The challenge for most legal departments today is daunting: Do it more, do it quickly, do it with fewer in-house staff, and, above all, keep costs down. Many law departments have come to appreciate that the cultivation of a staff of nonlawyers is as important-if not more important-than staffing corridors of offices full of JDs with sterling credentials. It's a lot less expensive, too.
If you had only known you can learn everything you need to know about surviving the transition to in-house law practice from Duran Duran, The Breakfast Club, and Prince, you might have spent a lot more time at concerts than in the library during the 1980s, right? Phil Strauss translates the lessons in his guide to the facts of in-house life.
Two case studies of in-house counsel's efforts to use business techniques to productively and efficiently manage complex lawsuits while optimizing the use of limited financial resources in order to achieve the best result.
Today, IP plays a crucial role in the sale or purchase of companies in almost every conceivable industry. This article will tell you how to assess the IP aspects of a proposed transaction, conduct and complete due diligence to the extent it affects intellectual property and draft the provisions of the purchase agreement relating to the transfer of intellectual property rights.
This toolkit provides a guide to some of the basics of financial accounting terms and concepts that are key to in-house lawyers for understanding the company's financial statements as well as a guide to establishing a law department from scratch.
The last few years have brought big changes in California's employment laws. There's a Private Attorneys General Act, dubbed "the bounty hunter law," that allows private rights of action on many Labor Code provisions, along with new whistleblower protections, and new employee rights to take time off to tend to personal matters. Obviously California employers must pay attention to these changes. Moreover, employers in other parts of the country would be wise to take notice of the legal and legislative developments that have emerged from the Golden State. Taking proactive measures to prevent workplace discrimination and harassment, and ensuring that proper measures are in place to protect whistleblowers and comply with wage and hour laws will go a long way toward establishing a productive workplace and avoiding financially crippling and potentially devastating.
Provides guidance on the intricacies of how employers in Europe must work with trade unions and works councils, including the role that these labor organizations play in business enterprises in Europe, and includes methods by which companies doing business in Europe-or contemplating starting operations in Europe-can best work with the unions and works councils in order to reach their goals.
How many times have you reviewed outside counsel invoices in shock at just how much two firm lawyers can cost? Do you find yourself wondering, 'Why do things have to be this way, and can I do anything else to lower the bills?' In the first installment of this three-part series, the author examines what it is about law firm organization and culture that truly drives up costs, and lays the foundation for the tools to revamp your relationship with your outside counsel that are discussed in parts two and three.
Over the past decade, with the pressure to cut costs wherever possible, many legal departments continue to rely on a smaller core group of external firms to help achieve higher levels of business performance. Often termed 'convergence,' these and related strategies allow greater accountability for results and greater efficiency from dealing with fewer outside firms, particularly as each panel firm gets to know your organization better. As this trend continues, however, of the hidden problems of convergence is gradually beginning to emerge. Some companies beginning to find that even their preferred law firms' 'other' offices may fail to measure up the high standards of the main office with whom you had been used to dealing with and on which, in truth, your original selection process might mostly have concentrated.
The rules of civil procedure are once again being amended, this time to update them for document production in the digital age. Judge Shira A. Scheindlin talks about what the proposed changes will mean for in-house counsel. She also gives advice and her top ten tips on conducting e-discovery in the current murky shadow of Rule 26, to avoid garnering sanctions for inadvertently violating a discovery order, or worse yet charges of spoliation of evidence.