Keith Maziarek, director of pricing and legal project management at Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP, and Justin Ergler, director of alternative fee intelligence and analytics at GlaxoSmithKline, discuss the evolving nature of legal operations and management, the new face of negotiations between law firms and corporate clients, and the collaborative nature of their jobs.
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Continue Reading Optimizing the Business of Law

Jonah Paransky, executive vice president of Wolters Kluwer ELM Solutions, discusses the ways that the role of general counsel has evolved in recent years to accommodate the growing emphasis on legal ops, and how new technology can help legal departments maximize their impact while minimizing costs.
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Continue Reading As ELM Platforms Mature, Law Departments Gain Ground On Business Goals

We’ve met with more than 50 clients in the past 12 months and have enjoyed a front seat to the transformation happening across legal departments. Our meetings have reinforced that CLOC’s 12 core competencies are not stagnant and continue to evolve in their application and impact. Here is a taste of what we are seeing you all accomplish. You can use these to plan your next project, benchmark with your colleagues, and to continue to show the value that you bring to your legal departments and companies.
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Continue Reading Evolution of CLOC Core Competencies: Observations from a Maturing Market

When a patron storms out of a store over perceived mistreatment, do not confuse the lack of legal grounds for a discrimination claim with a free pass on the far greater reputational risks that outweigh the cost of any litigation.

In April 2018, at a Philadelphia Starbucks, police arrested two men of color waiting for a third participant before beginning a business meeting. A Starbucks employee contacted police after concluding that the men had not purchased anything. Another patron captured the arrest on video and posted it on Twitter where it soon received more than 200,000 likes. Although it is unknown whether the men initiated any subsequent court action, they eventually settled with Starbucks (for an undetermined amount) and the city of Philadelphia (for $1 each and the promise of a $200,000 investment in a program for entrepreneurs).

To placate protesters and tamp down the backlash, Starbucks closed more than 8,000 locations one May afternoon for diversity training. Currently, the company is facing a race discrimination lawsuit filed by a Caucasian regional manager who claims she was terminated after refusing to discipline another Caucasian employee accused of discrimination in the aftermath of the event.

Several months later, in December,

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Continue Reading Social Media Firestorms can Consume Reputations