REUTERS | Kevin Lamarque
December 11, 2017

New legal sourcing toolkit and panel review case studies

Business units in all organisations with a calendar year end are likely looking at the business plans and their allocated budgets for 2018 and wondering how they are going to deliver more with less next year. In-house legal teams are no different and this is a good moment for legal leaders to take stock of what the business will need and how to deliver it. Many organisations time the appraisal process to fall at this time of year too, meaning that leaders are well placed to consider both their internal headcount and skills profile, as well as what services need to be outsourced. Continue reading →

REUTERS | Amit Dave
December 8, 2017

What has AI ever done for us?

At the moment, legal AI is at the “frothy” part of the hype cycle. It’s a bit like the scene What did the Romans ever do for us? in the film the Life of Brian, but in reverse. The scene’s premise is that the Romans did little, but of course they did a lot. Legal AI promises a lot but at the moment has delivered little. This isn’t surprising as we’re just at the start of the machine learning era. Somewhat frustratingly, while a decade from now it will be obvious in hindsight that the world beater was going to be “X”, right now we don’t know what that “X” will be.

Continue reading →

REUTERS | Esam Al-Fetori
December 6, 2017

GDPR compliance and Practical Law’s new data processing clauses

The GDPR broadens and deepens the rules between data controllers and data processors for processing of personal data and for the first time, directly enforceable obligations are imposed on processors as well as controllers.

The GDPR also requires that controllers and processors enter into written contracts (“C2P Clauses”). Practical Law recently published its data processing clauses (GDPR version), designed by the writer and colleagues, to assist with this requirement. This blog post seeks to provide background to the many considerations behind the development of these clauses which will help the user understand their crucial compliance role. Continue reading →

REUTERS | Stephen Hird
December 4, 2017

Brexit: November round-up

Two key Brexit-related Bills were introduced into Parliament in November: the Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill 2017-19 and the Trade Bill 2017-2019. David Davis also announced that a Withdrawal Agreement and Implementation Bill (which will implement into UK law the major policies in any withdrawal agreement agreed between the UK and the EU) will be brought forward once the UK has reached an agreement with the EU.

Continue reading →

REUTERS | Kai Pfaffenbach
December 4, 2017

Six months to go: new GDPR content to highlight

Just over a week ago we crossed into the final half-year before GDPR implementation day, 25 May 2018. At Practical Law, we’re continuing to update existing resources and publish new ones to support in-house teams grappling with the GDPR compliance challenge. In recent weeks, with support from our contributors, we have published a number of resources intended to help with those efforts: Continue reading →

REUTERS | Molly Riley
November 29, 2017

Ask Bruce: answers on personal development for in-house lawyers

In the first of a monthly series, Bruce Macmillan, Founder Director of The Centre for Legal Leadership, answers questions on the personal development of in-house lawyers.

What guidance would you give a junior in-house lawyer who is currently working within a large legal team at a multinational company but is now looking to move to another role in a different industry?

Continue reading →

REUTERS | Carlos Barria
November 27, 2017

GDPR is changing the game: the results of Practical Law’s in-house compliance survey

Practical Law has published a report on the results of a survey of some 248 professionals, drawn from in-house legal, risk and compliance, HR and company secretarial functions. The survey sought to find out how informed businesses are about the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), how they expect it to impact them, how confident they are about achieving compliance by GDPR implementation day, 25 May 2018, and how they plan to achieve compliance. Continue reading →

REUTERS | Fred Thornhill
November 24, 2017

What’s on the agenda for in-house lawyers in December 2017?

Key items on the agenda for businesses this month include responding to the FRC’s review of the UK Corporate Governance Code, maintaining a focus on improving gender diversity at leadership level and continuing to prepare for the GDPR.

Continue reading →

REUTERS | Maxim Shemetov
November 24, 2017

MARQUES calls for urgent clarity on intellectual property rights post-Brexit

The European brand owners association, MARQUES, has issued a position paper setting out its proposals for the future of IP rights after withdrawal of the UK from the EU, slamming the UK government’s lack of engagement with this “very technical area of law”, which it says is causing grave damage to European business interests.

Continue reading →

REUTERS |
November 23, 2017

OECD publishes Anti-Bribery Convention enforcement data for 2016

On 14 November 2017, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published its 2016 data on the enforcement of the Anti-Bribery Convention. Those involved with or responsible for their business’ anti-bribery programme may find this information useful in both updating 2018 anti-bribery training and re-engaging the focus in this area at executive and board level.

Continue reading →