CCBJ 2022 Summer Edition

Corporate

Make Your Time Count

DAVID MORENO DISCUSSES HOW CULTIVATING RELATIONSHIPS WILL BEAR “ABUNDANT FRUIT”.

INSIDE

Make Your Time Count

Catch-22: KPMG and the In-House Challenges

Mastering Interpersonal Communication Is One of the Keys to Success

The Path to Success is Not Always a Straight Line

An Independence Day Celebration of Contract Lifecycle Management

LAW BUSINESS MEDIA

Kristin Calve

EDITOR & PUBLISHER

Austin Waters GRAPHIC DESIGNER/PRODUCTION MANAGER

Neil Signore

SVP & MANAGING DIRECTOR OF EVENTS

Amy Lemel

MANAGING DIRECTOR OF CLIENT SUCCESS

Jennifer Coniglio

VP FOR EVENTS & SPECIAL PROJECTS

Matthew Tortora

SENIOR DATABASE MANAGER

Pat Hanelt

OFFICE ADMINISTRATOR

In This Issue

AT THE TABLE 2

Make Your Time Count Kristin Calve

FRONT

7

30 Microsoft 365 as a Knowledge Management System for Legal Executives

Keith Vallely

32 Data Science Center Tames Big Data Projects

Greg Negus

Contract Lifecycle Management 37

PULSE 13

13 Mastering Interpersonal Communication Is One of the Keys to Success

Neil Belloff

17 Four Ways to Respond to Today’s Supply Chain Disruptions

Tiffany Presley

20 Reading and Writing the Neurodiversity Playbook

Anthony Pacilio

IDEAS

25 The Path to Success is Not Always a Straight Line

Elizabeth Columbo

25

37 An Independence Day Celebration of Contract Lifecycle Management

Dave Parks

39 Top Tips for a Successful Contract Lifecycle Management Roll Out

Dave Parks

41 Leading Law Departments: Contracts, Contracts, Contracts

Joe Calve

42 Contract Management 3.0

Mark Nastasi

POSTMASTER: Please send address changes to Corporate Counsel Business Journal, 104 Old Kings Hwy N., Darien, CT 06820; by emailing info@ccbjournal.com; or by calling 844-889-8822.

CORPORATE COUNSEL BUSINESS JOURNAL (ISSN: 1073-3000), 2022 Summer Edition, volume 30, number 3.

Published quarterly by Law Business Media, 104 Old Kings Hwy N, Darien, CT 06820. Subscription price: $110 a year. Periodical postage paid at Darien, CT, and additional mailing offices.

The material in this publication contains general information, is not intended to provide legal advice and should not be relied on to govern action in particular circumstances. The sources of material contained in this publication are responsible for such material, and any views or opinions expressed are solely those of the source.

Kristin Calve At the Table

Make Your Time Count

 David Moreno discusses his experiences thus far with Blank Rome, including what led him to join the firm, as well as how cultivating relationships will bear “abundant fruit”.

CCBJ: David, talk to us about what led you to join Blank Rome.

David Moreno: I’ve been aware of Blank Rome’s industry reputation for years, and I’ve had the good fortune over my legal career to work with various Blank Rome partners in different capacities, either as co-counsel or on the other side of transactions. And it was always the sentiment of those with whom I’ve interacted that the firm is incredibly team-oriented and collegial, and that they have enjoyed their firm’s strong platform. So that was really attractive to me. In changing from Brown Rudnick to Blank Rome, I was really trying to find my long-term BigLaw home. One of the things I was looking for was a commitment to DE&I. Being a partner of color, it’s obviously something I have to think about because organizations that are committed to that will not only make the environment better for me—helping me to really “lift while I climb”—but will also help usher in future generations of diverse attorneys.

I also saw Blank Rome as a great national platform to serve my current clients. Having offices in key markets across the country is particularly beneficial. The firm also offers a wide range of service offerings and established practices that will help me expand upon relationships that that have been warm for years, but that I haven’t yet converted into business relationships as I haven’t historically worked in some of those practice areas. I’m a firm believer in crossselling and getting to know your partners, and one of the biggest attractions for me—and to BigLaw generally, even before I got to Blank Rome—is: Can I provide more value to the folks in my circle and their circle? Obviously the bigger the firm is—the more offerings and practice areas it has at a high level—the easier it makes my job in terms of just trying to add value.

How would you describe your leadership style and what brought you to that?

My leadership style is really, really focused on personal relationships. For me to lead effectively, establishing strong personal relationships is critical. We all have heard Maya Angelou’s quote a billion times: ‘"People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”.’ That’s something that’s been particularly important to me as a leader. If you take time to get to know people on a personal level, they truly appreciate that, and it inspires them to really go to bat for you, to be engaged, to want to work with you. The other

reason I like to get to know folks is it gives me information that can be useful when assigning work or building a team. It helps me put folks in spaces where they, (a) have a competency, but also (b) have an interest. And the stats and studies have shown us that we are more successful when working in fields and on tasks that we personally enjoy and are enthused by.

While a number of people have contributed to helping me craft my leadership style—having competed in sports at a high level in college under the leadership of strong coaches as well as serving as a prosecutor early in my career where great mentors were incredibly useful during high-stakes litigations—when it really comes down to it, it was my grandma who inspired me the most. My grandmother was the foundational piece for my life-long focus on getting to know people, being of service, being kind, treating people the way that one wants to be treated, and establishing meaningful relationships. She was someone who, after she passed, I realized how many different folks, from the janitor at her church to a doctor at the hospital she worked at, were impacted by her love and kindness.

That to me just was a great sort of full-circle testament to how she lived her life and who I strive to be. And I think it’s been helpful to my practice as well. I’ve been able to establish a role as a trusted advisor to so many organizations and individuals. And I feel a lot of that has stemmed from building these meaningful relationships and knowing what inspires people, what drives them, and what’s important to them. That’s been critical to my career.

First and foremost, you need someone who is competent in the role that you’re hiring them for. But people can differentiate themselves by having great skills in terms of (a) being a part of a team and (b) being able to work towards the big picture, even if their involvement is limited to a singular task. Also important is a low ego. I’ve seen, both in my career and in my personal life, that people who have a low ego (but high confidence) are able to put their own needs aside to help advance the needs of an organization. So competency, low ego/high confidence, an ability to work well with others, and I’ll add one more: a defined value system that they live their life by. It could be two or three core tenets that dictate how they act in certain situations. It’s important for me to dig into what folks’ values are because when confronted with difficult decisions, if their values are in line with my organization or my personal values, if they have a strong moral compass, they’re going to make the right decision when left to their own devices. So those are the things that I would look for when hiring for my team.

I know that you’re fairly new to Blank Rome, but what was the draw and how would you describe the culture?

My understanding of the firm’s positive culture, from the outside, was certainly a draw. And now that I’m here as a partner, my initial impression is even more favorable. It took me almost two days to respond to all of the messages saying not just “welcome to the firm” but “welcome to the firm; my name is X. I do Y. And if you need any help navigating the firm, or just want to chat, I’d love to get to know you.” I’m talking over 200 messages from partners, associates, and staff alike, welcoming me to the firm. Astonishing, really, given the culture of the legal industry and how busy we all are, how folks were sending these messages from airplanes or as they’re walking into court. It was just so meaningful, so touching. It makes you feel so welcome, so important, so valued. That’s a killer first impression.

What career advice would you offer others in the profession, whether they’re attorneys or business professionals?

Speaking of relationships, what qualities do you look for when you’re hiring new people into your team, or working in relationship development?

For me to lead effectively, establishing strong personal relationships is critical.

What I would tell you and everyone, no matter the role— lawyer, doctor, engineer, janitor, etc.—is to be a student of your calendar. We all focus on doing a good job by spending more time, but we don’t spend enough time analyzing how to be efficient with our time. Being a student of your calendar means looking at it daily with an eye towards productivity and accessibility, because the former is often at the expense of the latter, and when you’re not accessible, you’re not top of mind when new opportunities arise because you’re off in a corner or a silo somewhere working on your craft—which is important, but so is accessibility. So look at your calendar daily and critically, and focus on the white spaces and what you can be doing daily to get where you want to go. The other thing I would say—and this is advice that was given to me early in my career and is especially apropos to lawyers—is to be flexible. Don’t

pigeonhole yourself. You can handle a range of different things. Also, and this next piece of advice is probably going to sound counterintuitive because of what I just said, but it’s important to establish one’s credibility and competency in one space and be an expert in your field. That said, as my bio shows, I’ve done a wide range of things as a lawyer in different practice areas and with different sorts of clients in a number of different roles, investigations, trials, serving as a trusted advisor, managing transactions, et cetera. But the reason I was able to do all that is because initially, right after leaving the DA’s office, I set about making a name for myself as an expert trial lawyer in criminal court.

That’s what led to athletes and sports agencies hiring me to handle their litigations. And once that circle saw me as an industry expert in their space, the inquiries became, “Hey, I’ve got this arbitration against my league. Can you help me with that?" And then I was able to establish competency there. I looked at every single situation, one by one by one, as an opportunity to establish my credibility and my competency. Now, even though I do all these different things, if you ask 20 different people, you will get 20 different responses: David’s an expert in trials. David’s an expert in white collar. David’s an expert in criminal affairs. David’s an expert in guiding an athlete through an endorsement deal. Because I took the time to strategically establish my credibility in each one of these spaces.

When I talk to my in-house executives, they want somebody who really knows their regulatory landscape or operational challenges. It’s not enough that you know employment law, you have to know employment law the way it cuts for sports organizations with unions.

What changes would you like to see within the legal industry?

We touched on it a little bit before but I’m going to come back to diversity and equity in this space, especially when we look critically at leadership at the highest levels. As a profession, we still have a ways to go to be more inclusive.

I’ve tried to be an ally and to help as much as possible with regards to attracting and, more importantly, retaining diverse talent. We’ve already seen such a shift, particularly in tech and in other spaces where diversity is really valued. And many clients are choosing law firms that better align with their values. What they’re looking at is a departure from the traditional BigLaw landscape, which historically has been dominated by white males. We now need to make the legal profession one where women and people of color and marginalized communities are elevated to roles of senior responsibility and where their visibility can be inspiring to younger generations. The power of seeing folks in those roles is just so inspiring.

So that’s one change I’d love to see, and it’s something I’m committed to. And if I can help anybody with that— including anybody who’s reading this—I’m happy to talk to them and give them some tools and guidance that I’ve used to navigate a number of different spaces and personal experiences. For example, early on in my career when I was prosecutor, I was routinely mistaken for the defendant or wasn’t let into the building because security didn’t believe this Black man was an actual prosecutor. I developed tough skin and a calloused mind to successfully navigate these situations. And I can use these experiences to hopefully make it better for the next person.

Another change I’d like to see in the profession generally goes to the fact that too many people have to make the tough choice between having a successful personal life and a successful professional life. I’d love to see a shift in time equity—for young lawyers, especially—where their focus on being successful in their career doesn’t come at the expense of building a successful personal life. And I think that reevaluation is already underway as companies look ahead to life after the pandemic, time spent commuting, and those sorts of things.

So those are the two things I think our industry can really benefit from, and they’re issues that a number of different industries are grappling with. 

NETWORK

The participants in the CCBJ Network demonstrate, through their many contributions, their unwavering commitment to the advancement and success of corporate law departments. The engagement and support of these “partners of corporate counsel” assure we continue to develop and distribute the news and information this unique and sophisticated audience relies on to meet the evolving legal and business needs of their organizations.

