Bloomberg BNA will present a complimentary afternoon briefing on DOJ and SEC enforcement trends, new emerging risks, and recent cases that will keep attorneys ahead of the changing landscape, on Tuesday, Jan. 24, from 3:30-6 p.m., with a networking reception to follow.

The event is underwritten by EY and will take place at Bloomberg LP, 120 Park Ave., New York, NY 10165.

Lanny A. Breuer, the Vice Chair for Covington & Burling LLP and one of The National Law Journal‘s 100 most influential lawyers in America, will give a keynote interview at the event.

Experts will discuss:

• Navigating investigations in the new administration, including how to prepare for a pending investigation
• Recent cases and emerging areas of risk in 2017 and beyond
• Technology’s role in global investigations and how to leverage new technologies to implement fraud-prevention rules

Register for the event.

Further expanding its Latin American presence, Gardere Wynne Sewell LLP announces the addition of two partners and three associates to the firm’s international trade practice in Mexico City. The group joins Gardere from Carrasco, García Abogados, S.C. and Trade Law Consultores, S.C.

“These are important new hires that increase the size of our dynamic Mexico City office and add firepower to our accomplished international trade practice,” says Gardere chair Holland N. O’Neil. “This is one more example of our commitment to providing top quality legal counsel to clients with cross-border business.”

Partner Marcos Carrasco-Menchaca provides advisory and consulting services related to international trade, customs, free trade agreements, customs litigation and taxation on foreign trade, as well as rendering services in international contracting and administrative litigation. Carrasco is currently an advisor on foreign trade for major multinational and national companies in the retail, fashion, oil and gas, automotive, auto parts and manufacturing industries.

During President Vicente Fox´s administration (2000-2006), partner Alejandro Nemo Gómez-Strozzi served as the undersecretary of economy in charge of foreign investment, standards and trade remedies. In addition, he has previously led the Mexican Investigative Authority regarding trade remedies (UPCI) in the Ministry of Economy. Gómez focuses on international trade, antidumping, customs, foreign trade and Mexican administrative law.

Miguel Angel Concha-Fuentes, Luis Jahir Contreras-Guadarrama and Alberto Santillán-Gaitán are also joining Gardere as associates. Concha is a foreign trade and customs attorney who specializes in customs and administrative litigation, customs advisory and unfair international trade practices, primarily dumping. In addition, Contreras provides advisory and consulting services related to foreign trade, customs and free trade agreements. Santillán specializes in advising and consulting on international trade and taxes on foreign trade, as well as customs and administrative litigation.

“With continued foreign investments entering Mexico’s market, it is imperative for Gardere to meet our clients’ growing need for international counsel,” says Roberto Arena, who heads the firm’s Mexico City office. “The team is highly regarded for their work with a diverse portfolio of organizations in Mexico and abroad, and we welcome them to the Firm.”

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General Counsel News and Zapproved have posted a complimentary on-demand webinar titled “Trends in Corporate E-Discovery Data Processing: Benchmark Survey Insights Revealed.”

An expert panel will explore the trends, and discuss the results of the 2017 benchmark survey.

The event provides insights and analysis on:

• In-sourcing vs. outsourcing e-discovery projects
• Satisfaction of process with an eye on factors such as time, cost and ease
• Technology trends affecting how in-house legal teams’ work evolves in 2017 and beyond

Corena Bahr

Speakers were Brad Harris, VP of Products, Zapproved, Inc.; Jack Thompson, Sr. Manager – eDiscovery & Legal Operations, Sanofi US; and Brad Ellis, Corporate VP of Legal Services, Physician Acquisitions, Asst General Counsel – Scripps Health.

The moderator was Corena Bahr, Webinar Consultant & Producer, YourWebinarGuru.

Brad Harris

Brad Harris has more than 30 years of experience in the high technology and enterprise software sectors, including assisting Fortune 1000 companies enhance their e-discovery preparedness through technology and process improvement. He is a frequent author and speaker on data preservation and e-discovery issues, including articles in National Law Journal, Corporate Counsel, Metropolitan Corporate Counsel and Information Management and presentations at leading industry events such as LegalTech New York. Prior to joining Zapproved, he led the development of electronic discovery readiness consulting efforts for Fios, Inc. from 2004 to 2009. He has held senior management positions at prominent public and privately held companies, including Hewlett-Packard, Tektronix and Merant.

