Operations

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By: Oliver Campbell & Bas Boris Visser, Clifford Chance US LLP

The world’s premier law firms are now more than purveyors of legal services. In the past decade, they have become multibillion-dollar global businesses and face many of the same challenges and issues as the clients they serve.

Successfully running a large firm today requires not only a cadre of great legal minds but a team of professionals focused on continually improving both operational and process excellence. During the past five years, we’ve worked directly with clients and shared our best legal project management (LPM) ideas to help them reduce cost, risk and time in executing everything from routine to mission-critical work.
Continue Reading Sharing Operation Insights with Clients: A commitment to innovation sparks new ways of working

By: Bonnie Hill & Richard Koppes, National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD)

Every year, the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) prepares a major report by a Blue Ribbon Commission composed of leaders from the corporate governance community. The NACD board debates three possible topics and picks one. This year it was unanimous: “Building a the Strategic-Asset Board.” Below, the leaders of the effort, Bonnie Hill and Richard Koppes, discuss the commission’s watershed report, which tackles a series of fraught topics with a heavy dose of tough love aimed at boards too sluggish or passive to change to meet changing times. Their remarks have been edited for length and style.
Continue Reading Change in the Boardroom: Evolution or Revolution?: Commission seeks to transform boards into high-impact strategic assets

By: Mark Haddad, Thomson Reuters

It’s no secret that corporate legal departments are struggling to do more with less. In the aftermath of the 2008 global economic crisis, corporate counsel faced cost pressures and brought more work in-house. Today, legal departments continue to adjust to cost constraints while dealing with how to manage internal and external resources to achieve greater efficiency and productivity.
Continue Reading Improving In-House Efficiency: The increasing role of legal department operations professionals

By: Alexander W. Major & Franklin C. Turner, McCarter & English LLP

The federal government can provide a large and lucrative line of business, but not without significant risk. Alexander Major and Franklin Turner of McCarter & English caution companies regarding the growing trend toward contract-related claims, how False Claims Acts penalties are affecting suits and why preparing for a bid protest needs to begin at the inception of the bid itself. Their remarks are edited for length and style.
Continue Reading The Flipside of Federal Contracts: Pursue government bids fully aware of the complications and compliance nuances

By: Hal Marcus, OpenText™ Discovery (formerly Recommind) & Ari Kaplan, Ari Kaplan Advisors

OpenText™ Discovery (formerly Recommind) recently partnered with Ari Kaplan Advisors to poll partners at leading law firms regarding e-discovery issues. The results are captured in “How Law Firms Are Incorporating Efficiency, the Cloud and Technology to Meet Enhanced Client Demands,” which is available at recommind.com/survey. The report provides an enlightening window into the varying approaches of in-house counsel and their outside firms in terms of technology solutions. Below, Ari Kaplan and OpenText’s Hal Marcus preview the findings. Their remarks have been edited for length and style.
Continue Reading Technological Advances Breed E-Discovery Collaboration: Survey reveals growing alignments and continuing disconnects between firms and clients

By: Lloyd M. Johnson Jr., Chief Legal Executive

Deciding to hire a legal department operations executive seems like a no-brainer for general counsel who want to transform the way their teams deliver services to clients. Unfortunately for those GCs, that’s where the easy part ends. There’s rarely anything simple about finding the right person for the legal department operations (LDO) role.
Continue Reading The Essential Skills of an LDO Leader: Successful operations executives fuse talent, tact, and technical ability

By: Eric J. Barr, Marks Paneth LLP

Shareholder agreements document the intentions of the parties in connection with, among other things, the price to be paid for an ownership interest in the event of a shareholder’s death, disability, retirement or other triggering event. There are four commonly used methods to value a company.

Continue Reading Developing Appropriate Valuation Provisions: Defuse ticking time bombs in shareholder agreements before they explode

MCC Interview with Bryan H. Jones, KPMG LLP

There was a time, not all that long ago, when a company’s general counsel was expected to weigh in on purely legal issues from the sidelines. No more. In a new report based on interviews with business executives, “Through the Looking Glass,” KPMG details just how broad the GC role has become – and how challenging. Below, one of the report’s authors, KPMG partner Bryan Jones, discusses the expectations of the modern GC and the tools needed to meet them. His remarks have been edited for length and style.
Continue Reading Corporate Execs Offer Recipe for GC Success: Counsel who lead from the front with legal insight and business acumen exceed expectations

By: Sarah Sawyer, Inventus, LLC

The use of mobile devices in the workplace is an ever-evolving practice. When organizations first started taking advantage of increasing mobile technology, particularly cellphones and laptops, most implemented “company owned, personally enabled” (COPE) policies. The mobile device remained the property of the organization, and the employee used it primarily for work-related tasks. With COPE, the type and scope of mobile devices is restricted, affording the organization the ability to fully understand the technology of a limited number of devices, thus providing them with predictability when the data stored on those devices becomes discoverable.
Continue Reading The E-discovery implications of BYOD: Clear policies are a must when employees take control of mobile devices

By: Kimberly Stein, Thomson Reuters

“Doing more with less” is increasingly the mantra that corporate law departments are living by. A recent survey by Thomson Reuters found that reducing outside legal spend and managing limited internal resources are two of the top challenges cited by general counsel and decision makers in law departments.
Continue Reading Knowledge is Power – and Powerfully Efficient: Law departments deploy KM systems to leverage valuable information assets