Strategic Partners

American Arbitration Association

Barnes & Thornburg

Clifford Chance

Contract Logix

McGuireWoods LLP

Mitratech

Thomson Reuters Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP

Opentext

Society of Corporate Compliance & Ethics

Advisors Contributors

CobbleStone Software

DISCO

eSSENTIAL Accessibility

Everlaw

Exterro

iDiscovery

iManage

Lighthouse

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SimpleLegal

Zapproved

Please help us improve and expand our services to corporate counsel by sharing your ideas with our publisher, Kristin Calve, at 844-889-8822 or kcalve@ccbjournal.com

“So, here is the catch,” says Alistair Griffin, KPMG’s head of tech in Australia. “Everyone is telling inhouse legal teams to change (usually via the use of new technology), yet to do that effectively they need to collect data first on how they work, but they don’t have the systems in place to do that, hence it’s a Catch-22 challenge.” Unlike most Catch 22 situations, however, this one has a solution – a highly structured assessment process that allows the Big Four firm to help inhouse legal teams get the “lay of the land” before attempting to fix anything by throwing a CLM, or other tech solution, at the problems (which are not fully understood . . . as there is insufficient information to describe them).”

According to KPMG, they have been working hard with clients to break the cycle. They just may have done it. It’s called the “Legal Function Assessment Suite” (LFAS), which is designed to deliver enough data to help legal teams with user-friendly transformation. “Our hybrid approach combines automated intelligence with human specialists to deliver results smarter, easier, and faster than traditional consulting alone," Griffin explains.

This approach grew out of KPMG’S Legal Operations and Transformation Services (LOTS) group, and it’s interesting that they aren’t keeping their approach just in Australia. So just what does KPMG have up its sleeve? Basically, the LFAS consists of a set of tools that includes:

• Target Operating Model (TOM) Diagnostic – gathering perceptions from across legal and the organization against the pillars of the TOM including people, functional process, service delivery mode, performance data and insights, technology and governance.

• Legal Activity Estimator – to understand how legal spend their day (without relying on timesheets), including where demand is coming from and the most common activities.

• Maturity and Benchmarking Analysis – assess your performance against best practice and uncover findings hidden across the legal team

• Roadmap of Recommendations – insights-backed decisions on what to focus on, how to prioritize initiatives, and the data to build the case for change.

Commenting on the offering, Jason McQuillen, the Head of LOTS, says: “We’re seeing inhouse legal teams really embrace the challenge of changing their ways of working to meet increasing demand. But for many, they are unable to make the business case for the tools they really need or are otherwise going in blind. That’s because they don’t have objective data on the cost and value of their activities.”

The GC as Disruption Risk Guide

In today’s tumultuous times, marked by a global pandemic, economic volatility, social unrest, climate change and more, corporate law departments face relentless disruption requiring incredible organizational resilience. “But organizational resilience,” writes Stephanie Quaranta, VP of Legal & Compliance Research for Gartner, “isn’t just the ability to adapt to change. [I]t’s the ability to resist, absorb, recover and adapt – over and over again.” According to Gartner’s research, such organizations evince three characteristics:

• Responsive risk management

• Dynamic cultures

• Flexible structures

What does that mean for GCs already crushed by day-to-day legal work and business responsibilities? Gartner’s report, “The Future of Legal: Six Shifts GC Must Make by 2025,” does a good job of laying out both the challenges and the opportunities. “Many GC have already evolved from chief lawyer to strategic business partner – and must now evolve again to act as the organization’s disruption risk guide,” which requires six shifts, illustrated below, in their legal operating model.

Why it matters

What work you do

Enabling capabilities

Briefly

AAA® Announces Chief Justice Bridget M. McCormack as New President and CEO

Daniel L. Stein joins Weil as Co-Head of White Collar Practice in New York

Ron Markezich Appointed Chief Executive Officer of Lighthouse

US Tax partner Kevin Colan joins Americas practice at Clifford Chance

Leading Leveraged Finance and Private Equity Partner Andrew Sagor joins Akin Gump in New York

Michael Nutter & Merritt Westcott Bolster Life Sciences Patent Litigation Team at McGuireWoods

DISCO Welcomes New Chief Marketing Officer and Vice President of Product Strategy Tom Furr and Katie DeBord

Mitratech Acquires Talent Management Platform TalentReef

Clifford Chance appoints new Chief Operating Officer Gavin Goodwin

Epiq Announces Leadership Promotions in its Class Action, Mass Tort, and Remediation Services Division

Former White House Senior Advisor Trey Baker Joins Barnes & Thornburg

McGuireWoods Wins Patent Infringement Trial for Belvac Production Machinery

Clifford Chance advises Galileo Technologies Corporation on multijurisdiction senior secured credit facility

eSSENTIAL Accessibility and Level Access Complete Merger

Scott Hulsey Joins Barnes & Thornburg As Litigation Partner In D.C. And Atlanta

US Litigation and Regulatory Partner Vasu Muthyala strengthens Asia Pacific Litigation team at Clifford Chance

Akin Gump Represents Apache Corporation in $505 Million Acquisition of Properties in Texas Delaware Basin

Weil Advises CD&R on its Acquisitions of Atalian and OCS

Intellectual Property Partner Loretta Freeman Joins Barnes & Thornburg In Atlanta

McGuireWoods Advises Vet’s Best Friend Group in Acquisition by Rarebreed Veterinary Partners

OpenText Launches Three New Solutions on Salesforce AppExchange

Clifford Chance advises Informa on US$193 million sale of several business units to Montagu

Barnes & Thornburg

Expands National Complex Litigation And Life Sciences Practices With New Offices In New Jersey And Philadelphia

Accomplished Trial Lawyer Jeremiah Anderson Joins McGuireWoods in Houston

Mitratech Acquires AssureHire, Further Expanding Human Resources Solutions

Weil Advises on $6.3B Debt Restructuring of Nordic Aviation Capital

Required Reading

Too busy to read it all? Try these books, blogs, webcasts, websites and other info resources curated by CCBJ especially for corporate counsel and legal ops professionals.

COLUMN: Big Law Business

Roy Strom’s Big Law Business column in Bloomberg, which looks at the changing legal marketplace, ls always insightful and, sometimes, surprising. This installment is a good example. Strom uses a New York Times Magazine headline as his jumping off point. “Big Law has never been the first career choice for the most altruistic law students,” Strom writes. “But large law firms are facing more robust criticisms than any time in recent memory, and partners should be concerned. A New York Times Magazine headline last week asked, ‘Is It OK to Take a Law-Firm Job Defending Climate Villains?’ Plenty of law students say the answer is no.” To make his case, Strom looks at a recent book, “Servants of the Damned,” which he characterizes as the story of a big law firm "losing its conscience.” “It starts with Jones Day convincing a client in the 1940s to quickly compensate victims of a natural gas explosion and ends with lawyers walking out on their firm for representing the Trump campaign in a 2020 challenge to Pennsylvania’s election rules,” Strom writes. Definitely required reading.

WEBSITE: Artificial Lawyer

Not unlike Strom’s column, Artificial Lawyer, a UK-based website, is about changing the business of law, though much more through the use of technology. “At the heart of this is a focus on the economic aspects of the law and the related areas of efficiency in the production of legal work, and the increased insight into the data that is produced by all legal activity and how that insight in turn adds new value to legal work and helps drive efficiency,” Artificial Lawyer explains. A distinguishing features of AL is good, solid reporting, which translates into regular deep dives into meaty reports and surveys such as Wolters Kluwer’s “Future Ready Lawyer Survey.” “They said it couldn’t be done” Al writes, “but it looks like the ‘Future Ready Lawyer Survey’ by Wolters Kluwer (WK) has shown that successful legal tech implementation makes law firms more profitable, with 63% of ‘technology leading’ firms reporting profitability increases over the past year, compared to only 46% of other firms that have put less emphasis on tech adoption. Hey, if that doesn’t pique your interest, nothing will.

Contributors

Thanks to the law firms, technology companies, alternative legal service providers, management consultants and other supporters of corporate law departments who share their insights and expertise through the CCBJ network. Your participation is appreciated.

Neil Belloff has been General Counsel of Acorda Therapeutics, Inc. since November 2021. In addition, he previously served as a Senior Attorney-Advisor in the Division of Corporation Finance at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington, D.C. Mr. Belloff holds a J.D. from Quinnipiac University School of Law, a M.A. from New York University, a B.A. from Queens College of the City University of New York, and completed postgraduate studies in the LL.M. Program in Securities Regulation at Georgetown University Law Center.

Elizabeth Columbo is the Senior Legal Counsel with Vendavo, Inc., In her role, Elizabeth works cross-functionally with the relevant business teams and stakeholders, providing legal advice on a broad range of topics and guiding the business on legal compliance with a particular focus on drafting, managing, and negotiating client and vendor contracts of moderateto-high complexity from the bid phase through contract execution, including software licensing and SaaS-specific provisions, as well as matters related to contractual liability and risk-shifting provisions, data privacy, intellectual property, and products.

David Moreno focuses his litigation practice on a wide range of areas, including commercial litigation, white collar defense, intellectual property protection, tax, investment disputes, reputation management, and sports and entertainment. David is also a certified contract adviser with the National Basketball Association, National Football League, and the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

Greg Negus has more than thirty years of experience in professional services firm management. At Cornerstone Research, Mr. Negus is responsible for leading the firm’s corporate and administrative functions, including finance, information technology, human resources, talent, and marketing.

He also manages the firm’s facilities and office administration operations. Mr. Negus serves on Cornerstone Research’s executive committee and its pro bono committee, among others.

Anthony Pacilio is an expert in neurodiverse employment and currently serves as the vice president of CAI Neurodiverse Solutions. There, he helps neurodiverse candidates find roles, as well as helps businesses maintain best practices when working with neurodiverse employees. In the past, Anthony has worked in the finance and healthcare industries with similar missions.

Dave Parks manages the company’s overall marketing strategy and initiatives including product marketing, demand gen, digital, content, and public relations. Dave has over two decades of strong product and content experience having served in senior marketing roles with Progress, Ciena, Lucent, and Cascade Communications and as an industry analyst with the Yankee Group. Dave is a passionate marketer who loves creating content that answers people’s questions and delivers his audience value.

Tiffany Presley is a partner in Barnes & Thornburg’s Indianapolis office. Coupled with her approachability and attention to detail, she knows how to steer her supply chain and corporate clients so that their projects and commercial contracts don’t go off the rails. Her goal is to empower and protect her clients by helping them enhance their strengths and find ways to improve on their supply chain weaknesses.

Keith Vallely has started numerous businesses with varying degrees of success, culminating with a multitime award winning Entrepreneur Magazine HOT 100 business in the technology sector. In 2011, Keith joined Epona USA, as the Director of US Sales, and as their first employee in the United States, to open the USA office and begin the process of spreading the power of SharePoint as a DMS platform for the Dutch-based Epona Legal BV.

Partner Devika Kornbacher expands Tech Group in the US at Clifford Chance

Energy and Renewables

Partner Alex Harrison joins Akin Gump in London

Executive Compensation & Benefits Partner Regina L. Readling joins Weil in New York

DISCO Celebrates Opening of New Global Headquarters in Austin, Texas

Trey Rayburn Brings Highly Rated Bankruptcy Practice to McGuireWoods

Leading International Trade Partner Susan Kovarovics Joins Akin Gump

Martín Montes To Lead Government Services Department at Barnes & Thornburg In Chicago

Clifford Chance advises US Department of Energy on financing innovative clean hydrogen production and storage project

Public Finance Lawyer Isaac Yilma Bolsters Public Finance Team at McGuireWoods

Keanen Armour, William Baker, Alexis Daenecke, Alex George, Daniel Habif, Christopher Manos, James Smith, Darius Teo Welcomed to Barnes & Thornburg

Weil Advises Howden on its Acquisition of TigerRisk Partners

Barnes & Thornburg Welcomes John Kelly And Jacquelyn Papish As Partners, A.J. Bolan As Associate In Burgeoning Healthcare Fraud And Compliance Practice

Mastering Interpersonal Communication Is One of the Keys to Success

NEIL BELLOFF ACORDA THERAPUTICS

 Neil Belloff, General Counsel with Acorda Therapics, who has been influenced by Marting Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Rosa Parks and many others, believes in treating every employee like family.

