Resource Library

Jeff Isaacs has given much thought to the evolution of legal services over his 30-plus year career in the industry, both in legal operations and as an attorney acting as both outside and in-house counsel. I recently had the opportunity to catch up with him on his career and his decision to join KPMG LLP as Director, Global Legal Managed Services. Click here to read more.

The journey from Delegation of Authority (DOA) to Contract Lifecycle Management System (CLM) is about marrying effective governance with technological solutions. By doing so, organizations can ensure not only a swift and reliable contract approval process but also adaptability to changing requirements over time.

Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) is often caught in cross-functional turf wars. Consequently, many find that the system in place is not the hoped-for “silver bullet,” especially as unmet requirements surface across the organization. Moreover, the benefits documented in the CLM business case may always seem just beyond reach, especially as phased roll-outs stall amidst frustration and disappointment that what was pitched by the vendor turned out to be more difficult to actualize than it seemed.

In the July issue of the ACC Observer, David Cambria shared his unique and broad perspective on legal operations' current trajectory. This column focuses on Cambria's career experience, which makes his insights worth contemplating.

This is a sample employee handbook.

Savings is not a strategy. Imagine a CEO opening an earnings call by celebrating the money the company “saved” on deal counsel and due diligence by not moving forward with an otherwise strategically vital acquisition. The stock would crater because leadership would rightly be judged as majoring in the minors.

As a line item, legal spend is a minor consideration. Rather, legal spend is better characterized as a relatively small investment that enables the business to execute on what matters.

Legal spend should be dictated by business needs. Those business needs are only escalating with the explosion in legal complexity. The increasingly law-thick environment in which businesses operate is having a profound impact on corporate top lines, bottom lines, valuations, and strategic opportunities. Trying to save money on legal is myopic—and excruciatingly common.

In Case You Missed It, the Law Department Management Network's February 2021 Legal Quick Hit was titled "How to Develop and Advance an Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) Program." You can view this quick checklist, developed by Seyfarth Shaw LLP, to get a brief snapshot into the program.

Increasing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) investment and forging social sector partnerships in a post-COVID-19 recessionary world isn’t just the right thing to do, but the smart thing to do for in-house counsel and their companies.

The term ESG has gotten much attention lately, but many aren’t even sure what it means. “ESG” stands for “Environmental, Social, and Governance” and is a framework to evaluate a company’s business as it relates to meeting its environmental, social, and governance strategic objectives. Investors, regulators, employees, and customers express increasing concern that the companies they deal with are concentrating on and improving their ESG metrics. It is without a doubt an area of focus that is here to stay.

In this article, we discuss examples of how General Counsel and law departments can burnish their profile while doing good and helping their employers with ESG matters.

An excerpt of the playbook used by James Hardie Industries and PwC NewLaw for strategic transformation. Includes an organization chart showing a new structure along global practice lines with flexible resource pools; a roadmap for the year-long project, with overviews of sprints; schematics of the legal project management process and their approach to continuous improvement; a description of their Innovation Team structure; and a strategic blueprint featuring the vision, goals, pillars, statements of what success looks like and a schematic showing how goals are aligned to workstreams and initiatives.