Resource Library

The ACC-Smarter Law Solutions free benchmarking and consultation service (acc.com/smarterlaw) has proven to be a hit since its launch in 2019. While we are thrilled at the positive feedback we’ve received from our clients, we thought that it would be interesting to respond directly to a few widely held hesitancies expressed by those considering a basic benchmarking or performance improvement process. We gathered some of these questions and sent them to Smarter Law Solutions CEO, Trevor Faure for his candid counsel. We were particularly interested in his perspective on concerns about taking on a consultant agreement in these turbulent times for legal operations.

This is a sample employee handbook.

This is an Outside Counsel Master Services Agreement.

What compensation do your in-house peers get? Check out the 2023 Law Department Compensation benchmarking survey results. 

ACC and Everlaw conducted a survey of 373 in-house legal professionals in the United States to better understand the extent to which corporate legal departments are collaborating with other business units, how legal teams are collaborating with their law firms and other vendors, and how technology plays a role in enabling collaboration. The results reveal that although legal staff desire greater collaboration and there is a clear recognition of the benefits of doing so, there are impediments preventing legal teams from realizing that full potential.

Legal Operations professionals know that a significant key to their success is rooted in stakeholder buy-in. Conference after conference, seminar after seminar, we speak *around* what it means to be in-house legal connected to the broader enterprise. We avoid topical change management and stakeholder engagement but never truly get to the underlying subject that takes this from influencer jargon theory to actionable tactics. We cannot all rely solely on our dynamic personalities and winning smiles to woo our coworkers: How do we turn the abstract of interpersonal influence into a real, functional relationship that benefits all involved? Read this article to find out.

This article discusses how President Biden's executive order on artificial intelligence impacts employers.

This article discusses how President Biden's Executive Order on artificial intelligence and follow-up actions by federal agencies will impact federal risk-management practices, likely serving as a model for AI risk management by private-sector employers.

In today's complex business landscape, collaboration between in-house legal departments and external counsel is crucial. Law firms are an extension of a legal team and provide substantive expertise unavailable on the team and support on high-volume, high-risk matters requiring additional expertise. Read this article for key strategies that can help corporate in-house legal departments develop robust partnerships with their external counsel.

For this month's ACC Legal Ops Observer feature article, ACC acquired insights from Laurie David-Henric on demonstrating the law department strategic value.