This program will focus on a series of case studies involving in-house lawyers who got into trouble for (allegedly or actually) violating legal ethics rules, acting improperly in response to government investigations, and assisting their employers in perpetrating fraudulent or criminal acts. We will review the case studies, discuss what the lawyers involved could have done to avoid trouble, and tease out steps that you and your law department can take to protect yourselves from the potential pitfalls highlighted by the case studies.
After a 40-year history of negotiations, it is expected that the Unified Patent Court (UPC) will soon become a reality in Europe. The UPC will have jurisdiction for litigation relating to the new Unitary Patent and the European Patent granted by the European Patent Office. Attend this session to hear the latest on this groundbreaking development, and its implications for obtaining and defending patents in Europe.
With the complexity of many legal situations today, the best team to solve the problem may not work in one organization, but across many. This session is designed to help you create and lead a collaborative team with members from competing law firms, consulting groups and non-legal providers. In this session, you will discover how competitive collaboration has led to success for legal department leaders. A team of experts will offer insight and criteria on the type of engagements that lend themselves to this approach; how to get people with competing interests to collaborate effectively; how to deal with conflicts if they arise; and how to plan for seamless delivery and desired results. Case studies, tools and templates will augment the interactive presentation.
Questions that will be considered during this program: What are the risks associated with apps? What does the technology permit? What data can you collect? What rules govern terms of use and privacy policy? What are the current trends? What do the Google and Apple developer agreements say, and how do they affect what you do? Are these agreements negotiable? Does Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) apply? What if you allow in-app purchasing? Will you be doing any location tracking?
The workplace is more virtual than ever. This raises new and complex compliance challenges on issues ranging from data security to wage-and-hour compliance to corporate and employee taxation. Our panel of experienced corporate counsel will share tips, wisdom and guidance to help you overcome these compliance challenges. Audience participation is welcome!
One of the most uncomfortable discussions any in-house counsel will have is justifying to the CFO why large amounts of money were/are being spent for outside legal work, especially litigation spend. Law departments are still viewed as cost centers in most corporations. Pressure is greater than ever to defend return on investment for litigation spend. If the in-house counsel can''t quantify why amounts are being spent in litigation, he will have a difficult time becoming a valued business partner — or worse. This program will share best practices/metrics and look to ways the in-house counsel can quantify legal spend (particularly litigation spend) against the results from their outside counsel.
You only have 10 minutes to review a contract. What terms should you be sure to review, and what drafting errors should you look for and consider correcting? This program will highlight the critical topics on which lawyers should laser their focus.
The 2013 ACC Value Champions share how they achieve strong alignment between business clients, inside and outside counsel through leading management practices including pricing, collaboration and continuous improvement. This will be an interactive session, so bring your own questions and concerns.
Fracking sits at the intersection between US energy and environmental policy. It offers both transformative economic opportunities and energy security, as well as novel environmental regulatory challenges. This program will provide an overview of the key subsurface environmental and land use issues, as well as the regulatory and legislative efforts being undertaken at the state and federal levels, along with related litigation. Faculty for this program will consist of in-house experts who are responsible for fracking projects, outside counsel who have litigated fracking matters, and government attorneys who help develop and enforce regulations related to fracking.
Today’s government contractors, especially those just realizing that they are government contractors, face a compliance and ethics requirements environment significantly different from that of strictly commercial companies. To address the unique compliance and ethics needs of government contractors, panelists will provide an update on recent suspension and debarment matters, awards from the False Claims Act and the lessons government contractors can learn from those decisions. This session will review the Federal Acquisition Regulations on codes of conduct and compliance programs for government contractors. Panelists will also identify strategic ways to demonstrate due diligence in managing risk to government customers, regulators and the U.S. Department of Justice.