CCBJ: What led you to your current role with Acorda?

Neil Belloff: After being elevated to COO & GC, navigating through a pandemic, battling cancer and completing a successful merger and a $50 million capital raise, it was time for a much needed vacation—and a new challenge.

Tell us about your leadership style. Who or what has influenced it?

My style is to win colleagues over using my interpersonal

communication skills. I fancy myself a raconteur and I have a panoply of stories to tell in a disarming, enlightening and humorous way. I have always been a keen observer of human interactions. Not everyone is motivated in the same way and a good leader knows how to motivate on an individual level and inspire people to be the best they can be.

I have been influenced by Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Sitting Bull, Marquis de Lafayette, Rosa Parks, Jackie Robinson, Neil Armstrong, Eleanor Roosevelt (all of whose autographs I display proudly), among others. In my career, I have been lucky enough to have had mentors who were brilliant, kind and caring and I wanted to emulate their example. It is not surprising that in my law school yearbook under my photo, it says: “If you’ve lived your life and haven’t contributed to mankind, your life has been a waste of time.” That doesn’t mean if you don’t cure cancer, you haven’t made a significant contribution, but that we all have a responsibility

to leave this planet and its inhabitants in a better condition than when we arrived on it. It’s as simple as turning someone’s frown into a smile. Whatever you can do to uplift another human being, even for a brief moment, is all it takes.

What are the key qualities you look for when you’re hiring?

Given that I myself am not a product of a prep-school education, the Ivy League or a big Wall Street law firm, I am always looking for talent in untraditional places. I scrutinize resumes for something that stands out and justifies why I should give this person a shot. I recognize that some applicants have had to try harder and do better to compete with the perception that graduating from Ivy schools or practicing in BigLaw correlates to intelligence, because that’s what I came up against. I also know from experience that it takes more than intelligence to succeed and to be a leader and mentor. It’s also become clear to me that a lawyer needs to have practical business sense.

Last but not least, I’m a big believer in DEIJ (diversity, equity, inclusion and justice). There’s more to achieving equity than just hiring diverse people. It’s just as important to welcome a diversity of opinion, to extend respect and equal pay across gender and ethnic lines, and to provide mentoring and advancement opportunities to those who historically and currently have been denied equal access and equitable outcomes in education, business, the legal system and healthcare.

How would you describe the culture of your organization?

The culture is very family-oriented, meaning every employee is treated like family. Even newcomers like me have been welcomed into the family without reservation or suspicion. There is a trust and sense of collegiality that we all seem to share. It is a very team-oriented approach; a collective sense that we are all in it together and what each of us does matters and impacts the success of the whole enterprise.

A headhunter once asked me what was the most important thing I wanted in a new position—and my response was that my relationship with the CEO and other members of leadership be more akin to a partnership than a monarchical vertical relationship.

Having a seat at the table is one thing; having a voice at the table is something completely different. With the latter comes respect, recognition and value in what a person has to contribute.

Share with our readers any noteworthy career advice you’ve received.

Some of the things I have learned along my long and winding journey include:

• Never burn bridges

• Always move forward, never backward

• Random acts of kindness go a long way and don’t cost very much

• Be sensitive and diplomatic in how you interact with others since you don’t know where they have come from or what they are going through

• It’s not necessary to be nasty or abusive to prove one’s point; bullying has no place in business or social settings – you will always get more flies with honey than with vinegar

When asked for career advice, what words of wisdom do you give to other professionals?

• Perseverance and patience are critical. When I graduated law school, I sent out 1,000 resumes and received 500 rejection letters—on letterhead of some of the best firms in the country—which I still keep in a shoebox in my attic to remind myself of how difficult it was starting out. After the first 20 or 30 rejections, you become numb to the pain and begin to pride yourself on being able to tell

by the envelope that it is a turndown. But never lose hope and persevere and you will turn around some day and look back on a very fruitful career. The difficulties one encounters will soon be in the rearview mirror.

• You have to perform! Even if you have to work twice as hard as everyone else to succeed. And you have to prove your worth every day. Unlike Roger Clemens, one of the most successful power pitchers in history, who once said after a terrible outing that he “just had a bad day,” lawyers are not allowed to have a bad day. Imagine telling your client that he or she is going to prison because you “had a bad day!!” You should always strive to be on top of your game and learn as much as possible and stay abreast of the latest trends and regulatory changes. There are a myriad of resources available – use them!

• Always set your sights high. I asked a prospective hire where he wanted to be in a few years in his career and he responded that he wanted to be a vice president in charge of a small IP department. I said, “No you don’t!” He said, “I don’t?” and I replied, “You want to be general counsel.” When he proceeded to tell me he knew nothing about securities or corporate law, I said I would teach him. Because that is my responsibility—to mentor the next generation of leaders and provide them with the skills and resources they need to fulfill their career potential. When I was a NYC high school teacher, my greatest accomplishment and joy was watching my students achieve great successes. So too in my profession, I revel in my colleagues’ career advancements.

• It’s never too early to network. This should happen from day one—even before law school graduation. Most career opportunities will come about through network contacts, as will most business development opportunities. The younger generation is much more adept at social media and I tell them these tools will be useful in their career journey. Go to networking events and stay in touch with people. You never know who will be there to assist when needed or who will reach out because they remembered you took the time to keep in contact.

• Never lose sight of the human aspect in everything you do. It’s what makes us compassionate and passionate about what we do and why. Don’t be afraid to be human and let others into your personal world. You will find most people have the same fears, desires and similar journeys. We all make mistakes and relaying that to someone else and how we learned from our mistakes just shows that we are human and at the same time accountable for our actions. We shouldn’t not do something because we are afraid of failure. There is a little bit of risk in everything we do.

Neil Belloff has been General Counsel of Acorda Therapeutics, Inc. since November 2021. In addition, he previously served as a Senior Attorney-Advisor in the Division of Corporation Finance at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington, D.C. Mr. Belloff holds a J.D. from Quinnipiac University School of Law, a M.A. from New York University, a B.A. from Queens College of the City University of New York, and completed post-graduate studies in the LL.M. Program in Securities Regulation at Georgetown University Law Center. Reach him at nbelloff@acorda.com

Having a seat at the table is one thing; having a voice at the table is something completely different.

Affect positive change wherever and whenever possible. And every now and then pat yourself on the back for a job well done. (But even if you don’t, know that others will ultimately recognize your accomplishments.)

What changes would you like to see within the legal profession?

While that is a loaded question, I would like to see more mentorship, more diversity (including more mentoring of young lawyers with different backgrounds than one’s own), more sensitivity to others, and more flexibility (now that we are in the COVID era, I believe hybrid work environments are here to stay). It used to be there were 20 people lined up for your job. At least that’s what partners would say, and it was likely true—25 or 30 years ago. But that is no longer the case and the profession needs to embrace the younger generation’s view on work-life balance and take it to heart. While I preached a lot about it in my career, I have never been able to find that balance. I never took a non-working vacation until

last year when I was between jobs; it took me two days to realize I did not have any work to do and to relax on a beach near Charleston.

I also think that law firm partnership structures will need to change and become more egalitarian, meaning that the profitshare needs to be more equitable, including associates. I have seen more firms implode due to ego than debt obligations.

Billing models need to be re-examined, particularly if the overhead expense decreases (due to a hybrid model). Otherwise, the growth of on-demand attorney firms will gain a lot of traction as they can deliver quality services for a fraction of the billable rate of larger firms.

Lastly, I think that the “profession” needs to treat all personnel with respect (from the mail room to admins to paralegals). After all, we are all human beings with the same frailties, hopes, dreams, fears, etc. We are not superior because we went to law school. Like most doctors who go to medical school, most of us went to law school in order to help others – that should be a life-long endeavor. 

Four Ways to Respond to Today’s Supply Chain Disruptions

TIFFANY PRESLEY BARNES & THORNBURG

 Prior to November of 2019, the global supply chain and the role it plays in the international economy was a concept largely unappreciated by most people and certainly was not a daily topic of discussion. Today, however, almost two-and-a-half years into the pandemic, COVID-19 has made the term “supply chain” a part of everyone’s daily vernacular and has dramatically increased companies’ focus on supply chain management.

In addition to COVID-19-related disruptions, supply chains have been further crippled by labor shortages, increased demand, port congestion and blockages, climate change and other factors. Although widespread vaccination efforts have allowed us, in many ways, to return to our prepandemic lives, the havoc that began with the pandemic (and was exacerbated by many other factors) continues to overburden the global supply chain. Companies of all sizes across industries continue to experience varying degrees of disruption to their supply chains and are desperately looking for ways to manage the negative effects.

While it is nearly impossible for companies to completely eliminate all risks from their supply chain, here are four key steps that companies can take to mitigate the negative impact of current disruptions and protect against future ones.

1. Review contract provisions. Companies must continue to examine the contracts they have in place with customers and suppliers to determine their rights, obligations, available remedies and liability exposure. Existing contracts may contain provisions companies can rely on to excuse a failure to perform, to settle disputes, to terminate a contract early, or to limit the company’s liability, such as:

a) Force Majeure. Force majeure clauses, which had previously been regarded as inconsequential boilerplate language, took center stage during the pandemic and will likely remain heavily scrutinized.

These clauses identify circumstances or events beyond the parties’ control, the occurrence of which has rendered the performance of a contract impossible. When those unforeseeable events occur, a force majeure clause may prove useful in permitting a company to suspend, defer or be released, without liability, from the duty to perform its obligations under the contract.

Circumstances and events frequently defined as a force majeure event include war, riots, famine, “acts of God” (e.g., extreme weather events, floods, etc.), strikes, and civil uproar. Post-COVID-19, pandemics, epidemics and/or quarantine will also be frequently defined as force majeure events. The force majeure provision may also provide protection for the customer by either: (i) providing a timeframe after which the customer may purchase the products from another supplier where force majeure events continue beyond the stated timeframe or (ii) permitting the buyer to terminate the agreement early when the force majeure event continues beyond the stated timeframe.

b) Dispute Resolution. Dispute resolution clauses will instruct companies on how supply and other disputes must be resolved. These clauses typically either mandate mediation prior to litigation, allow parties to proceed straight to litigation without mediation or require the parties to submit a dispute to binding arbitration. Companies must understand what steps they must take to address disputes pursuant to the terms of the contract.

c) Termination. A termination clause will generally articulate the circumstances that will permit the company to terminate the contract; the steps that must be taken to terminate the contract; and the company’s rights and obligations that exist upon termination. This clause can be helpful to customers

and suppliers in mitigating supply chain disruptions, as it may permit a party to terminate a contract for convenience, breach, or where the company knows or suspects that it or the other party can no longer meet the contract’s obligations. Depending on the language, the termination clause can provide a means for buyers or sellers of goods to “stop the bleeding,” so to speak, and either explore alternate souring options (the buyer) or stop incurring obligations that cannot be met (the seller).

d) Limitation on Liability. A limitation on liability provision describes applicable limits on a company’s liability for its failures to perform pursuant to the terms of the contract. Liability of limitation clauses typically limit the amount that a party can recover for the other party’s failure to perform under the

agreement and or the type of damages for which a party can recover. These clauses often limit an aggrieved party’s recovery to only direct damages and may significantly reduce a company’s overall liability exposure.

2. Identify sourcing alternatives. In addition to looking to contracts for mitigation opportunities, companies should identify sourcing alternatives. For many years, U.S. companies have sourced some or all of their products from overseas in an effort to minimize costs and maximize shareholder profit by taking advantage of lower labor and manufacturing costs that could be achieved abroad. COVID-19 and the current supply chain crisis, however, have taught us that heavy reliance on foreign manufacturers can be a risky strategy.

During COVID-19, many companies entered into single -sourced relationships with key suppliers.

While struggling to meet customer demand, now more than ever companies must factor in the many risks associated with foreign sourcing, including continuity of supply, quality control, brand protection, shipping delays, hidden and unexpected costs when determining the landed costs (i.e., the cost of getting the product from the supplier to its destination when sourcing products from abroad).

