Advancing the rule of law in jurisdictions around the world.

CCBJ: Let’s talk about the rule of law and its significance to companies doing business across borders.

Judge Ann Claire Williams: It’s difficult to conduct business globally if people can’t trust that the justice system will be fair, that their cases will be heard in a reasonable time and resolve. There’s a trickledown effect: Without that trust, you may not get investment. If you don’t have investment, business can’t build. If you can’t build business, people can’t work. And without protections for laborers, the whole thing falls apart.

When people don’t have fundamental basic rights, they are vulnerable to abuse and mistreatment. They can be taken advantage of and exploited. A strong rule of law affects not just the commercial side of business, but the human side – the people working on the ground.

Ted Chung: The government doesn’t have a monopoly on justice or the truth. In a healthy rule of law environment, private parties have the ability to push back against the government with as much zeal as is called for under the circumstances, and to expect that outcomes in particular cases are not dictated by whim but…
Continue Reading

Ensuring the well-being of your team in a high-level, holistic manner.

CCBJ: Tell us about your role as Director of Health and Well-Being at Akin Gump.

Kimm Merkel: At Akin Gump, we believe that benefits play an integral part in a person’s ability to manage work and life outside the office. We have a team mantra that says it’s important to meet people where they are. Individual needs differ so greatly, so it can be a challenge, but it does guide us in our programming, as well as how I approach my responsibilities. We focus on providing high-quality, competitive programs that arm each individual with resources so that they can make informed decisions.

That covers traditional benefits, like medical, dental and vision, but over the last number of years, it’s also been coupled with a strong focus on well-being, which at Akin Gump is defined as one’s physical, mental, financial and social/community health. We must be balanced in each of these respects, or we could potentially suffer in all of them. For example, if we are struggling with our finances, stressing and worrying about money, that can take a mental or physical toll on a person, and it could…
Continue Reading

Charlie Platt, Director of Data Analytics for iDS, resumes his Ethical Hacker column with a piece on how reducing cyber risk can get in the way of your business – that is, if your rules lack flexibility. The best way to implement successful cyber risk programs without hurting your business, he says, is to design them to adapt to dynamic business requirements by providing an approved exception process.

It’s been a while since I’ve been on these pages. I’ve missed it and it’s good to be back. One big change is that I’m now also focused on data analytics in addition to cybersecurity. I will be heading up the Data Analytics practice at iDS and Robert Kirtley is heading up the Cybersecurity practice. Together we will be talking about how data analytics and cybersecurity go hand in hand, and how we can assist each other in achieving great results for our clients.

In light of that new focus, I’d like to tell you about a project I recently worked on for a client. While on the surface our work was focused on data, there were strong undercurrents of cybersecurity throughout the project. We were engaged to assist the client…
Continue Reading

Michele Schochet, Director of Corporate Information Security with Facebook, discusses the corporate culture that drives one of the biggest tech companies in the world forward, including the increasingly important role that women play in computer engineering.…
Continue Reading

In this inaugural iCyber Solutions blog post, Robert Kirtley of iDS gives a quick overview of phishing attacks and the damage they can cause, frequency of attacks, and some common types of phishing attacks. In the second installment, he’ll concentrate primarily on how to prevent and recover from a phishing attack.…
Continue Reading