REUTERS | Ognen Teofilovski
November 12, 2018

Playbooks help lawyers mean business

Although contracts document a consensual commercial relationship between two parties working together to achieve common or overlapping business goals, they are also enforceable legal instruments that can have potentially devastating effects on businesses due to the imposition of liability.

The legal and business personnel involved in the negotiation need to deal with this contradiction, and find a balance between achieving commercial objectives and safeguarding against legal risk. For repetitive contracts, an intelligent use of playbooks can help address some of the pain points in this process.

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REUTERS | Vasily Fedosenko
November 7, 2018

IBE Ethics at Work Survey 2018: a tool for the savvy ethics or compliance officer

The Institute of Business Ethics (IBE) Ethics at Work Survey 2018 report identifies a number of key findings from the UK relating broadly to culture, behaviour, speaking up and ethics programmes. The UK findings are compared in the report with the European responses from Ethics at Work: 2018 survey of employees – Europe.

For those with a compliance or ethics role in an organisation, the findings are an interesting, and at times surprising, read and are a useful tool in the testing and benchmarking of corporate culture and ethics and compliance programmes.

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REUTERS | David Mdzinarishvili
November 5, 2018

Maturing the GDPR model: key takeaways from the Data, Privacy and Cyber-Resilience Forum

I attended Thomson Reuters’ annual Data, Privacy and Cyber-Resilience Forum last week. This year’s event marked a real contrast to the 2017 edition which was focused on getting ready for the 25 May implementation deadline for the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

With us now approaching six months since the GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018 came into effect, the sense was the world had moved on quickly. Recurring themes throughout the day were “maturing the model” and “privacy as the new normal”. Inevitably, Brexit reared its head too. Continue reading →

REUTERS | Global Creative Services (no copyright)
November 1, 2018

Legal Geek 2018: key takeaways for in-house lawyers

Legal Geek 2018 attracted more than 2,000 people from over 40 countries and this year the event included a second stage aimed at the in-house market. It hosted some thought-provoking speakers and lively panel discussions, and one of the overarching themes was how customer behaviour is driving change and making digital transformation necessary for every organisation, whatever their industry sector. Here are my other key takeaways.

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REUTERS | Jon Nazca
October 31, 2018

Recent ICO enforcement action and our geopolitical times

In the past weeks and months, we have seen some high profile enforcement activity by the ICO central to geopolitical events of the past, present and future.

The regulator has brought some fruition to its investigation work into data breaches connected with the 2016 EU referendum, issuing a £500,000 fine to Facebook, following on from the ICO’s enforcement action back in July in the closely connected case of AggregateIQ.

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REUTERS |
October 12, 2018

Papering over the cracks: preparing for Brexit’s impacts on data protection

For many in-house counsel 2018 will be a story of preparing for two seismic events. After much fanfare and the odd headache for lawyers, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA 2018) came into effect on 25 May. Focus is likely to have since shifted towards getting ready for something rather more nebulous and potentially more migraine-inducing: Brexit.

The tectonic plates of data protection and Brexit will soon collide and it may be time to dust off some of the old notes to help preparing. Some of the work lawyers will need to do and direct will have echoes of the exercises many will have carried out in the relatively recent past. Continue reading →

REUTERS | Carlos Barria
October 11, 2018

Who needs a playbook anyway?

The word “playbook” is a relatively recent addition to the contract drafting lawyers’ lexicon. It stands twitching nervously in the crowded room, wondering if it belongs, gazing reverently at established members like “representations” and “liability” or long-standing, if exotic, old-timers like “mutatis mutandis”. Relative newbies like “process” and “technology” are asserting themselves but “playbooks” are tolerated by some, despised by others, misunderstood by most, and embraced by only a few. The presumption seems to be that real lawyers don’t need playbooks. However, there are good reasons why these attitudes should change as, although playbooks aren’t necessary for every lawyer reviewing contracts, they certainly deserve their place in the rapidly changing legal world.

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REUTERS | Dominic Ebenbichler
October 10, 2018

The wellbeing of future lawyers

Today is World Mental Health Day, which this year focuses on young people, giving us an opportunity to look at how young people fare in the legal profession.

At LawCare we believe you start “thinking like a lawyer” on the first day of your legal studies. Law is by nature competitive and adversarial, and the heavy workload begins when studying or training to be a lawyer. There are high levels of negative emotions within law: the work is often about winning or losing and requires legal professionals to be critical, judgmental, combative and aggressive. You are required to think pessimistically, looking for potential problems and worse-case scenarios. In addition, many law students and lawyers are perfectionists who fear failure and making mistakes. All of this can significantly affect mental health and wellbeing.

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