Another sourcing strategy that, while common, may pose significant risks is being reliant on one supplier for critical products. During COVID-19, many companies found themselves in single-sourced relationships with their key suppliers. This “putting all of your eggs in one basket” strategy sometimes makes sense from a commercial perspective because it often gives companies leverage to seek favorable pricing from their suppliers. And sometimes, when products are highly specialized companies may not have many sourcing options. Regardless of the reason for being single-sourced, companies now have been forced to consider the risk of being so. Exploring and expanding sourcing options will be critical to supply chain protection and sustainability for many industries.

3. Aim for visibility. Achieving end-to-end supply chain visibility is another important step that companies will want to take. Supply chain visibility allows companies to track goods’ movement throughout the supply chain and is based on gaining access to as much accurate information regarding the product as quickly as possible. The faster and further a company can increase its visibility throughout its supply chain, the better positioned it will be to seize opportunities and respond to threats. Increased visibility

can also result in improved efficiency and reduced costs.

Increasing supply chain visibility will require implementing processes to gather data regarding inventory, suppliers’ business operations, logistics and other valuable information. Companies often turn to one of several software solutions available to help companies increase their supply chain visibility.

4. Obtain adequate insurance. The last key step that companies will want to take in an effort to protect their supply chains’ operations to obtain sufficient insurance. Insurance policies that may be helpful in supply chain protection include business interruption insurance, contingent business interruption, insurance, and supply chain insurance. When trying to mitigate losses through insurance coverage, companies should consider reviewing:

• The types of losses covered, limited, or excluded in their current insurance policies

• Compliance with notice periods and other policy conditions

• Necessary steps to mitigate losses or damage, which could include acquiring additional insurance coverage.

These four strategies are the building blocks to help companies work through current supply chain disruptions and create a sustainable and resilient supply chain. 

Tiffany Presley is a partner in Barnes & Thornburg’s Indianapolis office. Coupled with her approachability and attention to detail, she knows how to steer her supply chain and corporate clients so that their projects and commercial contracts don’t go off the rails. Her goal is to empower and protect her clients by helping them enhance their strengths and find ways to improve on their supply chain weaknesses. Reach her at Tiffany.Presley@btlaw.com

Reading and Writing the Neurodiversity Playbook

ANTHONY PACILIO CAI

 Anthony Pacilio, Vice President of Neurodiverse Solutions at CAI, talks about Neurodiversity as an emerging area in the DEI space and what drew him to the specialty.

When you first started offering articles and public speeches on the topic, how was the concept received?

Well, it’s different for everyone. In my case, I’ve masked being neurodivergent. I’m a white male in an executive position at this point in my career. But all my life I’ve masked my social anxiety disorder and the depression that comes along with it. We were just talking about my educational training in radio and television. I knew I had challenges and tribulations throughout my life, but it was never put at the forefront until I graduated college and started that first foray into banking. I always tell the story about having a friend, who has since passed away, that had Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). He was an amazing human being, but no one quite got him because he’d play with finger puppets to reduce his anxiety. And that was his “stim pattern,” a self-soothing mechanism.

He was the most talented graphic designer you would ever meet, but no one knew it, right? He would go home—to his parents’ home—and he would go into his room, log on to the computer, and build these amazing pieces of architecture. And I always say: Imagine if we had programs back then like we have now! We have neurodiverse workplaces; huge companies, from a DEI standpoint, making sure that people who have invisible disabilities and physical challenges now have an equal seat at the table.

Now we’re all at the same table. And that was happenstance because the financial institution I worked for needed some QA [quality assurance] folks, and they were looking at different ways to get talent into the organization, and one of those came back using individuals with ASD. And my boss was like, “We should try this out.” And I’m like, “Absolutely, we should try this out.” And it was ridiculously successful!

But what else it does is it changes cultures. It changes the way that I engage with others. I’m comfortable telling people that I have an extreme social anxiety disorder and depression. It makes it so that people understand that they, too, can say that they have X, Y or Z and still feel comfortable that there are organizations and companies that are going to support that, that are building programs to make sure that their neurodivergent employees are successful.

Part of what I do at CAI Neurodiverse Solutions is help make sure that people have the opportunity to have longlasting, meaningful, rewarding careers, not just temporary employment. It’s making sure that they can see the journey, the path of the individual.

While many people may have heard the word “neurodiversity,” a lot of our readers may not really know what it encompasses. Can you just give us a quick definition of the term for those who need it, and tell us what’s been going on around neurodiversity in the last two years?

Absolutely. Neurodiversity itself is just a different way that the brain thinks and can include extraordinary skills relating to memory, pattern recognition, mathematics— among many other skills. Neurodiversity is a big tent, encompassing ASD, ADHD, ADD, social anxiety disorders, mood disorders, PTSD—so best to just think of it as “somebody who thinks differently.” I think it all started out with Autism at Work. The initiative, way back when, between Microsoft, JPMorgan Chase, SAP, EY, and others. I was part of one of those. We raised consciousness until the broader business community came to understand they could employ people who think differently.

You’re probably working next to somebody who is neurodivergent. Most people today might have X or Y neurodevelopmental disorder; you just don’t know it because they may not feel comfortable sharing as they think it might affect their promotion opportunities or lead to some other bad outcome. That whole stigma is something we’re trying to change. Neurodiversity in the workplace is a subset of the whole DEI initiative. But neurodiversity itself? It’s just a different way of thinking.

It’s clear that employers can benefit from understanding that just as there are benefits to diversity in terms of gender, sexual preference, ethnicity and color, there are benefits to neurodiversity and that those benefits may be even more direct. You already mentioned a few things, like pattern recognition. Can you expand on that?

There are a lot of different benefits. I’ll speak to skillsets first, and then talk about something that nobody thinks about. If you’re looking to expand your talent pool with this untapped talent, things you can expect are different perspectives in data analysis, innovative solutions, problem solving and, as mentioned, pattern recognition. Some of these skills are ideal for careers in technology, finance, legal, cybersecurity and healthcare research.

When you have someone who is neurodivergent working with someone who might be neurotypical, you’re getting two different ways of looking at solutions. So if someone neurotypical is coding in Python, we’re finding that the neurodivergent individual sitting next to him comes up with things that he would never think of because he looks at the world in a very different way.

For example, we had a young man who works in a financial institution where they were doing some different coding projects, and there was a problem with a machine. It was a rounding error that was costing them millions. So, our team came in who are neurodivergent. Within a week this one particular gentleman who has ASD identified the problem and then, within a couple hours, fixed it. The company is now saving millions on a monthly basis, just on this one fix that it never thought of even looking into. So yes, there are all these little things that somebody who thinks differently, has a different perspective, can find, and do.

There’s one other greater good out of this. It’s empathy. When you have somebody who does things a little differently, you learn—as an individual, as a human being—that accepting someone who can do things differently is an asset to not only the organization, but to yourself, personally.

I am super passionate when I speak about this. If we were

both on screen, you’d see my hands going a mile a minute, and not just because I’m Italian, but it’s because in today’s world, a lot of things are a little bit skewed in people’s minds, and I’m passionate about normalizing mental health. When you bring someone in who is neurodivergent, it changes the culture of your organization for the better. In addition to the fact that you’re getting an amazing return on your investment financially, you’re also making a return on investment in a human being’s life because you are giving them that long-lasting career and helping them gain confidence in their ability to be successful.

We’ve had so many people who have now become independent from their parents and gotten their first apartment, their driver’s license, things that people take for granted, things they struggled to achieve for such a long time. So, companies being able to recognize the skillsets and employ someone who is neurodivergent are giving an opportunity to someone who didn’t have that opportunity before. We have people who are now getting married and starting families of their own. It’s the most wonderful thing ever.

With neurodiversity an emerging area in the DEI space, are you finding that it has to compete with other diverse populations for attention and resources?

Well, this is a movement. Obviously, there’s a lot of jobs out there. I know we don’t want to talk about the word recession at the moment, but I still think executives and senior sponsors are reachable. It sometimes starts with someone who has a

Anthony Pacilio is an expert in neurodiverse employment and currently serves as the vice president of CAI Neurodiverse Solutions. There, he helps neurodiverse candidates find roles, as well as helps businesses maintain best practices when working with neurodiverse employees. In the past, Anthony has worked in the finance and healthcare industries with similar missions. Reach him at Anthony.Pacilio@cai.io

child, or a niece or nephew, or who knows someone who’s neurodivergent and sees their potential. The competition for talent is still alive because it’s not yet built into the DNA of all HR and hiring practices within companies. That’s why it’s important for people like myself and programs like CAI Neurodiverse Solutions to help companies understand the benefits of neurodiversity and build the infrastructure to support it.

We’ll do the heavy lift: providing access to a pool of talented individuals and helping to ensure that they’re successful.

So, there’s some education and training that needs to go on within companies, including law firms. We start small, such as putting in three or four individuals, with a neurodiversitycertified team leader who provides the right education and coaching to both CAI and clients, and then supports them in the long-term with mentorship, on-the-job training, and professional development. This model can be scaled.

So your strategy has been to put small teams in place with leaders who really already get it.

Yes. Our model is probably different from others in this space. We’re a person-first organization. If we have a client or potential client, we ensure that before one of our people sets foot within that company, that the client has neurodiversity awareness training for all of the people that are going to be working side by side with our candidate. The awareness session teaches them about neurodivergent characteristics and qualities, ways of communicating, and so much more.

When we talk to a client, we also look into what they have in the way of a support system. For example, we encourage them to identify mentors and buddies. From our service delivery managers to our talent acquisition and learning and development teams, they are all part of this plan, and are able to educate and serve as a conduit between our associates and the client. If somebody doesn’t understand something, our team leaders are versed in the relevant technology or job function so they can bridge the communication gap. We’re also there to provide metrics to track performance, productivity, and quality.

We’re holistic in our approach. We’re not just putting people in this site or that job function. The client needs to be invested in this. They need to find the right managers through proper vetting. Everybody’s going to raise their hand for this Neurodiversity @ Work program, but they need to be super careful about who manages these individuals. We tell the client to interview people who work for the prospective manager to learn how they give feedback. Do they do it once a week, twice a month, once a quarter? And what does that look like? Are they doing it through email? Are they doing it through Teams? The manager needs to be involved in the day-to-day efforts of our associates as well. There are many different criteria we look at to make sure that the client is just as ready as the candidate coming in. It’s more important that the client is a right fit for the candidate than the other way around.

Bottom line, what our clients are finding is that the neurodiverse community has a success factor that is unlike any other. They just go about their business, are very loyal and their retention is amazingly high. They love sequencing and repetitive tasks. But while some may want to do the same job for 30 years, others are looking for career mobility. So if they’re in back-office operations, they want to do something different, so we also ensure that the client has career pathing.

We’ve had individuals who went into one of our healthcare organizations and knocked it out of the park when doing process documentation, doubling the work effort of their neurotypical peers. At a financial institution, we had folks that came in to do access security management, providing roles and processes for logging in to computers. They were up to 120 percent more productive than folks that were at the job for 5, 10 or 15 years.

It’s because of their ability to focus. If you’re giving an instruction, neurodivergent individuals typically follow the process. And if you have a good process laid out, that process is going to be followed every single time. That’s where you see the return on investment from a financial

Can you give an example or two of some successful initiatives that others might be able to use as a model?

standpoint. The success you see from the human side are parents calling you saying, “I never thought Tommy or Sally was ever going to have a full-time job, making X dollars and being able to get their first apartment or live independently. You don’t know what you’ve done to change not only their lives, but our family’s lives, to allay the fears I have of what’s going to happen to Sally or Tommy when I’m gone.”

From global conglomerates to small businesses, we’re providing employers access to this untapped talent pool and it’s changing not only the business piece of it, but it’s changing lives.

Is this a worldwide movement, or is it localized?

