REUTERS | Goslings walk with a goose in St James’s Park in London, Britain, April 30, 2021. REUTERS/John Sibley - RC2D6N9RU48U
May 26, 2022

An upside-down legal panel for technology companies

The 50 portfolio companies in the FTSE 100 Halma group operate in highly regulated niches across the medical, safety and environmental sectors. Their cutting-edge technologies save lives and solve some of the key problems we face in the world.

Halma’s growth strategy depends on the companies’ ability to develop new technologies and offers for their customers, and to explore solutions with the potential to disrupt their existing business models. Our founder-led companies are in turn reliant on legal advisors who understand their technology, tailor their guidance to their size and deliver fast support that allows them to achieve their growth ambitions.

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REUTERS | Northern Spire Bridge lit up in yellow light, as part of a day of reflection to mark the anniversary of Britain's first coronavirus disease (COVID-19) lockdown, in Sunderland, Britain March 23, 2021. REUTERS/Lee Smith - RC27HM9IQ77H
May 18, 2022

Webinar: Recent Russia Sanctions and Related Considerations

On 27 April 2022, Practical Law presented a webinar, Recent Russia Sanctions and Related Considerations: How Practical Law Supports In-House Counsel. The panelists provided a summary of the key economic and trade sanctions and export controls imposed on Russia and Belarus by the US and the UK in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resulting crisis. It also included a demonstration of the Russia Sanctions and Related Considerations Toolkit and how this toolkit can help in-house counsel guide their clients through the business interruptions caused by the war in Ukraine.

You can download the recorded webinar here. (Please note that the recording may take a few minutes to download.)

Click here to download the webinar slides.

REUTERS | A hummingbird rests on a tree branch as it looks out over some 50 acres of giant tecolote ranunculus flowers at the Flower Fields in Carlsbad, California March 10, 2010. The flowers attract thousands of visitors each year during their six to eight week bloom period. REUTERS/Mike Blake (UNITED STATES - Tags: ENVIRONMENT ANIMALS SOCIETY IMAGES OF THE DAY)
May 17, 2022

Smarter Working Week: how to make efficiency gains

I recently moderated a discussion as part of The Lawyer’s Smarter Working Week that focused on how lawyers can improve their existing processes to help them work more efficiently.

The group were driven by a desire to prove their legal teams as proactive value creators and use technology to provide metrics that demonstrate their value to key business stakeholders. For some, the difficulty is not the technology implementation itself, but the change process, getting the team on-side and making the shift to new processes.

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REUTERS | Wind turbines produce renewable energy outside Caledon, South Africa, May 20, 2020. Picture taken May 20, 2020. REUTERS/Mike Hutchings - RC272H96YWGL
May 12, 2022

Episode 10 of The Construction Briefing podcast

Episode 10 of The Construction Briefing podcast is now available.

The Building Safety Bill received Royal Assent and is now known as the Building Safety Act 2022. We discuss when we expect its provisions to come into force (starts at 1:12). We also look at two adjudication enforcement judgments: Bexheat Ltd v Essex Services Group Ltd [2022] EWHC 936 (TCC) (starts at 24:40) and Van Oord UK Ltd v Dragados UK Ltd [2022] CSOH 30 (starts at 37.25).

REUTERS | Bees are seen on the frame of a hive in a village of Ripanj near Belgrade, Serbia, April 9, 2019. Picture taken April 9, 2019. REUTERS/Marko Djurica - RC1799744470
May 10, 2022

Legal Leaders Programme: Strategies for progressing your legal career

Please join us on 18 May 2022 (2.00pm – 3.15pm) for a webinar hosted by The Centre for Legal Leadership (CLL) on strategies for progressing your legal career.

We all have ambitions regarding the type of work we do, the organisations we work for and the roles we would like to take on. In this session, we consider how you can give yourself the best chance of achieving those ambitions by focusing on areas such as skills and behaviours, knowledge, career planning, career transitions, networks, mentors, resilience and balance. We will also explore management and leadership.

The discussion will be led by our speakers, Justine Campbell (Group GC and Company Secretary, National Grid) and Nisha Arora (Director of Consumer and Retail Policy, FCA).

