Given the profound changes roiling the market for corporate legal services, it can be tough to tell just what makes today’s in-house law department tick. The agenda for CLOC’s Annual Corporate Legal Operations Institute, dissected in this infographic from Corporate Counsel Business Journal, isn’t a bad place to start.
Continue Reading CLOC Agendalytics
LexisNexis’ Kris Satkunas looks at data-driven insights into legal departments’ billing and law firm consolidation activities.
CCBJ: The LexisNexis annual CounselLink report has become a useful benchmarking tool for legal departments. Tell us a little about its history and how it’s being used.
Continue Reading Benchmarking Spurs Creative Thinking on Fees
Today’s headlines point to why it is critical to review and strengthen company harassment programs.
In the current climate of #MeToo and the Time’s Up movement, many employers are scrambling to answer a variety of questions relating to harassment in the workplace. Chief among these are what’s changed, and what changes do we need to make now?
Continue Reading #MeToo and the Workplace: What’s Changed – and What Needs to Change
The Gates Foundation’s Keith Matthews explains what satisfies his soul and makes him happy to come to work every day.
CCBJ: Your career followed an interesting and varied path to the Gates Foundation. Can you tell us about that?
Keith Matthews: Professionally, my first job out of college was as a credit analyst and later a middle-market loan officer at what is now JPMorgan Chase. With that background – and with a finance degree from college – I knew early on in my career that I wanted to focus on transactional work.
Continue Reading Helping the Client Achieve Its Objective: Saving Lives
There are a few simple tricks you can try to improve the pace, accuracy and consistency of your document review team.
1. Batch by Thread
If you aren’t reviewing only the most inclusive email (the longest email in the conversation that includes all other emails in the conversation), then batching by thread complete is essential to fast and consistent review.
Continue Reading Easy Hacks for Better Document Review
Connie Collingsworth is chief business operations officer with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Her remarks have been edited for length and style.
CCBJ: What led you to pursue a career in law?
Connie Collingsworth: I was somewhat strong-willed, always standing up for what was right, and I wanted to be an independent professional.
Continue Reading At the Table: Look Past the Paper to the Person
When you think of enterprise legal management (ELM) systems, you probably think about the ways they can make spend and matter management more efficient. But ELM systems are quickly evolving, becoming more comprehensive all the time, and today they can help optimize contract management, NDA creation and distribution, legal holds, legal service requests and much more.
Continue Reading Transforming the Legal Department: ELM Solution Puts Information at Everyone’s Fingertips
CCBJ: Akin Gump has been recognized by the Financial Times for its work in compliance and technology. What led to that recognition?
Thomas McCarthy: Beginning over a decade ago, there was an upswing in enforcement trends by the U.S. government in areas that affected our clients – particularly export controls, sanctions and anticorruption.
Continue Reading Stepping Up Service with Customized Tech Tools for Compliance & Investigations
Legal technology, information management, cost control and convergence move into the spotlight.
To celebrate our 25th anniversary, we are digging into the MCC archives for insights into the evolution and accomplishments of corporate counsel. Last issue, we focused on our inaugural edition. This issue we examine our first five years – 1994-98 – a period when corporate counsel were focused on building closer relationships with outside counsel, exemplified by the DuPont partner program. Our next four issues will tackle five years of MCC at a clip. Enjoy the trip.
Continue Reading Looking Back: The Search for Trust, 1994-98
The following lists are drawn from CLOC’s State of the Industry Survey. As the numbers show, almost 85% of corporate law departments have adopted an e-billing system, while only half have automated contract management. Most are not yet using an alternative or managed service provider.
Continue Reading In-House Service Providers