This is worldwide. We’ve had Neurodiversity @ Work Employer Roundtable meetings that span the globe. Attendees at Disability:IN, which was in Dallas recently, included global companies looking to see what the best practices are and what new technologies are available for people with disabilities. CAI Neurodiverse Solutions is expanding globally. That said, there’s stigma all over the world. Some geographic locations are more mature and embrace our message, while others are still learning how to utilize this wonderful talent.

Sensitivity to differences has got some people spooked about how to speak about neurodiversity. Any ideas on how people can become more comfortable talking about neurodiversity?

You can educate yourself through research, but also by talking to individuals like me. If anybody wants to go on LinkedIn or email me or call me, I will talk to anybody about the vernacular of neurodiversity or being neurodivergent, and employment programs. I love it when people come to me and say, “Hey, listen, we have all of these folks who are unemployed or underemployed. They’re at the local stores doing stock jobs, but they have a four-year degree.” Just because somebody may do something that doesn’t fit the norm, or have a stimming mechanism like flapping the arms or pacing—doesn’t

render them unfit. We have to learn to let that part go and focus on their skill set.

It’s about saying to Tommy or Sally, “This job opportunity is X. Have you done that before? Great. Can we give you any accommodations to do your job better?” It shouldn’t be a shy-away mentality. It should be an “I’m embracing that mentality.” Because the world is diverse, and it’s just not race, gender, ethnicity; it’s also people with disabilities. People who don’t look like everybody else can do the job just as well as people who look like everybody else.

You know what? It would be great if every person could take five minutes to consider all the people out there with physical disabilities that are knocking it out of the park. You could talk about all the celebrities who may be neurodivergent; your Elon Musks and Mark Zuckerbergs.

It shouldn’t be a scary concept to offer people a wonderful opportunity to live their lives just like everybody else. It’s about caring. Let’s just be human is all I’m asking. You don’t avoid people with differences, you find what they’re good at. That sums up what we do at CAI Neurodiverse Solutions.

You do talk about technology in some of your materials. What is the tech that CAI, or you personally, are involved in?

CAI is a global technology services firm with over 7,500 associates worldwide and over 40 years of excellence in uniting talent and technology. CAI Neurodiverse Solutions is a subset of that, so we started in technology—doing quality assurance and analysis—but that has morphed over the years as we’ve gone deeper into what companies need.

As for myself, I don’t claim to be a techie because I’m not. All of these folks I help place could run circles around me talking about RPA and AI. My area of expertise is helping companies build the infrastructure, finding what their pain points are and making sure that they have talent to fill those needs, whatever they may be.

The Path to Success is Not Always a Straight Line.

ELIZABETH COLOMBO VENDAVO

CCBJ: Can you briefly walk me through the career path that led you to your current role?

Elizabeth Colombo: It’s been an adventure—and I’m so grateful to be in the role I’m in at Vendavo, which has taught me that winding roads can lead you to right where you belong. I earned my BA in film, television, and theatre from the University of Notre Dame, then went to Quinnipiac University School of Law thinking I would love litigation; something about being in a courtroom seemed to dovetail nicely with a theatre background. I worked for a civil

litigation law firm summers during law school and right after law school. But as we often do in life, I learned that I was wrong and that litigation was not for me. Corporate law was interesting to me, and I began applying for a variety of legal roles in this area.

Thankfully I did indeed find my home in corporate law, specifically in-house, starting with a large international company where I spent seven years gaining very generalist experience. It was a great job at which to begin my inhouse career because the company I worked for had a large, ever-changing and extremely diverse portfolio of offerings, including hardware, software and services, among many other things. After seven years there, I welcomed a change; something where I could apply the knowledge and skills I had gained to a different industry. I found a role at a cybersecurity company that was really eye-opening because it was so different from my previous position. At the

Elizabeth Columbo, senior legal counsel with Vendavo, describes her personal and professional growth and the importance of strategic planning and analytic communication skills.

cybersecurity company, I honed my skills and broadened my knowledge base. It’s amazing what working for a different company and industry can do for one’s career. In my case, it was an opportunity to acquire new skill sets and opened many doors.

While I enjoyed that role and the lessons learned, I felt ready for even more responsibility, and I wanted the ability to affect positive change in my organization. Along came Vendavo, and more specifically my boss there, who empowers us by involving us in every aspect of the business she can; allowing us to share ideas and take on projects to improve our department and the company as a whole. For those reasons I feel the most fulfilled career-wise I’ve ever felt, and I’m supremely grateful for that and the path that’s led me here.

One final note on the winding route to where I am now: I like to think that I was ahead of the work-from-home trend, given I actually started working from home in 2018, after years in an office. So one of the many reasons both the cybersecurity and Vendavo positions interested me is because both were telecommuting roles pre-pandemic, and that was wildly appealing to me.

Talk to us a bit about the strategic planning and analytic communication skills you’ve developed in your career.

That’s a great question because the skills you’re asking about are the type of skills one is always working to improve. I want to be the best in-house counsel I can be—for my company, for my internal clients, for my legal colleagues and, obviously, for myself. So I’m continuously working to grow, and the skills you’re asking about are part of that.

Regarding strategic planning, I’m grateful to my current boss because she’s been quite intentional about involving me in that type of work. I’ve had more opportunities than ever before to improve those skills. One example: I’ve been able to sharpen my goal-related skills by setting a vision, then identifying and completing small achievable goals

to accomplish that vision. While I’ve always been a very goal-oriented person, I would sometimes rush headlong to the big goal rather than rolling out a plan in incremental steps. It’s been important to my growth to see the value in achieving smaller, measurable goals as a means to accomplishing a larger overall goal.

A couple of other key skills I’ve cultivated with regard to strategic planning are delegation and resourcefulness. Because I can be a bit of a people pleaser, I historically take everything on myself. Saying no has sometimes been difficult. Asking someone for help or to jump in has historically been difficult. But having worked as part of lean legal teams for my whole career, I’ve learned the value of delegating when necessary, especially with regard to strategic planning and trying to get bigger, more high level things done. I’ve learned that others can do a great job and that I can learn from their processes.

With regard to resourcefulness, I’ve trained myself to not always dive right in when presented with a challenge, which was my inclination historically. Instead, I take a beat, or several beats, and brainstorm by answering questions like, is there a quicker way to successfully accomplish the same goal, or do we already have resources available to us that we could use for this? That has been huge for my practice and my company, because it saves time and resources whenever possible, which are among the many ways in-house law departments add value to organizations.

Additionally and importantly for strategic planning, and in general, my business acumen has vastly improved over my years in-house. I’m blessed to have grown up with a grandfather and parents in business so I’ve been around it for all my life. But even with that, I’ve found that the more you hear business concepts talked about in-depth, especially business concepts specific to the industry you’re in, and the more questions you ask, the more you learn. It’s similar to immersing yourself in a culture to learn the language; you have to keep up because you’re surrounded by it constantly. The same goes for business concepts, which

become more natural to you. In addition to exposure at work, I also pay attention to business news so I have a wellrounded sense of what’s going on currently, not just what’s happening at my company or in the industry I work in. The other thing I’ve noticed is the more you’re involved in at your company, the more your legal practice is improved. For example, in supporting some of my company’s audits from a legal perspective, I learned information that was valuable in handling contract negotiations and other matters.

Regarding my analytic communication skills, they are obviously very important to an in-house role and, thankfully, some of these skills are natural to me and I’ve cultivated them in law school, working in litigation, and in my roles in-house as well as in non-legal roles. A vitally important analytic communication skill for an in-house counsel is the ability to utilize specific, precise language, both verbally and in writing. For example, a big part of the contract negotiation piece of my job is being able to draft specific language to meet the needs of the business. You can write some gorgeous verbiage, but if it’s not meeting the needs of your business, it’s pretty useless.

So the goal is to get the business where it needs to be with the language you use, which is achieved through active listening, collaboration and precise drafting. I’ve also developed an ability to look at challenges, especially complex issues, dispassionately, and to solve problems logically. Legal issues often demand this if one is to arrive at the best outcome for one’s company. That’s not to say there’s no passion involved; just that sometimes you have to remove yourself and look at an issue objectively. Importantly, I’ve honed a skill I began developing in law school, which is using hard evidence to support arguments,

delivered with a direct and professional tone, whether to persuade the internal business team of the risk in an agreement or to support an argument in a dispute. It’s certainly much better as a persuasion technique, but it also goes a long way in building relationships and trust.

Key to backing up an assertion with actual reasoning is thoroughness—another skill that’s critical to my in-house role. In most organizations, the buck stops with Legal. Other departments come to us in part for our thoroughness. They count on us to catch what they might miss. This could involve researching a matter for litigation or looking into a statute referenced in a vendor’s or client’s template agreement, or into any number of questions internal clients ask Legal on a daily basis. Overall and finally, I’ve cultivated the ability to be decisive. This is huge because I’m the type of person who, when you ask me where I want to go to dinner, says, “I don’t know, where do you want to go?”

So I can definitely be an over-thinker, and I’ve learned the value in shutting that off to confidently make efficient and reasoned decisions in my role. Because there’s often no time to mull over a decision for too long, and it doesn’t always serve the business well to do so.

Do you have any advice for other in-house legal executives, such as what they can do to further their business’s success?

I’ll start with basic advice, because I think it’s great for those new to these roles, but also to remind all of your readers of these basic things we all know, but sometimes forget. Do your best, be prepared and be confident. Don’t be intimidated or let the role or your exposure to the C-suite get the better of you. You were hired for a reason, so set yourself up to shine in your role. Something all of us inhouse must constantly cultivate—it really never ends—is to balance risk and reward; meaning our job is to identify and articulate risk, while remembering we also work for a business. In the contract-negotiation realm, that might translate into asking how serious does the risk have to be to block a deal? How serious does the risk have to be

It’s been important to my growth to see the value in achieving smaller, measurable goals as a means to accomplishing a larger overall goal.

to not block a deal, but warrant taking a strong stance? How serious does the risk have to be to simply advise the business of the risk? How minimal does the risk have to be to just let it go? Or we might ask: Is this a purely legal decision? Is this a purely business decision? Does this decision have both business and legal overlap?

This type of risk balancing is a constant effort and varies from business to business. One company will happily block a deal if the risk profile is unacceptable to it while another will try to compromise as much as humanly possible to finalize the deal. Yet another may be somewhere in between. This brings me to one of the most important ways in-house executives can work to further the business’ success: following the business’ lead (to a lesser or greater extent).

As in-house executives we obviously have to be leaders, so we don’t slavishly follow the business’ lead. But it’s important to get a sense of how risk averse your company is. Often you’ll learn the risk tolerance of the business

when you start a new role in-house. Or you have a sense, before you arrive there, that the company has a good grasp of what they tolerate in terms of risk, or the company is somewhat immature in terms of risk assessment, either because they’ve barely thought about it or have a history of underestimating or overestimating risks.

To mature the company in terms of its risk assessment, it’s important to have conversations with relevant stakeholders to explain various risk concepts, talk through those risks and get a sense of their risk tolerance. That is one huge way you can further the business’ success. And then of course there are the obvious ones: Work-life balance is very important, but when you’re working, be available when you can. And be approachable. Be a team player. Finally, honor your commitments. For example, don’t promise a review by Tuesday if you know you won’t get it done until Thursday. Underpromise and overdeliver whenever possible.

What’s your understanding of the role of the law department?

One of the things I love about being in-house counsel is the many roles we have in relation to the countless departments we support and with which we collaborate. An obvious role of the law department, as I just mentioned, is to minimize risk. A corollary to that is the responsibility to educate as to risk and to do so in an understandable way. Our business counterparts don’t come to us for a law school 101 lesson. They want to know the practical risk of whatever action they want to take. How will it affect their budget? How could it negatively impact the company? And so on. We’re also tasked with educating clients in a customer-friendly way. Clients are not supposed to know our business. That’s why

A vitally important skill for an inhouse counsel is the ability to utilize specific, precise language, both verbally and in writing.

they’re hiring us. They know their business. So if a client is concerned about HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996), but if HIPAA doesn’t apply to our engagement with them, part of our role is to say so. If HIPAA does, in fact, apply, so there’s a legitimate concern there, you continue the conversation and make it as productive as possible.