REUTERS | People jump into the sea on a hot summer day in Fiesa, Slovenia June 6, 2015. REUTERS/Srdjan Zivulovic - RTX1FE7P
May 6, 2022

Legal Leaders Reuters webinar: General Counsel Leadership and Strategy

New sanctions, economic uncertainty and Brexit have given rise to a volatile regulatory and legal landscape across Europe. GCs must guide their organisations through an array of complex business and legal challenges while maintaining a highly effective and efficient legal department.

The Reuters webinar, General Counsel Leadership & Strategy – focus on Europe (19 May 2022, 11:00 EST / 16:00 BST / 17:00 CET), gathers three European GCs from different industries to give their insights on operating as a successful and trusted strategic business adviser in disrupted times.

Register now to listen live or receive the recording.

Key discussion points

  • Adding value through proper collaboration with other business stakeholders.
  • Getting your crisis and risk management strategies right to do more with less.
  • Fine tuning and asserting your critical role in your businesses’ post-pandemic strategy.

Speakers

  • Richard J. B. Price, Group General Counsel and Company Secretary, Anglo American.
  • Céline HAYE-KIOUSIS, Group General Counsel, Groupe BPCE.
  • Roel Staes, Senior Vice President Legal, General Counsel Europe, FedEx Express.
  • Moderator: Rebekah Mintzer, Legal News Editor, Reuters.
REUTERS | Surfers watch the sun set after surfing along the coast of Kiritimati Island, part of the Pacific Island nation of Kiribati, April 5, 2016. To match Feature PACIFIC-JUSTICE/ REUTERS/Lincoln Feast - RTX2BSQ0
May 5, 2022

Wellbeing Week in Law: shifting the dial on mental health

This week is Wellbeing Week in Law. Its aim is to:

“raise awareness about mental health and encourage action and innovation across the legal profession to improve wellbeing.”

Over the past few years, industry studies have painted a forbidding picture of the state of mental health and wellbeing in the legal profession. It is an occupation characterised in many ways by deeply embedded cultural norms and stress, burnout, and poor mental health sadly remain all too common. This is before factoring in the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Continue reading →

REUTERS | Pedestrian cross the new diagonal crossing at Oxford Circus in London November 2, 2009. The design of the new £5 million ($8.2 million) pound crossing was inspired by the Shibuya crossing in Tokyo and allows pedestrians to cross diagonally. REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth (BRITAIN TRANSPORT CITYSCAPE SOCIETY IMAGES OF THE DAY)
May 3, 2022

The Hearing podcast: ep.95, Julie Jaggin (Howard Kennedy)

Episode 95 of the Hearing is now available.

Here at Hearing HQ, we love to hear the real life stories of the people who make up the legal industry. And it’s been a pleasure to speak to Julie Jaggin, from Howard Kennedy, about her career and experiences as a lawyer with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), which wasn’t diagnosed until she was 41.

Julie and Yasmin talk about the power of labels and the myriad of positives that differently wired brains can bring to a firm. They also discuss the negatives – how a lack of understanding can really damage people’s self-perception, as well as their careers.

Julie outlines how she has navigated her career to date. And she shares practical ways that neurotypical lawyers can be allies and champions for their neurodiverse colleagues.

REUTERS | The sun shines in a field as Belgium is undergoing it's dryest April-May period since the end of the 19th century, according to local media, in Diksmuide, Belgium May 28, 2020. REUTERS/Yves Herman
April 25, 2022

What’s on the agenda for in-house lawyers in May 2022?

This month in-house lawyers should keep an eye on developments in corporate reporting, changes to the UK Immigration Rules, guidance on reducing the spread of respiratory infections (including COVID-19) in the workplace, and consultations on improving mental health and wellbeing.

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REUTERS | Global Creative Services (no copyright)
April 13, 2022

Modernising and future-proofing Anglo American’s matter management processes

SYKE is a global legal technology and operations consultancy that helps in-house legal teams choose, buy and implement legal technology. We work alongside our technology partners, such as Thomson Reuters, to offer our shared client’s implementation, integration and migration services.

Anglo American is a global organisation operating across many time zones, business units and jurisdictions. The Global Group Legal team was keen to move beyond simply managing risk and start delivering greater value to the business by becoming a genuinely strategic partner. They wanted a single view of matters and trends across all the jurisdictions that they operate in so that the legal team could proactively manage and address issues.

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