The Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics will present its 17th Annual Compliance & Ethics Institute, October 21-24, 2018, in Las Vegas, with top industry experts and professionals from around the world.

At this four-day networking and educational event, participants will gain information they need to effectively manage their compliance programs and mitigate risk, the SCCE says on its website.

At the Compliance & Ethics Institute, participants will:

• Network with over 1,800 professionals from all industries and 40 countries.
• Choose from 10 learning tracks, 100+ sessions, and over 150 speakers.
• Get up-to-date on issues relevant to your current challenges, including global antitrust compliance, cyber security, anti-corruption, and harassment and discrimination prevention.
• Leave with practical solutions you can immediately put into practice at your organization.

This conference is for compliance and risk professionals and those who work with them in an advisory or partnership capacity. Positions include: in-house and outside counsel, audit managers and officers, consultants, corporate executives, human resource managers, privacy officers, researchers and policy makers, risk managers, staff educator and trainers, and more.

Get more information.

A company’s human resources department has only one criterion for a candidate for an in-house position, but “fit” isn’t the real issue, suggests an Above the Law columnist identified as “a harried in-house counsel at a well-known company that everyone loves to hate.”

Using the pseudonym of “Kay Thrace,” the author recalls her days in Biglaw, when the firm HR team carefully culled thousands of résumés of the ivy elite and organized perfectly balanced recruiting lunches.

“[I]n Biglaw, every single one of us knew that we were only as good as last year’s talent pool, so we had to strive to get the best and brightest. In-house? Not so much.”

It’s different in the business world, however, because “apart from a few basic qualifications (do you have a law degree, are you in good standing, have you killed someone in this state in the last five years, etc.), HR has nothing else to hang their hats on other than fit.”

Forget fit, she writes: “Do you know when you’re being patently misled by the business and are you gracious about rectifying the situation and guiding it to a satisfactory, risk-mitigating conclusion? Yes? You’re freaking hired.”

Read the Above the Law article.

Shearman & Sterling will host the inaugural conference for leading women general counsel and chief legal officers on June 14 in the firm’s New York office.

The full-day event will include high-profile speakers from media, industry, government and non-profits, interactive presentations, and the chance to connect with colleagues who are leading and changing the legal landscape. Attendees will take away, among other things, a timely analysis of critical corporate governance and global mergers and acquisitions developments impacting public and private companies, the firm said in a release.

David Beveridge, Shearman & Sterling Senior Partner, and Donna Parisi, partner and Global Head of Finance, will deliver the opening remarks to this exclusive event.

Read details about the roundtable.

A former aide to embattled EPA director Scott Pruitt who has come under scrutiny for getting a significant pay bump has been hired to a position with the Oklahoma Workers’ Compensation Commission, reports KFOR-TV.

The commission voted unanimously to hire Sarah Greenwalt as the agency’s new general counsel.

“Greenwalt made headlines after she received a 52 percent raise, bringing her salary to $164,200 while at the Environmental Protection Agency before Pruitt reversed it amid public outcry,” according to the report.

Read the KFOR article.

Exterro has published “The State of E-Discovery 2018,” the results of a survey of industry trends, practices and challenges. The publication is available for downloading at no charge.

Pulling from the most recent research into the economics, in-house legal departments, the judiciary, and more, this State of E-Discovery 2018 report provides a holistic overview of where e-discovery is, as an industry, today.

Download this complimentary report and learn:

• How trends in e-discovery are affecting in-house legal departments and law firms
• How technology is affecting the way professionals practice e-discovery
• Which challenges in-house legal departments and law firms need to address to continue growing

Download the survey results.

Laura Stevens has been promoted to executive vice president and general counsel of Cengage, an education and technology company.

She joined Cengage in 2003, and worked on efforts to ready the business for the transition to digital. Based in the Boston headquarters, Stevens will serve on the executive team and will lead the legal function in support of the company’s strategy, Cengage said in a release.

“Among the many impressive highlights of Laura’s career here at Cengage are her forward-thinking efforts to realign our Intellectual Property licensing function to enable the Cengage Unlimited model, the industry’s first-of-its kind subscription service,” said Michael Hansen, CEO, Cengage. “Laura has been a powerhouse on our Legal team over the years, and I welcome the addition of her voice on the Executive Team as we continue to break with tradition to increase access to education.”

In her previous role as senior vice president and deputy general counsel, Stevens designed and recruited a 50+ person legal team to reflect a rapid print-to-digital transformation. In addition, she established the Cengage Privacy Office, creating industry-leading standards for responsible data stewardship. The company said Stevens continues to drive legal efforts around industry-wide implementation of anti-piracy bestpPractices with partners, which have resulted in a double-digit decrease in counterfeit texts among some of the company’s largest distributors.

