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This report developed by Womble Bond & Dickinson surveys nearly 200 executives based across the United States. This elite group – 62% of whom hold C-suite titles – comprised decision-makers from company leadership and key departments including information systems and information technology, privacy and security, legal and compliance, operations and finance, and marketing in response to states set to effect stricter requirements around consumer privacy rights in 2023. Check out this resource to view the full report and find out if companies are prepared to meet the looming updated guidelines.

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.

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 article discusses the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) publishing proposed new regulatory requirements for improving diversity and inclusion in Financial Services.