A panel of experts will discuss strategies and best practices for building and managing a trademark portfolio with a limited budget. The panel will address best practices related to clearance, filing, portfolio maintenance, and enforcement. The session will include a discussion of international searching and filing strategies and tips for prioritizing activities when expanding coverage of US trademarks into new geographies. The panel will review and discuss resources and tools available to assist with aspects of building and managing a trademark portfolio.
Law departments are often considered cost centers for the business, not revenue generators. However, there is a variety of ways to change this perception and allow law departments to collaborate with business clients to add to the company’s bottom line. This panel will examine some of the programs and strategies that in-house counsel can use to reduce legal spend and generate revenue. Topics discussed will include affirmative recovery programs (for example, monitoring contractual performance and intellectual property infringement), third-party litigation financing, licensing IP or other valuable assets, investments in new technology, and creative legal matter staffing. This panel will also examine how to build relationships with business clients to create and implement successful programs involving them and how to track and communicate law department profitability and performance.
This roundtable discussion will include regulators from the US Department of Justice, Securities & Exchange Commission, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, along with your in-house counsel peers. With the regulators, we will cover ongoing and emerging compliance and examination issues, provide updates on regulatory changes, and keep ACC members in tune with regulators’ views, recent findings, and consent orders and compliance trends. The regulators will be asked to discuss their approaches to examinations and investigations and suggest best practices for compliance in the current environment.
This program will focus on effective information security and data privacy assessment programs for third-party vendors—including practical tips for effectively assessing information security practices and procedures of third-party vendors, such as law firms and other professional consultants — from the pros and cons of using industry-standard questionnaires to determining when onsite reviews are appropriate and how to handle subcontractors. We will also highlight key, and common, sticking points in negotiating data privacy and information security terms in vendor agreements and provide options and sample language for successfully resolving them, distinguishing as applicable between US negotiations and negotiations where either the customer or the vendor has substantial operations in Europe or Asia.
A panel comprised of Supreme Court experts will highlight current key issues and cases for the U.S. Supreme Court. Join these esteemed faculty as they delve into significant legal topics that are relevant across the spectrum of in-house lawyers.
Join a panel of experts with experience across the globe for a discussion regarding the framework for thinking about global collective redundancies/reductions in force. This panel will discuss myriad issues within a global workforce reduction including applicable law, limitations on selections, procedural prerequisites, notification and severance requirements, and consequences of mistakes.
If your organization uses third-party software, it is likely that your use of the software will be audited. This session will discuss strategies and best practices for tracking your organization’s licensing, use, and distribution of third-party software, including open source. The panel will provide practical advice and guidance for establishing and maintaining a robust entitlement and deployment program for tracking your organization’s licensing, use, and distribution of third-party software. The panel will include best practices for responding to and managing a third-party audit request and provide strategies and guidelines for developing and implementing a process for responding to and managing a software license audit. The panel will review and discuss resources and tools available to assist with identifying and tracking use and deployment of third-party software, including review of commercial software asset management tools and practices.
The session will cover important recent US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) developments since the 2015 ACC Annual Meeting. The program will review significant enforcement actions and trends as well as recent SEC developments related to the Volcker Rule, shareholder proposals, and the rule for pay ratio disclosure. This program will also examine those sections of the Dodd-Frank Act that matter most to corporate and securities lawyers in their day-to-day practices, including providing advice to management and board members. The session will review the network of regulations that have been adopted pursuant to those sections and report on the status of regulations not yet adopted by the SEC. This will be a fast-moving program; come equipped with a working knowledge of the Securities Exchange Acts of 1933 and 1934.
As pressure continues to mount to reign in escalating healthcare costs, traditional adversaries are contemplating new alliances and consolidation strategies as potential solutions to control the almighty healthcare dollar. This session will examine a variety of issues and trends regarding payor/provider relations, including increased efforts to consolidate. This session will discuss the pros and cons of consolidation, including whether the US Federal Trade Commission may block proposed consolidations and whether consolidation is good or bad for industry, consumers, or employers. Faculty will also explore the various tensions among the multiple players and ethical considerations presented when payors purchase providers, such as whether ethical lines can be held without compromising other payor contracts and confidentiality.
The session will cover important recent US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) developments since the 2015 ACC Annual Meeting. The program will review significant enforcement actions and trends as well as recent SEC developments related to the Volcker Rule, shareholder proposals, and the rule for pay ratio disclosure. This program will also examine those sections of the Dodd-Frank Act that matter most to corporate and securities lawyers in their day-to-day practices, including providing advice to management and board members. The session will review the network of regulations that have been adopted pursuant to those sections and report on the status of regulations not yet adopted by the SEC. This will be a fast-moving program; come equipped with a working knowledge of the Securities Exchange Acts of 1933 and1934.