Over the past 15 years, Stevens served a number of roles within the Cengage (and formerly Thomson Learning) legal team, including assistant general counsel, intellectual property, and publishing counsel. Prior to Cengage, she was an attorney at Brown Raysman LLP in New York City.

Stevens holds a B.A. in Political Science and Art History from the University of Rochester and a J.D. from Columbia Law School.

The 2018 annual meeting of the Association of Corporate Counsel will be Oct. 21-24 in Austin, Texas.

Participants at this year’s event may select from 110 CLE/CPD programs.

The complete schedule is posted online.

Some of the topics are:

Compliance & Ethics
Corporate & Securities
Employment & Labor
Energy
Environmental & Sustainability
Financial Services
Health Law
Information Governance
Insurance Staff Counsel
Intellectual Property
International Legal Affairs
IT, Privacy & eCommerce
Law Department Management
Litigation
New to In-house
Nonprofit Organizations
Real Estate
Small Law Department
Sports & Entertainment

Jason Dorsey, Co-Founder & President, Center for Generational Kinetics will be the keynote speaker on Monday, Oct. 22.

Get more information.

The 4th annual Bloomberg Law In-House Forum will Explore the steps that general counsel need to take to mitigate the internal cybersecurity threat.

The event will be Wednesday, June 27, 2018, at the Grand Hyatt San Francisco, 345 Stockton Street, San Francisco 94108.

Specifically, the event will dissect one of the most pressing issues affecting the modern corporate workplace: cybersecurity threats from its own employees. Participants will learn how general counsel can effectively partner with other teams at the organization to guard against this growing risk.

Speakers will guide the discussion, outlining how corporate counsel can build relationships between IT and Human Resources in order to act in a leadership role, crafting an effective risk avoidance plan that includes auditing, training, and both preemptive and post-breach initiatives.

Register for the event.

Just 16 months after joining the $22.5 billion payments company Square as general counsel, Hillary Smith stepped down from the role, reports Business Insider.

Smith joined Square in 2016 with an $8 million compensation package. She’ll stay on as an employee at the company through September to manage the transition, according to reporter Becky Peterson.

“It’s unclear why Smith is stepping down. She did not respond to a request for comment and Square would not provide details about the change in its top legal post, which will be occupied by Sivan Whiteley,” Peterson writes.

Read the Business Insider article.

The Association of Corporate Counsel will hold the 4th annual ACC Legal Operations conference in Chicago on June 11-13, 2018, at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place.

On its website, the ACC says the conference offers members a unique opportunity to learn about the latest trends and advancements in a peer-rich environment, while also collaborating to address shared issues and opportunities.

The program will feature:

• Sessions on AI, blockchain, and so much more
• Multiple workshops and expert-led roundtables
• Benchmarking metrics
• Takeaway tools you can use right away
• A workshop with an organizational development expert on “Leading Yourself and Others (Including Your GC.) Through Change”

Register or get more information.

The Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis announced Wednesday that a top lawyer who co-signed a $1.2 million contract to hire President Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen will step down in June, reports The Washington Post.

Reporter Carolyn Y. Johnson writes that Felix R. Ehrat, group general counsel of Novartis, is retiring “in the context of discussions surrounding Novartis’ former agreement with Essential Consultants, owned by Michael Cohen,” the company said.

Joseph Jimenez, former Novartis chief executive, initiated the contract and co-signed it with Ehrat. Jimenez stepped down as chief executive in late January.

The announcement comes days after AT&T chief executive Randall Stephenson said the top official in the company’s Washington office was leaving over a consulting deal with Cohen.

Read the Post article.

Bloomberg is reporting that the Justice Department is considering whether to accuse Rabobank NA’s ex-Chief Executive Officer John Ryan, former general counsel Dan Weiss and its past compliance chief of obstructing U.S. bank examiners’ efforts to dig into the firm’s failures to prevent money laundering.

Reporters Jesse Hamilton and Tom Schoenberg based their report on information from two people with knowledge of the probe who asked not to be named because the investigation is ongoing.

“The potential charges could close a dark chapter for Rabobank Groep, a Netherlands banking titan with $723 billion of assets,” they write. “Thousands of miles away from its Dutch headquarters, California bank branches near the Mexican border became a pipeline for the profits of organized crime starting in 2009, according to the Justice Department. In February, the U.S. unit admitted guilt to felony conspiracy allegations and agreed to pay $369 million, including a $50 million OCC fine.”

Read the Bloomberg article.

Companies must shift from focusing on rules and consequences to emphasizing culture and values, according to Carolyn Frantz, Microsoft’s deputy general counsel and corporate secretary, in an article published by the National Association of Corporate Directors.

The article is available for downloading from the NACD website.

n this interview from the Strategic Asset General Counsel forum, an annual day-long event hosted by The National Association of Corporate Directors, Frantz answers these questions:

• Who presents compliance-related information to the board?
• Do you need an outsider CEO to change a company’s culture?
• What does tone-in-the middle training look like?
• What shapes culture at the bottom?
• How do you address differences in moral values as a global company?

