his years serving as — and training to become — a Navy SEAL.

Now the vice president for legal and corporate affairs of Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev) Middle Americas — also known as Grupo Modelo in Mexico — Jimenez-Zorrilla fondly looks back on his professional career, and believes that every decision served as a crucial step that would ultimately lead him toward his dream of overseeing a global legal department.

Basketball played a role for Brent Irvin, vice president, and general counsel at Tencent Holdings Limited, giving him an opportunity to get his first glimpse of China.

We invite you to “listen in” on the future, and decide whether this fictionalized firm is the kind of law firm that you would want to hire for your organization.

==This article will identify some of the key points employers must bear in mind while conducting internal investigations in Mexico.

This article includes some questions that will help you and your employees create a better evaluation process.

Mediation is not litigation nor is it a zero-sum game. Although it is a less expensive and more efficient path to resolve conflict than litigation, it is often misunderstood and undervalued.

Legal departments are increasingly focused on DEI, but lawyers can forget about their personal networks. Here are suggestions to evaluate your network and expand its reach and composition.

The practice of law is changing rapidly. Lawyers are going in-house faster, in-house legal departments are impacting the business more than ever, and lawyers are constantly adapting to shifts in the way companies conduct business. Here are the five trends we believe are going to disrupt the practice of law, and what we can do to embrace them.

Canadian tax rules, though often similar, are in some respects significantly different from equivalent US rules. Canadian tax advice should always be sought by US residents wishing to expand their business into the Canadian market, even where the Canadian activity appears limited in scope, in order to prevent potentially costly missteps.

Performing a legal spend assessment provided a low-cost solution that required minimal effort and helped us accelerate conversion of our existing spend data into relevant metrics that we could leverage in order to inform future direction — including how the legal team could operate and better leverage outside counsel.

These days, to streamline and speed up cross-border internal communications, multinationals increasingly communicate workplace messages and documents internationally in the original English version only. There are advantages and disadvantages to issuing untranslated English-language HR communications to staff around the world.

With Rubin’s guidance, Aon’s legal department deployed the Law Department Strategic Improvement Project — a multi-faceted program that earned a 2016 ACC Value Champion Award for Aon.

As we are coming to understand, big data is essential in moving legal departments forward. It can arm in-house lawyers and their outside counsel with strategic insights that enable them to craft effective IP litigation and portfolio management strategies. Patent analytics can help in-house law departments achieve material gains for better patent quality while reducing overall costs.

The scope of constant vigilance needed can be a burden to many organizations, and legal sets the mandate for how that is accomplished. Your biggest ally is technology. For source-to-pay and procurement organizations, there is no better combination of risk mitigation tools than a Software as a Service (SaaS) contract management solution linked with a supplier management solution.

Achieving flow, a state of focus on a particular activity, can help in-house counsel achieve their goals.

As with many things in our legal world, the answer here is both simple and frustrating: It depends. Many factors come into play. It may depend on the company profile — its size, business area, level of regulation, governance structure and priorities, budget, management practices, and so on. It also depends on the individual professional perspective — duties, skills, professional and educational background, career aspirations, and talent.

Regardless of how well-intentioned or well-written they might be by themselves, corporate mission, vision, and values statements have no impact on employee behavior. Although people do not respond to slogans, they do respond to leadership.

Privacy and public health are overlapping in ways that were unimaginable only a few months ago. The critical question raised by this turn of events is whether the right to privacy is more important than the lives of the people at large?

Working remotely enables access to a talent pool of professionals who once would have required expensive or unwilling relocations. This means we can collaborate with people around the world in ways we never did before.

US sanctions and export controls can often raise complex issues requiring an in-depth examination of all aspects of a proposed opportunity. This includes the entities involved on behalf of the business, the customer and related third parties, the products/services involved, and the use of the US financial system.

CHRISTUS Health Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel Jeannie Frey had been practicing law for almost a decade before she decided to become actively involved in the American Bar Association (ABA).

As corporate clients, it is easy to place the burden and blame on our outside counsel partners for the pervasive industry challenge of retaining and advancing diverse talent. We suggest law firms need stronger affinity groups, mentor and sponsorship programs, and more inclusive and flexible working environments. As clients, we then demand diverse teams at multiple levels and express frustration when our law firms fail to deliver.

On Aug. 8, 2019, the Ministry of Law and Justice in India formally announced its Code of Wages (Code), which amended and consolidated labor laws relating to wages, bonus, and similar matters that are applicable to all workers in India. This article will discuss the history and coverage; salient features that affect employers and employees; and enforcement reforms, including the offenses and penalties.

Document requests are a regular part of your life as an in-house lawyer — even when your organization isn’t involved in the litigation for which documents are requested. For corporate counsel, such document requests can present an interesting predicament.

Using in-house counsel to argue in court has advantages, such as saving costs, when used in the right circumstances. Sometimes you can gain a persuasive edge by using in-house at a hearing.

Understanding the risks tied to both expressed and unexpressed considerations can go a long way to ensuring a fair deal for your organization. Below are seven pitfalls to avoid and some tips to help you navigate potential issues.