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Michael Vernick, government contracts partner with Akin Gump, discusses various aspects of the False Claims Act, including the potential for increased enforcement activity under the Biden administration, especially actions related to the CARES Act, and how companies and institutions can mitigate whistleblower and compliance related risks.
Continue Reading The Expanding Scope of False Claims Enforcement Activity

In a piece from Joe Patrice, senior editor with Above the Law, outside counsel guidelines are forcing law firms to waste oodles of time on “meaningless make work.” Citing Aderant’s recently released “Law Firm Leader Survey on Outside Counsel Guidelines,” Patrice says that while the whole report is worth checking out, the outside counsel guideline issue can be summed in a short list of challenges respondents said they face in managing OCGs:
Continue Reading Outside Counsel Guidelines’ TLDR Challenge

Jonathan Solomon, principal with Fish & Richardson, discusses the state of the cryptocurrency industry – what kinds of technologies his clients are looking to patent, the challenges of obtaining patent protection in this area, and where he sees the industry heading in the future.
Continue Reading Patent Protection for Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain Technology

Brendan Miller, legal operations advisor for practice innovation, and Troy Zander and Jordan Carr, partners with Barnes & Thornburg, discuss the typical process of drafting transactional documents and how new software tools can provide more predictability, greater efficiency, and other benefits – for clients and lawyers alike.
Continue Reading Transactional Document Drafting Receives a Tech Upgrade

In a piece from The Lawyer, Katy Dowell pulled together an interesting analysis of the Big Four’s focus on law. While we have not seen seismic shifts arising from the granting of ABS licenses to three of the Big Four in 2014 (Deloitte came later in 2018), we are seeing a steady and burgeoning growth in market share. And this land grab seems to be far enough below the radar that its victims, big law firms, have not recognized or reacted to the threat.
Continue Reading The Big 4 (Quietly) Grabs Market Share

In this piece from Princeton Legal Search Group, the focus shifts from the eye-popping salaries we read about every day – Milbank raises first-year associates to $200K and eighth-year associates to $355K and Davis Polk ups the ante to $205K/$365K – to why. According to the folks at Princeton, the question is whether top compensation is enough. Is money enough to buy associate happiness and loyalty? Not necessarily, they conclude.
Continue Reading Is BIG Money BIG Enough?

Zoee Bradley, a pharma GC and compliance officer, provides some good advice for building your GC presence. Among her strategies are some old chestnuts, such as being your authentic self and investing in your development. But a few others are less shopworn and potentially impactful, including a smart take on the GC as “safe refuge.” “Confidentiality and privilege are the cornerstones of any lawyer’s practice, but an impactful GC does more than maintaining confidentiality and privilege,” she writes. “They act as a safe refuge for all within the company, especially their leadership team.” At the same time, it takes care and work to establish such a safe space. “By setting clear boundaries and expectations, and strictly maintaining confidence, you will position yourself as a trusted GC,” she writes. “They will know not only to call on you when the crisis happens, but when they see a crisis form.” Check out the latest edition of ACC Docket here.
Continue Reading 5 Strategies to Build Value and Influence as a GC