Download the article.

A new study from BarkerGilmore confirms that female lawyers are still paid less compared to their male counterparts — and the disparity is greater for GCs.

The Global Legal Post reports on the study: “On average, female in-house counsel earn 84 per cent of what male in-house counsel earn. The gap is much larger at the general counsel level, with a 78 per cent disparity, than at managing counsel or senior counsel levels, which show 90 per cent and 89 per cent disparities respectively.”

Above the Law takes a look at overall compensation for general counsel of both genders: “As one might expect, general counsel have the largest variation — with total compensation ranging from $350K to around $900K based on company revenue. Managing counsel, those with at least one direct report who aren’t the GC, are much more consistent across companies, with comp averaging from just under $300K to around $350K.”

Read the Legal Post article.

Zapproved and Hobson & Company recently partnered to research the average return on investment (ROI) that businesses gained by implementing Digital Discovery Pro for in-house ediscovery. A report on the research is available for downloading at no charge.

Zapproved reports that its research shows a 4X return on investment with an automated, cloud-based software solution.

“Companies in this study reported that for many of their investigations and legal matters, in-house ediscovery is more cost-effective than outsourcing,”  Zapproved reports. “Our experience with clients backs that up: for organizations that are ready, automating data processing and review in house is well worth the investment. But how quickly does that investment pay for itself?”

Download the report.

Select Counsel will present its latest In House Focus CLE program, What GCs Need to Know About Vendor, Customer and Competitor Bankruptcies, on Wednesday, May 9, 2018,  at 9 a.m. PT / 12 ET.

The event is accredited for CLE in most states and is free for in-house counsel.

Ted Storey, former general counsel of Round Table Pizza, will join Tobias Keller and Jane Kim, partners in Keller & Benvenutti LLP, to discuss a range of issues commonly presented to healthy companies when vendors, customers or competitors file bankruptcy cases. These issues include engaging in competitive behaviors, recovering claims and evaluating ongoing credit exposure, and protecting against common motions and actions taken in bankruptcy.

Here are some of the questions that will be answered during the course of the program:

1. In what ways can a competitor’s bankruptcy filing be used to your advantage?

2. What will happen to the IP you’ve licensed when the licensor files for chapter 11?

3. What are the pros and cons to buying assets in bankruptcy?

4. How can you get paid when your customer or licensee files for bankruptcy?

Register for the webinar.

Exterro has published its 2nd Annual Study of Effective Legal Spend Management and made it available for downloading at no charge.

The report discusses how legal departments are allocating spend over the past year and what techniques are most effective in reducing legal spend.

It includes:

• 22 Page comprehensive report to benchmark your legal spend against other leading legal departments
• Analysis of the top techniques to reduce legal spend (22 techniques ranked)
• Expert insight with report key takeaways

Download the report.

NAVEX Global has published the 2018 Ethics & Compliance Hotline & Incident Management Benchmark Report. The report is available for downloading at no charge.

The newly released report shows the number of employee complaints and misconduct reports are rising — and a surprising 44 percent of all reports are substantiated.

However, cases are taking longer than ever to close, NAVEX points out in the report. “When cases take too long to resolve, employees feel unheard and are more likely to report outside your organization, where you miss the opportunity to mitigate risk with an appropriate response. Download the report to compare your compliance program against industry standards and get best practices from the experts to help you encourage internal reporting.”

Download the report.

Merck & Co.’s loss of a $200 million jury verdict for patent infringement shows that companies with internal prosecution staff need to observe strict rules for external communications, according to Bloomberg Law.

“The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a district court’s judgment that Merck could not collect the award because of its ‘unclean hands’ in procuring the two patents asserted against Gilead Sciences Inc.,” writes Tony Dutra. “Under the unclean-hands doctrine, the lower court was reasonable in wiping out the entire amount because Merck’s patent attorney’s misconduct in 2004 directly affected its litigation position in 2013, the appeals court said.”

A Merck in-house lawyer listened in on a 2004 phone call during which another company divulged information on a compound being developed. The lawyer — despite being under a nondisclosure agreement — subsequently changed a Merck patent application that was in the works, narrowing the applied-for patent claims to cover what the other company disclosed, Dutra explains.

Read the Bloomberg article.

Microsoft has named a new general counsel, reviving a position that was left vacant about two years ago when the former GC left to join music streaming company Spotify in 2016, reports The Seattle Times.

The new GC will be Dev Stahlkopf, most recently the deputy general counsel in the company’s HR legal team. She will report to Microsoft President Brad Smith, who also serves as chief legal officer. Smith’s responsibilities are not changing, the company said.

Reporter Rachel Lerman writes that Stahlkopf will focus on aligning the company’s legal teams and implementing new projects, the company said. The legal teams in Redmond will report to her.

Read the Seattle Times article.