Jack Thompson

Jack Thompson is a corporate eDiscovery and Legal Operations professional, specializing in the advancement of efficiency of legal technical operations and information governance.  From 2001 through 2014, He was legal operations manager at Purdue Pharma LP in Stamford, CT providing services and solutions to Purdue’s legal technology operations as well as leading the company’s legal analytics programs.  In 2014, Thompson relocated to Atlanta, GA to work as the legal technology manager for the UPS Corporate Legal Department, followed by working as an IT Business Services Manager for The Coca Cola Company’s global legal department providing technical expertise and process workflow implementations.  Heis currently working as the eDiscovery Manager and Legal Operations Lead for Sanofi US, located in Bridgewater, NJ.

Brad Ellis

Brad Ellis received both his Juris Doctorate and a Master of Law in Taxation from the University of San Diego School of Law. He has 25 years experience in healthcare law, and has worked at Scripps Health for the last 18 years. Prior to joining Scripps Health he was in private practice with a focus in healthcare and the banking industries. In addition to his legal duties, he is responsible for physician acquisition in a business role, and is also responsible for system-wide cyber-security for the Scripps Health system.

See the on-demand webinar.

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Corporate legal departments will decrease spend on outside counsel and take more work in-house in 2017, reveals a new report released by Liquid Litigation Management, Inc. (LLM), a legal workflow unification platform provider. “The State of the Legal Industry” report explores the motivations for technology adoption among U.S. law firms and corporations. It also examines the business benefits firms and their clients expect from technology adoption, as well as the lingering challenges they face.

While the corporations and law firms surveyed said their number one goal of incorporating technology is to boost efficiency, the way they use this new technology can prove counterproductive. The survey found that 64 percent of law firms rely on more than four distinct legal software systems to aid in developing strategy, tracking case management, and collecting, processing and reviewing data. This outsized number of systems, which can lead to inefficiencies and increased cost, is one example of why corporations think law firms are not as efficient as they should be. As a result, corporations are taking more work in-house and spending less on outside help.

“The law firms and GC offices participating in the survey show some interesting similarities and differences,” said Cas Campaigne, Chief Executive Officer and President of LLM. “Both are heavily focused on cost-cutting and efficiency gains, but their priorities differ. If law firms and corporations can work together to figure out how to consolidate their technology and reduce some of these inefficiencies caused by the complexity of systems they use, firms will be better equipped to meet the demands of their customers and corporations will save money.”

Some of the reports other key findings include the following:

• Corporations and law firms want greater budgeting predictability
• Corporations are using Alternative Fee Arrangements (AFAs) to reduce legal costs
• Nearly half of firms only use email to track communication around budget and strategy for historical purposes

“Doing ‘more with less’ is a mantra of many modern law departments. They are starting to demand similar discipline from their external providers,” said Casey Flaherty, former in-house counsel and founder of Procertas. “Talking about efficiency in the abstract isn’t enough. Corporations want measurable efficiencies and tractable savings without compromising quality. Many law firms struggle to meet these mandates. Buying technology is different from using technology is different from using technology well. Interoperability and integration are among the primary challenges we have in making our tools really work for us.”

The report provides other insights of particular interest to the legal community, such as:

• The most significant changes firms and GC offices anticipate in the coming months
• Their biggest obstacles
• How frequently firms communicate with their clients
• The ways in which corporations and firms want to use tech to improve operating efficiencies
• The degree to which legal departments and law firms leverage historical data and why
• The impact of AFAs on technology purchases
• The relative ability for firms and clients to keep pace with change

Download the report.

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General Electric has developed what it’s calling a Yelp for lawyers, reports Bloomberg Law.

The report says the internal website allows the company’s approximately 800 in-house lawyers to search “preferred providers” of outside counsel and learn about their track record with the company.

“Titled GE Select Connect, more than 200 of the company’s outside law firms maintain profiles (à la Facebook) that feature firm information, including feedback the outside firms have received from GE lawyers, the firm’s diversity staffing levels, hourly rates, along and discounts the company has previously achieved,” Bloomberg reports.

Read the Bloomberg article.

