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This article provides basic information only and cannot be treated as an exhaustive overview of any specific legal or business issue.

What strategies and resources are needed for developing a legal department? What do you do first to set up a legal function? How do you get a seat at the table and stay there? How do you communicate with management? How do you get your piece of the budget pie and how do you control your costs? What tools/resources do you need? Where can you go for help? Learn practical strategies and pointers from this panel of legal experts who focus on how to build and maintain a legal department.

This is a sample information technology data classification and handling policy.

Government contractors have been increasingly met with scrutiny, particularly since ex- government officials often go to work in that sector. Several legislative and regulatory initiatives have been implemented in order to prevent conflicts of interest on the part of government contractors. Given the current climate, it is more important than ever for those seeking a bid to identify, address and mitigate these “conflict of interest” issues.

Today’s data security environment is hostile. CLOs now supervise information security officers and compliance officers; therefore they must be aware of developing threats to cybersecurity. A new actor in this realm is the “Advanced Persistent Threat,” well-financed groups that may be sponsored by foreign governments, often carrying out strategic national objectives. From spear-phishing to zero day exploits, attempts to infiltrate corporate data are sophisticated and persistent.

Many products — from lipsticks to mobile phones — either cross- license patents or incorporate industry standards. Patent pools and standard-setting organizations differ in fundamental ways. Get an overview of both, and learn about some of the litigation trends in these areas.

You are an employer who requires your employees to execute restrictive covenant agreements containing reasonable non- competition, non-solicitation and non-disclosure provisions in order to protect proprietary interests. One of your employees is resigning to work for a direct competitor in violation of his restrictive covenant obligations. Learn what you can do to protect your company.

In a “when, not if” world of data breaches, organizations must position themselves for effective breach response. And a response to an actual breach requires synchronized coordination of multidisciplinary activities beyond the ambit of IT security: legal, forensic, law enforcement, regulatory, insurance, public relations, stakeholders, notifications and personnel management.

After many years in the information M2M governance space and talking to literally hundreds — if not thousands — of corporate employees tasked with overseeing or participating in
their organizations’ initiatives, the resounding reply from them is, “There is no budget!” Rarely is this the absolute truth.

Google was recently ordered to produce a “smoking gun” email that it claimed to be protected by the attorney-client privilege. The Federal Circuit’s ruling represents a troubling trend. It seems that privileged communications are disappearing in the digital age. This article discusses how to mitigate the undermining of privilege in electronic communications.

During the acquisition of a smaller company, the due diligence process reveals possible environmental compliance violations. With a criminal indictment looming on the horizon, you must now make a decision: voluntary disclosure or internal investigations. Be prepared to act quickly and decisively, or your company could wind up down the drain.

With ediscovery sanctions up 271 percent, it is critical for all organizations to implement an effective and airtight legal hold process. Be sure to avoid antiquated practices that lack a holistic approach, focusing instead on an integrated legal hold solution. After all, come litigation, the last thing you want to discover is that you’re not prepared for ediscovery.

Legal risks can have a domino effect — financial failure in one institution may trigger others. The Basel Accords are banking laws recommended to regulators as a way to create a globally harmonious approach to financial and operational risk. These recommendations signal a shift from problem solving to problem prevention.

Moving legal work in-house, which fuels the need for confidentiality, has increased the use of anti-competitive covenants and, consequently, litigation related to them. It is still unsettled whether the courts will judge non-compete agreements to be uniformly unenforceable when applied to in-house counsel.

A recent change in federal law enforcement policy governing federal criminal investigations of corporate crime has corporations and their lawyers wondering whether it will effect a real difference in practice. The question that remains to be answered is whether the practice of demanding waivers of privilege and pressuring companies not to advance attorneys' fees to employees has become so entrench in white-collar practice that, in order to curry favor with prosecutors, corporations will "willingly" offer them without a request.

This is a sample hotel group sales and event agreement.

Lawyers working in law firms and in corporate law departments reported several personal challenges to developing their careers during the pandemic. One year after the start of the pandemic, the biggest barrier to career progression for lawyers continued to be limited to no in-person contact. Read this important article to learn more about the professional impact of the pandemic.

This is a sample form of guarantee agreement among a borrower, a lender and an administrative agent.

Environmental risks and liabilities, which can be substantial, are a part of most commercial and real estate transactions involving in-house counsel. Parties to a transaction must identify, evaluate and allocate those risks and liabilities in order to protect their interests; and the parties—sellers, purchasers, lenders and insurance companies—have diverse perspectives and methods for managing environmental risks. Learn the sources of environmental liabilities, including federal and state statutes, implementing regulations, local ordinances and rules and common law. Then discover contractual provisions for allocating or limiting environmental risks, including definitions, representations and warranties, covenants and conditions precedent, indemnities, releases and other contractual mechanisms to allocate or limit such risks. Speakers also will reveal non-contractual ways to allocate or limit environmental risks, including deed restrictions and environmental insurance.

Simple tools to align with the business and manage workflows across multiple internal and external resources.

Learn how to structure your compliance program based on recent actions by the US Department of Justice (DOJ), the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and other regulators. A panel of experts will discuss recent deferred prosecution agreements and non-prosecution agreements; how corporate integrity agreements and declinations provide a wealth of information and direction; and how these agreements provide insight into the expectations of the DOJ, SEC and other regulators. Panelists will dissect the most recent agreements and discuss key takeaways for compliance programs.

When drafting contracts, using indemnity provisions and insurance clauses should be more than just a “copy and paste” operation. Such clauses should be tailored to the specific needs of the contracting parties. This article provides tips on drafting effective indemnification provisions and insurance clauses in contracts involving the sale or purchase of goods and services.

With or without a compliance and ethics program, many organizations find themselves sweating under the scrutiny of the United States Sentencing Guidelines (USSG). Whom do you trust to conduct an effective internal investigation? Keeping it in-house can sometimes do more harm than good. Understand how the USSG scores different offenses and what steps to take to avoid serious repercussions.

When government action or public controversy affects corporate practice, commercial speakers must be wary of exposure to massive civil penalty suits. Even when speaking honestly and in the best interest of the public, accusations of deceptive and misleading conduct may surface. This article presents three tips to keep in mind, before you’re punished for speaking your mind.

New technological advances, especially Advanced Text Analytics, are changing the productivity paradigm for lawyers who have to read enormous volumes of electronic documents to identify potential evidence.

By implementing a thorough internal review process, in-house counsel can ensure that a company’s hiring policies recruit qualified and trustworthy employees.

To succeed, multinational employers entering into and doing business in China must sharpen their employment-related business strategies to leverage opportunities and mitigate risk. We examine six common labor and employment traps and how to avoid them.