Another role where an in-house legal department can, if they’re so inclined, add a tremendous amount of value, is relationship-building. Sadly, many people don’t think of that as an important legal function, but with the right legal team, it can be. I’ve seen it, I’ve done it. Legal can build connections internally and externally. Perhaps there’s an impasse on a contract negotiation. Legal may be able to speak with the client’s lawyer and perhaps we can work it out.

I’ll touch on one more role, related to the education described earlier, which is to continually train. This can be one-on-one training of, say, a new salesperson or anyone else who wants clarity on a legal concept or process, including someone new to your legal department. Or it could be larger-scale training, such as informing a whole team (or the whole company) on something like data privacy concepts.

Why, and for whom, are unconventional educational and career paths beneficial?

This might be my favorite question because I’m eternally grateful for the winding path I took to my current role; a path that included, in addition to law, work in all kinds of fields, including real estate, hospitality, sales, sports and entertainment. Without that unconventional path, I wouldn’t have the perspective or the skills I have that sometimes set me apart from others, and that have allowed me to contribute as meaningfully as I can to my company and to my colleagues. Those around me likewise bring their own educational and career paths to the table, all of which makes for better, more robust discussions in the workplace. If we all had the same uniform path to where we are now, we

wouldn’t have the diversity of ideas that get us where we need to be as a business.

The second part of the question—for whom is an unconventional career path beneficial—is the part I really like because law school trains us to think in a very specific way. I remember the dean of my law school telling us to warn our family and friends that the way we think and talk and present ourselves would change. He wasn’t wrong. I may be passionate about an issue, but I can argue both sides of it. But lawyers can also get stuck in that way of thinking and unconventional paths, other ways of thinking and other ways of accomplishing tasks and goals, help you shift away from purely legal reasoning. We’ve all known lawyers who are really bright but don’t possess the soft skills that are required for an in-house role. That’s one way that an unconventional career path could benefit a possible in-house counsel – by providing varied experiences from which to learn and to grow non-legal specific skills.

I have a theatre background for goodness’ sake and that has benefited me greatly in my legal career. We all, but especially lawyers who tend to be overachievers, get very caught up in this “clear path” and doing everything one is “supposed to do.” But sometimes you’re better off embracing the unconventional nature of your path and seeing where it leads you. Based on my experience, it will end up benefiting you in the end. 

Elizabeth Columbo is the Senior Legal Counsel with Vendavo, Inc., In her role, Elizabeth works cross-functionally with the relevant business teams and stakeholders, providing legal advice on a broad range of topics and guiding the business on legal compliance with a particular focus on drafting, managing, and negotiating client and vendor contracts of moderate-tohigh complexity from the bid phase through contract execution, including software licensing and SaaS-specific provisions, as well as matters related to contractual liability and risk-shifting provisions, data privacy, intellectual property, and products. Reach her at ecolombo@alumni.nd.edu

Microsoft 365 as a Knowledge Management System for Legal Executives

KEITH VALLELY EPONA

 Keith Vallely, vice president and senior consultant with Epona, shares insights on how Epona has influenced and impacted the corporate legal space and what sets them apart from competitors in the document management space.

CCBJ: Talk to us about Epona, your role in the legal space, and how you work with corporate legal teams.

Keith Vallely: As Vice President and Senior Consultant at Epona USA, a division of Epona, my role is to expand our sales throughout the North American marketplace, including implementations of our Contract Management, Document Management, E-Mail Management and Knowledge Management Systems that are based on the Microsoft Platform. It also means, of course, increasing the number of employees and growing our entire operation.

What Epona does, is take the Microsoft 365 environment and make it a document/contract/email/knowledge management system, for the Corporate legal space, as well as for Enterprises and Law Firms. We start out by configuring the content management platform SharePoint to operate as a document management system and from there we sort of snap on, if you will, contract life cycle management, email management and knowledge management capabilities so that an enterprise or corporate legal department can utilize the powers that are already built into the Microsoft 365 platform, including workflow, Power BI, the whole nine yards. So, for all intents and purposes, we are a turnkey solution provider to the corporate environment, which is ideal for enterprises and corporate legal departments that are already using the Microsoft platform and want to take full advantage of their investment.

Please talk to us about how Epona has brought value to the corporate legal space in recent years?

One of our greatest accomplishments, in addition to the sheer number of clients we’ve added, is how we’ve helped those clients expand their use of Microsoft 365 and add to their own productivity. One of the great things about the Microsoft platform is it is a tremendously powerful LEGO set. The

platform isn’t fully built out. There is a lot of capability that a powerful imagination and a powerful IT department can utilize to essentially configure and develop a solutions set that can fit virtually any requirement for a business.

What this essentially means is Epona walks into corporate environments, with their unique requirements, and in partnership with the IT department, helps to integrate their current applications into Microsoft 365, Teams, Microsoft Office and more. I’m particularly proud of the things that we’re able to provide to our corporate legal partners, such as contract management systems integrated with Teams, or knowledge management systems integrated with known and easy-to-use applications like Microsoft Word and Microsoft Outlook.

It’s been really cool to come back a couple of years later and find out how these applications that we initially deployed are now being used in the enterprise to make things better for the people who are using power in a region, or getting people out of jail who don’t belong there, or providing medical services in new ways. It’s just really interesting to see how the work that we’re doing have real life implications downstream for everyday people. That’s really what this is all about. I do recognize, of course, there’s the bits and the bytes and the dollars and the cents, but when it comes right down to it, we’re out there really trying to make people’s lives better. And that the use of our technology to make Microsoft technologies work better for corporate legal departments is really kind of cool.

Epona has grown significantly over the past few years. To what do you attribute this?

Probably the single biggest reason, was that people need to work from their homes due to Covid-19. This has changed the manner and method of the way people work now. Microsoft 365 and using cloud services has become ubiquitous. This drove a lot of change for corporate entities and, of course, law firms which, in turn, has driven a huge amount of growth for us.

Candidly speaking, we were already on a growth trajectory before the market shifted because of the excellent team at Epona. Every member of our team is not just good at what they do, but also cares about their clients. Sometimes the biggest

challenge we have is knowing when to say "enough." I know I shouldn’t say this, but sometimes my team cares a little bit too much. Sometimes they just need to stop working, go home and take a break. It is the weekend, you know!

But the other thing is we are very good about making sure that we deliver great products. It’s a truism in the software business the clients are always focused on what isn’t working. But the vast majority of the products and services that we deliver are almost always working. Occasionally there will be a bug or glitch, but by and large, our products work and are kept up-to-date. The same can’t be said for our competitors, most of whom require that clients’ Microsoft Office suite be kept years behind the update cycle. In our situation, we typically require that you keep your Microsoft Office up-todate. It’s a completely different paradigm. And because of that, the latest features, the latest super-cool whiz-bang new stuff is where you need to be with us. Now, I realize that’s a bit of a paradigm shift for people, but that is one of the other great things about our company.

What sets Epona apart from competitors in the document management space?

First and foremost your documents, your emails, all of your content, will not exist in an Epona environment. It will always exist in your tenant space, under your control. This means you will always have 100 percent control of your content as it will remain in your environment. That means no vendor lock. This is an enormous difference from all our competitors, and the primary reason that 20 percent of the Fortune 100 are already Epona clients. This also is a primary differentiator when it comes to compliance and security. These three things make us as different as night and day from other content management service providers.

Being in the Microsoft cloud with Epona means you will get compliance, security, and records all as part of the Microsoft compliance center versus our competitors, where you will be using their security models which are partially reliant in some form on Microsoft, but as an externality. The simple answer is you’re going to be better off putting all of your content in a Microsoft environment. And that is

why corporate entities prefer Epona. It’s a one-stop, singlesolution platform.

Also, when we talk about Teams integration with the Epona solution versus all other competitors, again all of your content will exist strictly in the Microsoft platform. Additionally, updates, upgrades and all integrations on the Epona platform are in the Microsoft paradigm, which means you will be using the Microsoft update paradigm versus the alternative paradigms of the other third parties. This is an enormous differentiator.

Lastly, the Epona solution is also significantly more cost effective than the other solutions. In the Epona paradigm, there is an initial upfront cost to get set up in the Microsoft tenant and licensing costs going forward from there. In the other solution sets, you will be paying for storage and other things that add to your costs that are not part of the Epona solution because, once again, you are storing your content in the Microsoft tenant, which you already pay for. These separators are some of the major differences between Epona’s solution and all the others.

If there is one thing that your clients, or people exploring Epona as a solution, should know, what would that be?

That no one matches our level of client service. The comment we hear most from clients who’ve come to us from our competitors is that that didn’t feel cared for. Epona cares for its clients—a lot. And we care as much about the three-user law firm as we do the 2,000-user law firm or the 450-user corporate legal department. I think that might be the single most important reason we have grown. 

Keith Vallely has started numerous businesses with varying degrees of success, culminating with a multitime award winning Entrepreneur Magazine HOT 100 business in the technology sector. In 2011, Keith joined Epona USA, as the Director of US Sales, and as their first employee in the United States, to open the USA office and begin the process of spreading the power of SharePoint as a DMS platform for the Dutchbased Epona Legal BV. Reach him at keith.vallely@epona.com

Data Science Center Tames Big Data Projects

GREG NEGUS CORNERSTONE RESEARCH

 Greg Negus is the chief operating officer at Cornerstone Research. In this interview, he shares innovations in big data, as well as how artificial intelligence and machine learning can be used to support expert testimony.

Can you tell us a little about yourself and your role at Cornerstone Research?

Greg Negus: I have enjoyed a thirty-year career in professional services firm management. Prior to joining Cornerstone Research, I worked as a chief operating officer and chief financial officer at several large law firms.

At Cornerstone Research, I am responsible for leading the firm’s corporate and administrative functions. I also serve on Cornerstone Research’s executive committee, among others. In this position, I also oversee the firm’s Data Science Center, which is an interdisciplinary team of in-house data scientists. The Data Science Center team’s expertise includes improving work efficiencies and implementing state-of-the-art modeling as it relates to analysis of relevant data and case issues.

Can you talk about the goals of Cornerstone Research’s Data Science Center?

At the firm level, Cornerstone Research provides economic and financial consulting and expert testimony in highprofile litigation, investigations, and regulatory matters.

We support clients with rigorous, objective analysis that is grounded in real-world data, state-of-the-art research, and case precedent. We are passionate about exceeding our clients’ expectations and we saw early on that data science would be essential to upholding our standard of excellence.

That is why we created the Data Science Center, our hub of data science expertise. The Data Science Center is a

pioneer in our industry in applying modern techniques such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and text analytics to supplement more traditional econometric analyses. Our mission is to maintain our leadership position by continuing to set the standards for technology, data science, and data engineering.

What value does the Data Science Center bring to the firm’s casework and for clients?

The Data Science team brings value in four main areas: increasing efficiencies, unlocking the potential of data, providing scalable/bespoke solutions, and supporting defensible results. Let me address each in turn.

One example of the efficiencies we provide to clients is our use of IBM Netezza, which provides speeds 20 to 2,500 times as fast as conventional analytical platforms. The increased computational speed of Netezza often directly translates into key strategic benefits and outcomes. These may include:

• Timely identification of data quality deficiencies in produced data

• The ability to conduct the numerous necessary iterations, sensitivities, and robustness checks for an expert analysis

• Quick turnaround on urgent requests, even when dealing with large datasets that typically require substantive computational processing times

Regarding unlocking potential, I am referring to our ability to digest and analyze large-scale data that opens up new lines of investigation. We are able to conduct analyses and pursue ideas that would have been infeasible a few years ago—or would have taken a massive amount of resources to produce.