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Corporate compliance consultant, author and lawyer Thomas Fox is producing a new podcast series that has generated an e-book exploring the outlook for business ethics at home and overseas under incoming President Donald Trump. 

“Trump and Compliance: This Conversation is Just Getting Started” is published by Corporate Compliance Insights, headed by Maurice Gilbert. Its content comes from discussions on Fox’s podcast series, “Everything Compliance.” Part 1 is titled, “This is not the apocalypse (yet).”

As an authority on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, compliance and ethics, Fox is hosting the discussions with other experts in the field, and all are contributors to this e-book.

His podcasts can be found on his FCPA Compliance & Ethics website.

“I am a bit more sanguine than some when it comes to continued enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act,” said Fox. “The FCPA has held many foreign companies accountable, and it’s crucial to fighting terrorism. Enforcing that law is right in line with President-elect Trump’s trade policies.”

Fox also contends that major U.S. companies now have compliance fully integrated into their systems and that the FCPA has few reputable critics. In addition, enforcement heavily relies on self-policing, and penalties from violators largely pay for the cost to investigate.

Both the “Trump and Compliance” podcast and e-book will be updated quarterly to include details from ongoing discussions between Fox and colleagues regarding developments in the corporate compliance and FCPA space. A free copy of the e-book is available at http://corporatecomplianceinsights.com/trump-and-compliance/.

The former general counsel of a global oilfield services company, Fox has worked as a lawyer in the world’s energy capital for more than 30 years. He conducts training in FCPA, business leadership, compliance and ethics in the U.S. and across the globe.

Fox is host of the FCPA Compliance & Ethics website, which provides business solutions to compliance and legal challenges.

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Bloomberg BNA will present a complimentary event to discuss the widespread corporate apathy towards antitrust risks — and why the business community needs a collective wake-up call.

The event will be at the Bloomberg LP offices at 731 Lexington Ave. in New York on Thursday, Jan. 19, 2017, 8-10 a.m.

Robins Kaplan LLP is an underwriter of the event, will carries up to 1.5 CLE credits.

“Companies rely on their sales personnel to drive business growth and generate new revenue, while the in-house compliance team must prevent, detect, and report actions that could draw scrutiny from antitrust enforcement agencies,” Bloomberg says on its website. “But what if those employees don’t even know what types of conduct is problematic under the antitrust laws?”

Bloomberg BNA and Robins Kaplan LLP conducted a survey of corporate sales and compliance professionals, and the results show a widespread lack of awareness of antitrust guidelines. Among the alarming findings: 25% of respondents are engaged in pricing activities that could rise to the level of illegality.

The event is designed for in-house counsel, compliance and business executives responsible for antitrust compliance.

Register for the event.

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A new University of Iowa study demonstrates for the first time that financial shenanigans at companies decrease markedly in the years after truth tellers come forward with information about wrongdoing inside their operations, according to a report in The New York Times.

While government whistle-blower programs reward some individuals providing tips about corporate fraud, the costs for those people can be high, due to retaliation from their employers and their industry, writes Gretchen Morgenson. But companies subjected to whistle-blower investigations had less financial wrongdoing after being reported, the Iowa study found.

An analysis of the study found that the decrease lasted for at least two years, the period for which data had been collected for all the companies.

Read the NYT article.

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to consider putting sharp new limits on where patent-infringement lawsuits can be filed, accepting a case that may undercut patent owners’ ability to channel cases to favorable courts, reports Bloomberg.

The case involves an appeal by TC Heartland LLC, an Indiana-based maker of water flavorings that says a Kraft Heinz Co. unit shouldn’t be allowed to sue it in Delaware, reports Greg Stohr.

“A victory for Heartland would also bar most patent owners from pressing cases in the Eastern District of Texas, a patent-friendly jurisdiction where more than a third of all infringement suits are now filed,” Stohr explains. “Heartland’s appeal has support from a group of internet retailers and software companies, as well as the financial-services industry.”

Read the Bloomberg article.

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Navex Global has published its 2017 edition of the annual Top 10 Ethics & Compliance Predictions and Recommendations white paper and made it available for free downloading.

These 10 insider tips and predictions from experts present insight on how to prepare now — and get ahead of the trends that will impact the workforce and industry.

