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

By: Kris Satkunas, LexisNexis CounselLink

A vast majority of corporate legal departments withheld hiring new law firms to handle their significant legal matters in 2015, according to the LexisNexis CounselLink 2015 Year-End Enterprise Legal Management Trends (ELM) Trends Report. The study concludes that while most legal departments stayed with their incumbent law firms in 2015 to handle their significant legal matters, there were exceptions to the rule – most notably in the areas of litigation and corporate matters.
Continue Reading Law Departments Stick with Firms They Know: Report reveals exception for significant corporate and litigation matters

By: Brandon Leatha & Charlie Platt, iDiscovery Solutions

The year is 2004, and Google quietly releases a new offering called Gmail. It’s invitation only, and there is little fanfare. Techies pass invitations amongst themselves, and a cult following grows, but generally the world fails to take notice. The year is 2006, and Google launches Google Apps. Again, it’s seen as an interesting experiment but generally not taken seriously by the industry. Then small businesses and startups start noticing the service is free, and for small businesses, free is a critical differentiator. They can access their documents from the office, home, the road, an airplane or anywhere they find themselves. It’s collaborative; multiple users can edit the same document at the same time. This is how they work, and it gives them a competitive edge. The year is 2010, and Google announces that Google Apps is no longer in beta, and that almost 2 million companies are now using it. The year is 2015, and Gmail has just passed 900 million users and Google Apps has over 60 percent of the Fortune 500 as users.

Continue Reading 10 Key Legal Considerations for Cloud Solutions: There will be investigations and e-discovery request, are you ready?