For example, in the T-Mobile/Sprint merger, our experts analyzed how consumers choose wireless carriers and

how wireless carriers compete. This analysis used highly granular data comprising billions of data points on when, where, and how consumers used their mobile phones. Data Science was able to conceptualize and create an algorithm to efficiently categorize this information in space.

With respect to scalable/bespoke solutions, the Data Science Center focuses on delivering right-sized solutions. For example, we can develop bespoke analytic approaches when appropriate or use scalable tools to help our teams automate analysis. So, in addition to providing clients with efficient and secure large-scale data analytics, we are also able to offer customized applications informed by years of experience.

By “defensible results,” I am referring to our experts’ ability to demonstrate and communicate analyses and findings using both traditional methods and more cutting-edge technology supported by our Data Science Center.

Big data is a term that we have been hearing for several years. How is Cornerstone Research’s Data Science Center equipped to handle the challenge of an increasingly data-driven world?

It is an interesting challenge that we have been able to meet successfully. What makes this work especially challenging is not only that the magnitude of data we are asked to process and analyze has increased exponentially, but there has also been an explosion in the kinds of formats we are handling.

As to how we deal with substantial volumes of real-time and historical data, we have heavily invested in secure, onpremises analytics infrastructure with massively parallel processing capabilities, such as IBM Netezza. We regularly work on cases with hundreds of billions of data records. We are also experienced in leveraging cloud computing capabilities for surge storage or compute capacity. Our team

of programming specialists and data engineers ensures that we can conduct large-scale data analytics efficiently and effectively in a fraction of the time it used to take.

The second biggest challenge with big data is that we often will be asked to work with client data and other private and public sources from a wide variety of platforms and incompatible formats, which must be processed to provide reliable data. Our Data Science capabilities allow us to help counsel manage the discovery and data production process efficiently and effectively. We also work with clients to extract information in anticipation of the analytical needs of subsequent phases of work as well as in response to direct requests from regulators or litigants.

For example, in a high-frequency trading matter, the Data Science Center worked with several stock exchanges to access more than 200 TB of data in order to determine the best protocol to access these large and complex datasets, as well as to identify the relevant data subsets that would be used for the necessary analyses.

Big data also increasingly encompasses more than traditional structured data that comes in rows and columns. Our experience with AI and machine learning is valuable when analyzing unstructured data, including documents and text, images, video, and audio.

We have invested in a number of offthe-shelf and proprietary software tools, packages, and data pipelines to facilitate efficient analysis.

GPUs provide computational speeds that exceed those of even the fastest central processing units (CPUs). For example, in antitrust matters, we often need to calculate the distance between all suppliers and all consumers (coordinate pairs). Migrating this computation from CPUs to GPUs enables us to calculate distances between nearly 100 million coordinate pairs per second.

Social media and big data are the most prominent trends of the 21st century. How is the Data Science Center helping companies keep pace with these intertwined technologies?

With their vast user base that eclipses traditional media, social media platforms offer rich sources of data that multiply at dizzying speed. In litigation contexts, knowing how to effectively navigate, collect, and characterize such huge amounts of data is crucial. In addition to our deep familiarity with social media data sources, our experience with AI and ML tools equips us to assess the relevancy and relative prominence of content and contributors. This is a fast-growing area of data and the insights these sources provide can be crucial in supporting expert analyses of text, content, and sentiment.

AI-based systems substitute human decisions with datadriven ones. This can reduce subjectivity and error when processing large volumes of complex information. We utilize AI and ML to drive automation of increasingly complex tasks and unlock new approaches for analysis, including using both supervised and unsupervised learning.

Our machine learning capabilities are enhanced by our in-house graphical processing units (GPUs).

What about some examples to illustrate that?

For large-scale analysis of Reddit subforums, commonly known as subreddits, we built web data pipelines and automated approaches, leveraging ML to score a post’s textual/context-driven relevance to topics of interest and characterize the prominence of a given post relative to other posts in the subforum.

How can AI (artificial intelligence) and ML (machine learning) support expert testimony?

In connection with In re Facebook Inc. IPO Securities and Derivative Litigation, we employed advanced language models to effectively distinguish homographs in tweets and generate features for an ML classifier. This framework facilitated the reliable and scalable detection of public awareness of alleged material omissions prior to required disclosure.

Lastly, we have extensive experience with online consumer reviews of products and services—among the most intriguing (and demanding) social media data. These reviews can be the subject of litigation, but if employed appropriately, they can also provide a valuable source of real-world data. We’re skilled in evaluating these distinctive data, including assessing the relative importance of product features, changes in customer sentiment over time, and fraudulent reviews.

Can you talk a bit about Cornerstone Research’s investment in the Data Science Center? What technology and training supports its work?

In litigation, we often deal with sensitive client information, so we invested heavily in secure infrastructure, including high-performance and high-throughput analytical servers and storage clusters. Our analytical infrastructure is onpremises, meaning client data are not exposed to the web.

We have also invested in a number of off-the-shelf and proprietary software tools, packages, and data pipelines to facilitate efficient analysis. For example, when working with documents, we utilize tools to add high-quality text layers to documents, quickly extract tabular data, and develop tailored approaches to extracting other key information.

Finally, we have invested in people. We have exceptional data scientists and practitioners with many years of experience across a large number of different clients and projects. Mike DeCesaris, who is the vice president of the team, has a background in economic consulting and

computer science, which puts him in an ideal position to navigate the profound transformations that litigation and expert testimony continue to undergo in regard to data.

How do Cornerstone Research’s in-house experts and network of outside experts, which include leaders from academia and industry, work with the Data Science Center?

Cornerstone Research’s testifying experts are at the forefront of litigation trends, industry innovations, and academic research. In turn, our experience with implementing sophisticated data science techniques supports these experts in their analyses. Experts appreciate the fact that we bring such a deep understanding of AI and machine learning to automate complex tasks and develop analytic approaches to supplement traditional econometric and statistical methods. For example, Data Science staff applied machine learning approaches to healthcare risk adjustment models, which explained approximately twice as much variation in claims data as the status quo linear regression model. 

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the speaker, who is responsible for the content, and do not necessarily represent the views of Cornerstone Research.

Greg Negus has more than thirty years of experience in professional services firm management. As the chief operating officer at Cornerstone Research, Mr. Negus is responsbile, Mr. Negus is responsible for leading the firm’s corporate and administrative functions, including finance, information technology, human resources, talent, and marketing. He also manages the firm’s facilities and office administration operations. Mr. Negus serves on Cornerstone Research’s executive committee and its pro bono committee, among others. Reach him at gnegus@cornerstone.com

An Independence Day Celebration of Contract Lifecycle Management

DAVE PARKS CONTRACT LOGIX

 July is here, and in the United States that means Independence Day, the national holiday commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776. While it has come to be synonymous with parties, barbecues and fireworks, the holiday also celebrates the document which lays out which liberties are fundamental to American people, and along with the Constitution and Bill of Rights, is one of the three most important documents in American history.

The holiday is celebrated on the day the declaration was officially “signed,” but as anyone involved in contract or important document negotiations well knows, the timeline was significantly longer. The Lee Resolution, a precursor to the declaration was read to the Continental Congress on June 7, 1776, and four days later, on June 11,

the Committee of Five of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman and William Livingston was appointed to draft a statement presenting the colonies’ reasons for independence. Jefferson had seventeen days to write the document, with edits from his peers. The Lee resolution was adopted on July 2 and Congress, after making alterations to the Declaration on July 2,3 and 4, officially adopted it on July 4. Copies were dispatched beginning on July 5, with New York finally approving the Declaration on July 9. On July 19, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was officially engrossed on parchment and weeks later on August 2th, was signed. A full month later, on September 4, three additional members of Congress signed, with one more, signing off on November 19.

Almost 246 years later, this negotiation and signature process either looks completely foreign or depressingly

LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT

familiar depending on how large an organization you work for. Had contract lifecycle management software (CLM) existed in 1776, could it have helped the Founding Fathers draft, negotiate and sign the Declaration of Independence faster? Would we be celebrating Independence Day in June? Let’s walk through stages of the contract lifecycle and see:

• Request and intake - The contract lifecycle begins with the initial contract request. The request should come with all the information necessary to complete the contract, including the goods and services involved,pricing, obligations and commitments, delivery dates, renewal dates and other important terms and conditions. The Continental Congress could have used

CLM to understand each of the colonies’ requested terms and incorporate them into the document.

• Initial draft, negotiation, collaboration and redlining – After the parties have completed the initial draft of the contract, it then goes to all appropriate parties to provide their feedback and suggest any necessary changes. A secure, centralized system with real-time collaboration tools would have allowed Jefferson to write his initial draft, negotiate and incorporate edits from his four co-authors, speeding up that three day process.

• Final reviews and approvals - This is when the final draft of a contract is routed to stakeholders for their final review and approvals. Automated workflows in CLM could have routed the Declaration of Independence to the full Continental Congress and the army for input, speeding up the four day review process.

• Signatures and execution – To be legally binding, authorized personnel must sign contracts. This is where the Founding Fathers truly would have seen the benefits of CLM software. The approved Declaration could have been electronically routed to all of the delegates for their immediate approval. This would also have provided an automatic signature timestamp (of who signed and when) so that Americans could accurately commemorate the holiday!

• All executed contracts and supporting documents need to be archived. Using CLM, the Founding Fathers could have stored the Declaration in a centralized and secure digital contract repository, rather than waiting 127 years to think about its storage.

A CLM system could have helped the Continental Congress work more efficiently and cost-effectively, complete tasks faster, with less risk and fewer errors. Imagine how it could have sped up the ratification of the Constitution, a process spanning decades!

Top Tips for a Successful Contract Lifecycle Management Roll Out

DAVE PARKS CONTRACT LOGIX

 Chief legal officers (CLOs), general counsel(GCs) and their in-house legal teams have dramatically accelerated their digital transformation initiatives since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, according to a recent survey by World Commerce and Contracting, 81 percent of legal teams plan to implement, replace, or add to contract automation over the next twelve months. This has resulted in an explosion of contract lifecycle management (CLM) software adoption, but after the purchase decision has been made, how can organizations measure the success of CLM software implementation? What key performance indicators (KPIs) should they track? And how can they use CLM software to quickly deliver value to the business and demonstrate an ROI?

Planning Is Everything

Every successful CLM implementation requires the right level of planning and preparation. This means first working with your CLM vendor to answer some important questions around business challenges, ownership, business process, and what success looks like before jumping in.

First, organizations need to be clearly focused on what the use cases and priorities of different user groups are. Are they concentrating on buy-side or sell-side contracting, vendor management, addressing pre-award issues such as approval bottlenecks, or something else? Is the organization trying to increase sales velocity, compliance, or perhaps trying to minimize risk of missed obligations? Whatever the challenge, the most successful CLM implementations are those that take small steps. Clearly documenting the business problem(s) that need to be solved and organizational priorities around them is key to success. After the organization defines requirements, it can then map measurements, KPIs, and timelines back to them.

The second step in a successful CLM implementation is determining ownership and clarifying who is involved in the organization’s contracting processes. This requires getting extremely specific around everyone’s role in implementation and the actual software usage so don’t forget to involve your end users here. To accomplish this, it’s critical to establish a RACI model to identify all those who are responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed in the project. You will also need to ensure that all those stakeholders understand and are on the same page regarding what the solution is expected to do.

The third phase helps organizations address questions about how existing contract data is managed today as well as current business processes and workflows for CLM. For example, what contract data exists already and what needs to be incorporated into a new CLM system? Are contract dates and obligations tracked via spreadsheets? What format are they in? From a process standpoint, this phase also helps organizations better understand how contracts are currently requested, drafted, approved, and executed. What is the process today and does it need to change? All of this influences the configuration of templates, workflows, fields such as contract and organization types, and security features in the CLM system.