Some of the topics discussed include:

• Deliver a Return on Compliance (ROC)
• Thrive in a Five Generation Workplace
• Sort Through the Alphabet Soup of Global Standards
• Be More Than Just the People Who Say ‘No ’
• Mitigate Cyber Mayhem

Download the report.

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Law firm partners have figured out how to increase profits per partner in the face of a declining demand. Firms, on the other hand, have an unsustainable model that remains largely intact even as clients are seeking options, writes Mark A. Cohen for Forbes.

He sees the explosive growth of in-house legal departments as possibly the biggest impact of the fiscal crisis.

“It’s easy to dismiss ‘insourcing’  legal work as labor arbitrage. But the more fundamental reason for in-house growth is law firms’ inability to deliver legal expertise and value — as well as to integrate technology and process in delivery. The value deficiency is linked to the traditional firm model and culture,” he writes.

He lists some of the reasons corporate legal departments now comprise about 45 percent of total legal spend.

Read the Forbes article.

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General Motors Co. said late Tuesday it has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that has opened GM to potentially billions of dollars in lawsuits related to pre-bankruptcy claims over defective ignition switches, reports The Detroit News.

Reporter Melissa Burden explains that GM was protected from some liabilities prior to its bankruptcy restructuring, but that protection did not extend to post-restructuring after 2009.

“A number of injury, wrongful death and economic loss lawsuits have been filed against GM over its faulty ignition switches and recall of nearly 2.6 million older vehicles in 2014,” she writes. “GM has admitted it knew of the defect for years but did not recall the cars for more than a decade and has paid fines to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Department of Justice.”

Read the Detroit News article.

Photo by Brian Solis

A company’s board of directors is supposed to act in the best interests of shareholders, but that doesn’t always seem to be the case in Silicon Valley, where some chief executives are capable of driving boards to act in their own interests, according to a commentary in MarketWatch.

As an example of worrisome corporate governance in the tech mecca, writers Therese Poletti and Jeremy C. Owens point to new information that shows the relationship between a Facebook Inc. board member and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg. Reports cover recently unsealed documents in a shareholder lawsuit that contends Facebook’s recent stock split with a new class of nonvoting stock is tantamount to “granting Zuckerberg billions of dollars in equity, for which he will not pay anything.”

The reports also reveal that board member and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen helped Zuckerberg prepare for questions from a Facebook special committee of the board that reviewed the three-way stock split.

Read the MarketWatch article.

The president and chief operating officer of Texas-based Adeptus Health is the latest executive out the door at the nation’s largest operator of freestanding emergency facilities, reports The Dallas Morning News.

Graham Cherrington is the second executive to leave the embattled company suddenly in recent months, following a disappointing $11.7 million loss in third quarter. He follows longtime chief executive officer Thomas Hall, whose retirement was accelerated to November, writes reporter Sabriya Rice.

“The company went public with its freestanding emergency room model in June 2014, and now operates more than 90 facilities across the United States.  In 2015 it generated $365 million in revenue,” she writes. “Shares plummeted in November following the disappointing loss and an unexpected request to secure $27.5 million in emergency financing from investors.”

Read the Dallas News article.

A study by market research firm Equilar found that 2015 compensation for general counsel rose 6.9 percent and exceeded $1 million, reports Bloomberg Law.

In examining data from more than 1,400 lawyers, the report — with commentary from legal recruiting firm BarkerGilmore — found that:

• At companies with less than $1 billion in revenue, median total direct compensation for GCs was $725,021.
• At companies with between $1 billion and $5 billion in revenue, it was  $1.2 million.
• At companies with between $5 billion and $15 billion, it was $1.7 million.
• At companies with revenues above $15 billion, it was $2.5 million.

On its website, BarkerGilmore explains that the study considered compensation trends by practice area, the average annual in-house counsel salary increase, how well company compensation compares to those of similar size, and what gaps may exist and how to address them.

Read the Bloomberg article.

Download the BarkerGilmore report.

As most legal departments’ workload increases and resources diminish, it’s no surprise that running an efficient legal department is challenging. Old processes tracked on Excel spreadsheets or rudimentary databases will no longer cut it. Many legal departments find themselves struggling under the weight of legacy technologies that simply do not work or are expensive to upgrade.

