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This article includes some of Dr. Obama’s words of wisdom that can help you begin your company’s CSR program.

Our team observes that general counsel struggle to manage outside lawyers while still preserving value and responsiveness alongside cost-effective results. While there are no “silver bullets,” we have listed five techniques for selecting and managing outside counsel without upsetting the applecart.

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.

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.

Although artificial intelligence has now moved from the research and development stage to commercialization, its wider deployment in business imposes challenges for enterprises and for patent legislation, as it is a completely new concept and a very powerful force for change.

Inclusion allows for superior decision-making by bringing balance and equilibrium to any team or group and to the environment in which the team operates. And a diverse group will develop different strategies, approaches, solutions, and ideas.

We’ve dedicated this issue of ACC Docket to stories that touch on employment issues and emerging trends.

Leslie Thornton, the recently retired senior vice president and merger transition counsel for WGL Holdings and Washington Gas Light Company, has had the same mandates as most high-profile general counsel. She has navigated and managed major litigation, employment and labor law matters, supported the board of directors, and dealt with complex cybersecurity issues and data protection, all while being cognizant of what that means in the energy industry.

Prior to law school, I worked as a server in a restaurant. I’ve often said that my experiences back then were particularly valuable in forming my worldview; their relevance certainly rushed back to the fore when I began in-house practice in a department of one.

The legal profession has experienced several years of upheaval and disruption. General counsel are now optimizing their internal service delivery model in the same way that they have done with their external ones.

I decided to keep a log and write down the most important lessons I have been learning while managing my plant and on my journey outside the legal department. I have to admit, some of these lessons are the result of not so smooth — even at times painful — experiences.

Naturally, patents figure prominently into the business strategy, and Haas’ legal department involves itself more and more in strategic discussions to be able to focus on patents that deliver business solutions.

Despite their possible shortcomings, performance metrics — including profit and loss — are vital to helping businesses track and report results to shareholders. The question is, how can we craft meaningful performance metrics that incentivize desirable behaviors while avoiding potential negative consequences?

This article will provide a history and overview of CFIUS, as well as predictions about how the Committee may operate going forward. Based on recent CFIUS activity and the broad language of FIRRMA, it is highly likely that CFIUS’ role in reviewing foreign investment in the United States will increase. In particular, CFIUS will be getting involved in reviews of more types of transactions involving more types of industries, including industries such as health, finance, and retail, in which personal information or information transfer could occur as a result of the proposed transaction.

According to Spitzer, there are four distinct levels of happiness that both individuals and organizations must understand to assist them in pursuing excellence.

For a legal-minded numbers guy like Alasdair Moodie, Thermo Fisher Scientific’s vice president and general counsel of Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), he knew that the chances of receiving the honour were slim. But for the multiple colleagues and peers who nominated him, it wasn’t a surprise when he did.

What exactly is a T-Shaped Lawyer? Peter Connor shares how doing business, not just law, can drastically increase in-house legal value. #ACC #ACCDocket #career

With AI governance models in focus, learn the practical steps for legal professionals to lead their organizations towards responsible AI practices in this article from Legal Tech columnist Olga Mack and coauthors Humira Noorestani of DigiCounsel and Kassi Burns of King & Spalding. #LegalTech #OpenAI #AIGovernance

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.

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.