Dave Parks manages the company’s overall marketing strategy and initiatives including product marketing, demand gen, digital, content, and public relations. Dave has over two decades of strong product and content experience having served in senior marketing roles with Progress, Ciena, Lucent, and Cascade Communications and as an industry analyst with the Yankee Group. Dave is a passionate marketer who loves creating content that answers people’s questions and delivers his audience value. Reach him at dparks@contractlogix.com

The final step to a successful CLM implementation, after laying the important foundation of understanding the business challenge, ownership, and data and architecture, is to define what it will take to start realizing business value. This is where organizations should define what time to value looks like for the business, both from a basic value and exceeded value standpoint. This ties back to the business challenge or problems the organization is trying to solve with CLM software, and setting realistic timelines for achieving solving them.

Measuring Success

Once an organization understands time to value expectations and timeframes, it can start thinking about benchmarking and tracking KPIs to measure the success of the implementation. And while there are hundreds of individual KPIs a business can track, the four main areas of initial focus should include usage, automation, reporting and security, setting 30-, 60-, and 90-day goals for each.

Security KPIs should cover goals for setting up roles and feature permissions, organizational hierarchy, users, and other IT considerations such as multi-factor authentication or single sign-on. Reporting and analytics KPIs are all about how the organization presents contract

data and information back to stakeholders to deliver the business actionable insights not previously available. Automation KPIs help the business work through making business processes faster, more efficient and compliant, and with a better user experience. Look at current processes and determine which steps take the longest or fall through the cracks, as well as who needs to be alerted about important contract events and the approval process. Where possible, automate these processes early on. Usage KPIs are a key measurement of success and can measure usage in several ways including volume and activity across individuals, departments, vendors, requests, and contract types. The more the CLM software is being used, the greater the ROI.

Demonstrating Business Value

Purchasing legal technology is only the first step in modernizing contracting processes. The real challenge is successfully implementing it in a way that it delivers real value within an acceptable time frame. With CLM software, in-house legal and contracting teams are not only updating contracting efforts -- they have the ability to harness the data in contracts to deliver actionable business insights that continue to drive digital transformation.

Leading Law Departments: Contracts, Contracts, Contracts

JOE CALVE MCGUIREWOODS LLP

 In this piece from the Kira Systems blog, David Curle, Legal Content and Research Lead at Kira, discusses a series of reports arising from a research collaboration between EY and Harvard Law School's Center of the Legal Profession focused on the changing needs of large companies and the challenges faced by legal departments in meeting those demands. The research focuses on CEO priorities and works backwards to zero in on contracts and the contracting process as the source of both angst and opportunity for corporate law departments. "[T] he data shows a clear shift in the way organizations are viewing contracts -- a shift from a process orientation that emphasizes costs and efficiency, to a data-centric view of contracts, that treats contracts as a resource and asset that can be used to generate insights and value, and drive new business," Curle writes.

Drawing on a separate EY study, the "CEO Imperative Study," four key priorities emerge that are highly relevant to GCs and their organizations -- all of them with implications for contract management: transforming risk management; re-evaluating the law department cost structure; digitizing processes; and enabling business growth.

One of the implications from the research discussed in these studies is that "law firms need to go beyond chasing the next deal, become more strategically embedded in their clients’ contract digitization processes, and get comfortable with partnering across this new ecosystem where that work will be carried out."

Read more at "EY/Harvard Law CLP Study: Contracts at the Center of CEO Priorities."

Contract Management 3.0

MARK NASTASI COBBLESTONE SOFTWARE

 CCBJ: CobbleStone Software has been an innovator in contract lifecycle management software solutions for nearly thirty years. Please provide an overview of your organization and how it approaches the streamlining of legal operations functions?

Mark Nastasi: CobbleStone Software's proprietary CLM software – CobbleStone Contract Insight® -- is web-enabled (SaaS) or deployed (on-premise) and used by many leading corporations, state and local governments and other regulated organizations worldwide. Our platform hosts more than three million contract transactions and billions of dollars in contract value. We have been providing contract lifecycle management software as a service longer than any other CLM software provider. CobbleStone Software is a Federal GSA vendor that is SOC 1 and SOC 2 compliant, reviewed by industry-leading analyst firms, and retains a continually expanding partner network for increased software integrations and business expansion. Through our close relationships, we continuously identify new ways to streamline legal operations with robust tools such as contract workflows, eSignatures, artificial intelligence with machine learning and dynamic contract risk assessment mapping solutions.

How do CobbleStone's contract workflow features help corporate counsel and other in-house legal professionals?

Dealing with contracts in both the pre-award and postaward stages can be challenging, especially when dealing with many internal and external stakeholders of ranging authority. For instance, requesting a senior lawyer to review a clause that a junior lawyer could have reviewed may cause workflow inefficiencies. These types of legal ops bottlenecks can not only breed inefficiencies but also exponentially increase contract administration risks by inadvertently excluding stakeholders from necessary contract tasks.

CobbleStone's automated contract workflows with alerts and notifications can help solve these problems and increase contract lifecycle management efficiency.

CobbleStone Contract Insight allows organizations to configure contract workflows with notifications and alerts. Stakeholders, including corporate counsel and paralegals, can be assigned to specific tasks and receive notifications for completion. Once a task is completed, the assigned stakeholders can be notified within the preconfigured workflow to complete the subsequent task. Organizations can also assign clauses to necessary stakeholders, who can be notified whenever a specific clause is modified.

Post-award contract compliance and obligation notifications can be assigned to necessary stakeholders to encourage timely anticipation and follow through with counterparties and to encourage post-award contract compliance. Upon a contract's upcoming renewal date, internal and external stakeholders can be promptly notified. Additionally, organizations can receive onscreen alerts and recommendations in real-time via preconfigured notifications for increased contract visibility. Internal stakeholders can also leverage AI-based contract management software tools to help identify areas of opportunity to leverage upon a contract's renewal for further risk mitigation and increased return on investment.

We understand CobbleStone's industry-leading eSignature tool - IntelliSign® is being employed by thousands of legal professionals as their go-to electronic signature software solution. How does this tool expedite legal operations and support internal clients? Gathering the required signatures for a contract can prove difficult, especially when signees are in different locations. Considering signatures finalize contracts and propel their execution, this highly anticipated step in legal operations can be delayed with manual wet signatures that can waste

time and paper-based resources. Fortunately, IntelliSign can make signing contracts a breeze by empowering signees to sign virtually anywhere at any time - with the proper electronic device and adequate internet access. Additionally, our mobile app, a key CLM software differentiator, offers added convenience for our users to sign remotely and request signatures from third-party signees via email. We’ve found that this solution helps legal professionals cut their send-to-sign time by 20 percent.

Please talk with us about your artificial intelligence engine – VISDOM®, which we understand is designed to help corporate counsel and other legal professionals manage their contracts effectively. What makes VISDOM AI an essential tool for legal operations?

Remaining current with the latest document language can prove challenging – especially as laws and regulations change. Corporate counsel can encounter legal ops setbacks when manually sourcing the latest contract language – particularly clauses. CobbleStone’s VISDOM AI can empower corporate counsel by supporting automated contract assembly and revision. VISDOM AI with machine learning can be configured to recognize specific language – including clauses and phrases – and offer insightful language recommendations. Such recommendations arise from CobbleStone Contract Insight users' language libraries. Additionally, VISDOM can help extract metadata that can be leveraged to support legal routing, contract abstraction, amendment recommendations, approvals and more. Machine learning can feed CLM software

the necessary data to agilely evolve with changing environmental variables and algorithms. While artificial intelligence does not replace the counsel of a licensed legal resource, AI can reduce some of the tedium and offer intelligent possibilities from which you can choose. Rather than waste time unnecessarily, VISDOM can help streamline legal operations functions with and offer critical insights –yielding unparalleled corporate counsel confidence.

CobbleStone Contract Insight CLM Software helps general counsel, corporate counsel, paralegals and other legal professionals manage and mitigate risk with dynamic CLM software features. How do CobbleStone's risk management tools assist and improve legal operations?

Assessing contract management risk within a myriad of contracts can be challenging without visualization and prioritization. Whether corporate counsel are dealing with ten or ten million contracts, identifying and prioritizing risk factors can prove challenging when sifting through words and other data variables within pages of documents. Identifying risk can prove arduous without a centralized and graphical risk opportunity and assessment tool. CobbleStone Contract Insight offers risk assessment and OFAC search mapping tools to graphically visualize risk within documents for comprehensive risk contract management. Rather than corporate counsel needing to manually sift through contract records for risk variables, they can leverage a visualized graph that can plot contracts based on their identified risk score – yielding a holistically visualized risk analysis of active contracts that can help prioritize contract risk factor decision-making. Corporate counsel can also analyze how a contract would perform with hypothetical risk variables and exposure within a risk assessment matrix – further helping corporate counsel and other stakeholders prepare for prospective happenings. Legal professionals can leverage CobbleStone's visual contract risk assessment matrix and statistical data analysis to identify negative, neutral or positive facts about contracts within a centralized platform to help improve their overall contract strategy. Moreover, stakeholders can receive message alerts that notify them if a contract incurs a value of a pre-determined percentage greater than the average contract within their contract database. To promote accountability, CobbleStone users are afforded a usage percentage score that elucidates the percentage of risk assessment tools used – and how the usage of risk tools can be improved. CobbleStone Contract Insight also offers a robust Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) search graphical risk tool to help corporate counsel identify if their contracts, vendors, employees and other entities comply with OFAC’s national sanctions list. This graphical risk visualization allows corporate counsel to

identify a contract's OFAC compliance both in the preaward and post-award stage – increasing comprehensive risk mitigation. Software users can preconfigure rules to notify them in virtually real-time if a current contract meets or exceeds a specific OFAC Search percentage – allowing for swift risk mitigation before it becomes untenable.

How will CobbleStone’s unique CLM software tools pave the way for legal operations success. What does the future look like for for product development and innovation in this area?

We are commited to continuing to develop new features and provide future-minded contract management solutions. We recently released CobbleStone Contract Insight 17.10.0, which offers our clients powerful oversight of online document editing processes for third-party negotiations, advanced workflow automation with mergeable templates for notifications and alerts, next-level workflow status oversight at a glance with visually engaging calendars and automated creation of new records from contract request records – to name a few. We release multiple software updates throughout each year to support ongoing legal operations' digital transformation that can encourage continuous contract lifecycle management success.

Additionally, as contract redlining processes continue to transform digitally, we excitedly forge ahead in streamlining CobbleStone users' contract redlining and negotiation processes. CobbleStone Contract Insight centralizes the contract negotiation process with holistic

oversight. Rather than corporate counsel needing to communicate with disjointed platforms, source updated contract language manually, play email ping-pong with attached documents and leverage other divorced processes, CobbleStone can help streamline what usually takes the longest time of the contract lifecycle in a centralized system. Our future-minded CLM software allows for workflow configurations, including clause ownership assignments, task escalations and approval routing. To virtually ensure the right stakeholders remain abreast of language changes for review, they can receive notifications of language modifications of contract areas for which they are responsible. Such changes can trigger notifications to clause owners for review. Rather than work with disparate contract versions, stakeholders can work concurrently within a centralized, web-enabled location, including seamless connectors for document collaboration in MS Office 365 and Google Workspace. Stakeholders can receive configured email notifications of comments and applied changes to review within the centralized contract redlining location.

As legal operations experience increasing digital transformation, corporate counsel can rely on CobbleStone Software to support their journey ahead with a CLM software provider backed by nearly three decades of experience and driven by innovative vision. 

Mark Nastasi is the Executive VP and founder of CobbleStone Software with more than 20 years of professional experience in the industry. He launched the first commercial contract software in 1995 named CMTS (Contract Management Tracking System). He has worked extensively with general counsel, paralegals, lawyers and legal professionals to help manage contracts better. You can reach him at mnastasi@cobblestonesoftware.com

We are commited to continuing to develop new features and provide futureminded contract management solutions.

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