Onit has published an eBook (see the form below) that discusses how ELM solutions are positively impacting corporate legal departments like Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), The Home Depot and Under Armour.

The eBook, available for free downloading, covers:

• Why ELM is more than just legal e-billing and spend management and “should” include contract management, legal holds, NDA creation, legal service requests, etc.
• Why “process automation” and collaboration is critical for performance
• Cues from the industry, market trends and Gartner’s predictions
• The new technology curve and future of legal operations technology

Download the eBook:

The 2016 report on a comprehensive survey of law department operations, “Trying to Take the Leap from Small Changes to Major Disruptions,” can be downloaded from Blickstein Group at no charge.

Since 2008, Blickstein Group has worked in cooperation with Consilio to survey hundreds of law departments solely on the operations function to provide benchmarks that are useful to all law departments.

In addition to releasing the survey report, Blickstein Group will host a live webinar on Dec. 14 to provide exclusive analysis of survey results by five industry leaders. The complimentary online event will be Wednesday, Dec. 14, at 1 p.m. EST.

Some of the topics covered will be:

• The role of the LDO
• Change management
• Alternative fee arrangements
• Technology and tools
• Metrics and reporting

Presenters at the webinar will be:

• Brad Blickstein – Principal, Blickstein Group and Publisher, Law Department Operations Survey
• Elizabeth Jaworski – Director, Legal Operations, Motorola Mobility and Member, Law Department Operations Survey Advisory Board
• Josh Rosenfeld – Vice President, Legal Services, QuisLex
• Robin Snasdell – Managing Director, Consilio
• Aaron Van Nice – Director of Legal Operations, Baxter Healthcare and Member, Law Department Operations Survey Advisory Board

Download the report or register for the webinar.

A Texas judge’s decision to block sweeping new overtime rules hadn’t been out for two hours Monday evening before Philadelphia employment lawyer Gina Ameci started getting phone calls from her employer clients, reports The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Now what? “As of today, there is no law,” she said. “Anything is possible.”

“The judge’s decision came as a relief to industry groups, such as the Retail Industry Leaders Association, one of the 50 business groups that had sued the U.S. Labor Department,” writes reporter Jane M. Von Bergen.

“Ameci said her clients, now faced with a period of uncertainty, would now have to weigh their risks. Should they roll back new policies to save money and then face potential liability if the regulation is ultimately upheld? That risk might be worth it, she said, for nonprofits who often have people doing professional work, but earning in the $35,000 a year range,” the report says.

Read The Inquirer‘s article.

Image by Ron Cogswell

As the top lawyer for the Chicago Cubs, Lydia Wahlke spends most of her time protecting and enforcing the team’s brand, but she still gets to be a fan of the new World Series champions, according to an interview published in Bloomberg’s Big Law Business.

She spent four years at Miramax Films as a video editor and field producer before deciding to take the LSAT on a whim. That led to law school and then being hired as a litigation associate at Kirkland & Ellis in her home town of Chicago. Then in 2010 she joined the Cubs organization.

“One of the greatest challenges we have is also one of our greatest assets: our brand,” she told Bloomberg’s Casey Sullivan. “We have needed to find the right path to protecting and enforcing our brand, while allowing our fans to celebrate being fans and celebrate their love of the team. That can be challenging because we are 146 years old and it’s a really complex brand that has come about in many ways, including organically from fans celebrating the team. You have to find that dividing line between fighting people and protecting your licenses and protecting your brand long-term, but you don’t want to take the fun out of it. That can be deciding whether or not to enforce our mark.”

Read the Bloomberg article.

Mining giant Rio Tinto PLC said it fired one of its most senior operational executives and its head of legal and regulatory affairs based on the findings from a continuing internal probe into $10.5 million in payments to a consultant who helped acquire mining rights in Guinea, reports The Wall Street Journal.

The two executives are  energy and minerals chief executive Alan Davies and legal and regulatory affairs group executive Debra Valentine.

The company is reported to be investigating emails related to payments to a consultant who helped to acquire rights to mine the prized Simandou iron-ore deposit. Rio Tinto has notified law enforcement officials and regulators, including the U.S. Justice Department, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.K.’s Serious Fraud Office, writes Rhiannon Hoyle.

Read the WSJ article.